Florida\u2019s approval in this election of increasing state minimum wage to $15 an hour will help hundreds of thousands of workers \u2014 in four years. Maybe.<\/span><\/p>\n According to MIT,<\/span><\/a> a \u201clivable wage\u201d for Floridians, as of 2020, is about $12.39 an hour. Current minimum wage in the state is far less at $8.56, and not until almost a year after the vote will the initial jump to $10 even begin \u2014 not until 2024 at a one dollar increase per year will the 2020 livable wage even be reached. Florida is joining many other states in their plan towards $15 an hour, which at the initial $10 will still help many people, but also highlights the reality of the high cost of living that minimum wage workers have faced for years before this election and will likely continue to face.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe living wage is the minimum income standard that, if met, draws a very fine line between the financial independence of the working poor and the need to seek out public assistance or suffer consistent and severe housing and food insecurity,\u201d according to <\/span>MIT\u2019s Living Wage calculator<\/span><\/a>. \u201cIn light of this fact, the living wage is perhaps better defined as a minimum subsistence wage for persons living in the United States.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Their calculator uses <\/span>Fair Market Rents<\/span><\/a> (FMRs) \u2014 which \u201crepresents the cost to rent a moderately-priced dwelling unit in the local housing market\u201d \u2014 and local utility prices to determine housing costs. For a studio apartment in Florida in 2020, it\u2019s $9,981 per year, or about $832 per month. The average single adult with no kids earning Florida\u2019s $8.56 an hour minimum wage will spend 56.1% of their roughly $17,800 salary \u2014 before taxes \u2014 on this housing cost. With the living wage of $12.39, they would only be spending 38.7%.<\/span><\/p>\n According to The National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC), a non-profit that aims to end the affordable housing crisis through policy and data research, anything upwards of \u201cthe generally accepted standard of spending no more than 30% of gross income on rent and utilities,\u201d is considered unaffordable housing though. This brings needed wages, according to NLIHC, even higher than MIT\u2019s livable wage that already lies on the razor\u2019s edge of financial independence and public assistance.<\/span><\/p>\n Other major costs in MIT\u2019s calculation are food and transportation which take up another $7,332 per year, $3,010 and $4,322 respectively. Housing, food and transport together take up 97.2% of their salary \u2014 which leaves no room for the $2,812 cost for <\/span>\u201cclothing, personal care items, and housekeeping supplies,\u201d<\/span><\/a> $2,485 for medical care, and $3,154 in annual taxes.<\/span><\/p>\n MIT specifies that the calculation \u201caccounts only for the basic needs of a family. It does not account for what many consider the basic necessities enjoyed by many Americans,\u201d such as eating-out and other forms of entertainment, but it also \u201c…does not provide a financial means for planning for the future through savings and investment or for the purchase of capital assets.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n And this is for single adults without children. A single adult with one child brings the livable wage from $12.39 an hour to $25.47.<\/span><\/p>\n NLIHC\u2019s 2020 \u201cOut of Reach\u201d report<\/span><\/a> uses \u201chousing wage\u201d as the wage a full-time worker must make to afford FMRs without spending over 30% on rent. For Florida, this is $24.43 an hour for a two-bedroom apartment \u2014 2.9x what a minimum wage worker currently makes. This is a much more valuable wage than MIT\u2019s comparable $24.18 an hour \u201clivable wage\u201d for a two-bedroom apartment \u2014 spending only 31.9% on housing \u2014 as MIT\u2019s wage supports two adults (one working) and one child, which is, again, only enough to be on the brink of financial ruin.<\/span><\/p>\n Based on NLIHC’s metric, no housing in Florida is actually \u201caffordable\u201d to a minimum wage worker, and MIT\u2019s base \u201clivable wage\u201d is just shy of reaching the ability to \u201cafford\u201d housing for Florida. At the rate of Florida\u2019s minimum wage increase, it will still be years until 2020\u2019s livable wage is achieved.<\/span><\/p>\n The first jump in minimum wage, to $10 an hour, will occur on September 30, 2021 and will see an increase in monthly pay from $1,484 to $1,733, or an extra $249 per month before taxes. The next jump will be a year later seeing roughly another additional $173 per month. Each year onwards will see the same increase in monthly pay. It won\u2019t be until 2024 that 2020\u2019s livable wage according to MIT will actually be reached, at a salary of $27,040 and approximately $2,253 per month.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Comparing to other states, both <\/span>California<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>Oregon<\/span><\/a> will reach their base \u201clivable wage\u201d by 2022 due to their previously implemented increases in <\/span>minimum wage<\/span><\/a>; Illinois will reach \u201clivable wage\u201d by 2023 with a similar implementation of gradually increasing to $15 per hour; Arizona is only one cent per hour away from their livable wage as of this year; Washington state surpassed<\/span> it\u2019s livable wage this year; this isn\u2019t even considering other states with minimum wages that are already much closer to their livable wages than Florida.<\/span><\/p>\n Reaching these \u201clivable wages\u201d is not a crown achievement though, it\u2019s still \u201cbetter defined as a minimum subsistence wage\u2026\u201d according to MIT; it fails to afford these workers the surplus income needed to save money, and these wages still all consist of high percentages paid to housing, none making housing \u201caffordable\u201d to NLIHC\u2019s definition of costing only 30% of salary.<\/span><\/p>\n Florida\u2019s vote to initiate a $15 minimum wage will be life-changing for many workers, but will take so long that it can\u2019t be clear that the \u201clivable wage\u201d won\u2019t go up. MIT states that they don\u2019t keep historical data for this reason: \u201cIt is challenging to predict future living wages as key variables (e.g. cost of living and expenses) change year to year, sometimes unexpectedly.\u201d MIT updates the \u201cliving wage\u201d the first quarter of each year.<\/span><\/p>\n Some of this change can be seen with FMRs, which don\u2019t include utilities and other costs though, so are not directly comparable to MIT\u2019s housing costs calculated for a \u201clivable wage.\u201d According to <\/span>Housing and Urban Development FMRs<\/span><\/a> for Florida, a studio apartment was $605 per month on average <\/span>in 2014<\/span><\/a>, and <\/span>2021\u2019s<\/span><\/a> is already predicted to be higher at $771 than<\/span> 2020\u2019s<\/span><\/a> $743 \u2014 increasing since 2014 at an average of an additional $294 per year for total yearly rent.<\/span><\/p>\n The last time there was an amendment on the ballot to increase Florida\u2019s minimum wage was 2004, which passed, raising it from $5.15 \u2014 federal minimum wage at the time \u2014 to $6.15 <\/span>according to Ballotpedia<\/span><\/a>. From then on it was indexed to inflation each year. This leads to the final increase in minimum wage in Florida before this year\u2019s ballot measure being $8.46 to $8.56 on January 1, 2020 \u2014 $3.83 per hour lower than MIT\u2019s calculated \u201clivable wage\u201d for the state.<\/span><\/p>\n The existence of both state minimum wages and a federal minimum wage \u2014 which in 2020 is $7.25 per hour, raised from $6.55 in 2009 \u2014 along with an actual defined poverty level \u2014 set at $12,760 for someone under 65, just $2,320 a year below the federal minimum wage\u2019s salary of $15,080 before taxes \u2014 would imply that these wages are what everyday workers actually need to survive. But really, what low-income workers need differs across the vast areas these minimum wages encompass.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The FMR for a studio apartment in Miami-Dade county in 2020 is $1,084 per month, in Okeechobee county it\u2019s $673 per month \u2014 either way, Florida\u2019s state minimum wage is still $8.56 per hour. In Miami, working 40 hours per week, this amounts to paying about 73% of income to rent alone. In Okeechobee, it would be 45%.<\/span><\/p>\n Looking broader, the <\/span>2020 average FMR for a studio apartment in Alabama<\/span><\/a> was $534 per month, California\u2019s was $997 per month. With federal minimum wage being $7.25, someone working full time at that wage in Alabama \u2014 which does not actually have a state mandated minimum wage \u2014 would be spending 43% of their wage on rent, not considering taxes or utilities. In California, on federal minimum wage, they\u2019d be spending 79%.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Rural areas have lower rents than metropolitan areas, but state minimum wages don\u2019t always differ by county. More populous states with more major cities have a higher average rent than smaller or less populated ones, but federal minimum wage does not differ between each. State minimum wages have helped with the disconnect of the federal minimum wage to the country\u2019s workers, but they still aren\u2019t perfect.<\/span><\/p>\n These minimum wages are incredibly rough estimates of pay a worker needs, often outdated from rent prices rising, inflation, and general cost of living rising. The purpose of a minimum wage was to maintain <\/span>\u201cthe minimum standard of living necessary for health, efficiency, and general well-being of workers\u2026\u201d<\/span><\/a>, initially created by President Roosevelt in 1938 as the Great Depression was in full swing. But in 2016 dollars, the federal minimum wage\u2019s buying power has<\/span> decreased by a third since 1968<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n With Roosevelt\u2019s purpose for a minimum wage in mind, Florida is sorely lacking. For the next six years, Florida will be playing catch-up with the other states, wages slowly approaching what\u2019s necessary for people to survive, even as the costs of living and inflation rises ever higher. The $15 per hour minimum wage increase will undoubtedly help many people, but it might be too late too late to reach an actual \u201clivable wage.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Raised in last election, Florida\u2019s minimum wage workers won\u2019t actually see $15 per hour until 2026, and by then it might not be enough. By Andrew Fraieli Florida\u2019s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7236,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[552,550,549],"tags":[662,660,661,656,655,121,558,663,659,654,658,657,566],"class_list":["post-7234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editorial","category-local","category-news","tag-662","tag-affordable","tag-cost-of-living","tag-fair-market-rent","tag-federal","tag-florida","tag-housing","tag-housing-wage","tag-livable-wage","tag-minimum-wage","tag-mit","tag-salary","tag-state"],"yoast_head":"\n\n
At the rate of Florida\u2019s minimum wage increase, it will still be years until 2020\u2019s livable wage is achieved.<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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This leads to the final increase in minimum wage in Florida before this year\u2019s ballot measure being $8.46 to $8.56 on January 1, 2020 \u2014 $3.83 per hour lower than MIT\u2019s calculated \u201clivable wage\u201d for the state.<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/blockquote>\n