{"id":15496,"date":"2020-11-13T20:03:12","date_gmt":"2020-11-13T20:03:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/?p=15496"},"modified":"2020-11-17T16:04:00","modified_gmt":"2020-11-17T16:04:00","slug":"fl_minimum_wage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/fl_minimum_wage\/","title":{"rendered":"NCL applauds Florida\u2019s popular vote to raise state minimum wage"},"content":{"rendered":"

For immediate release: November 13, 2020<\/p>\n

Media contact: National Consumers League \u2013 Carol McKay, carolm@nclnet.org<\/a>, (412) 945-3242<\/a>\u00a0or Taun Sterling, tauns@nclnet.org<\/a>, (202)\u00a0207-2832<\/a><\/p>\n

Washington, DC \u2013The National Consumers League (NCL) applauds Florida voters who, on November 3, overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure\u2014Amendment 2\u2014to raise the state\u2019s minimum wage to $15 an hour. The amendment was adopted with more than 61 percent of voters weighing voting for the measure.\u00a0 This is an amendment to the state constitution that scales up the minimum wage to $15 by 2026, up from its paltry current $8.56 an hour.<\/p>\n

The following statement is attributable to Sally Greenberg, NCL executive director:<\/p>\n

With this vote, Florida joins seven other states in the process of raising their minimum wages to $15 an hour. And Florida is the first state to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour via ballot measure and amendment to the constitution. We are very pleased that Florida voters so decisively supported this measure despite Republican leadership in Florida opposing the measure and refusing to bring it to the state legislature. \u00a0Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has been a vocal opponent, claiming it is \u2018going to cause big, big upheavals for the restaurant industry.\u2019 Yet the people of Florida disagree. They want increases in the minimum wage.<\/p>\n

NCL notes that while working people in Florida will be the beneficiaries, workers in other states deserve the same increases. That is why NCL strongly supports federal legislation\u2014passed by the House last year\u2014to raise the minimum wage to $15 in every state from the paltry $7.25 an hour last raised by Congress in 2009.<\/p>\n

This is a particularly gratifying vote given, that Donald Trump\u2019s allies in Florida opposed the measure, while Trump won the election in the state of Florida by 51 percent to Joe Biden\u2019s 47.9 percent. But that is not unusual. Minimum wage increases are typically popular among the electorate. Since 2000, states have held 21 referendums on the minimum wage, and all have passed, according to a\u00a0tally kept by Ballotpedia<\/a>. Public opinion surveys have shown broad support; a 2019 Pew survey found that two-thirds of Americans supported raising the\u00a0federal minimum wage to $15 an hour<\/a>.<\/p>\n

States where legislatures have declined or been unwilling to pass minimum wage have seen victories on the ballot, including Arizona, Missouri, Montana, Colorado, and Ohio, while state legislatures in California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and DC\u2019s City Council have all adopted increased minimum wage legislation.<\/p>\n

Below are links to NCL\u2019s statement on minimum wage<\/a> and NCL\u2019s \u201cWe Can Do This!\u201d podcast episode with Fight for $15 Director Diana Ramirez<\/a>.<\/p>\n

###<\/p>\n

About the National Consumers League (NCL)<\/strong><\/p>\n

The National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is America\u2019s pioneer consumer organization. Our mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad. For more information, visit www.nclnet.org.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On November 3, Florida voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure to raise the state\u2019s minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false},"categories":[278,275,315],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15496"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15496"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15496\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15499,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15496\/revisions\/15499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}