Florida Minimum Wage Start Date Announced

The Agency for Workforce Innovation today announced that the beginning date for Florida’s newly-enacted minimum wage will be May 2, 2005.

Florida’s minimum wage was created in a constitutional amendment approved by voters on November 2, 2004, and covers all employees in the state covered by the federal minimum wage.

The state minimum wage will start at $6.15 per hour for all hours worked in Florida and thereafter be indexed to inflation each year. For tipped employees meeting eligibility requirements for the tip credit under the Fair Labor Standards Act, employers may count tips actually received as wages towards satisfaction of the minimum wage, but the employer may not pay less than $2.13 per hour in direct wages.

Pursuant to the language of the constitutional amendment, the Agency for Workforce Innovation (AWI) is to perform an annual calculation to establish a new minimum wage each year and to publish that information. AWI will perform this calculation on September 30th, with the new minimum wage becoming effective the following January 1st.

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