Starting Jan. 1, minimum wage workers receive $7.93 per hour, a 14-cent increase from last year, according to the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity.
Although the change is in line with a Florida law passed in 2004 that requires minimum wage to adjust yearly to the cost of living, some people don’t think this year’s change will make that big of a difference.
Employee rights’ activist and UF alumnus Jeremiah Tattersall, 27, said it’s hard to call the new minimum wage an increase at all.
Fourteen more cents an hour would equal about $290 more a year for the average minimum-wage worker, said Tattersall, who works to implement programs and lobby politicians in support of pro-labor legislation for the North Central Florida Central Labor Council.
Tattersall said the increase will help minimum-wage workers in the short run, but their purchasing power is essentially the same.
“So it’s really not an extra $290 a year,” Tattersall said. “Food costs more. Electricity costs more.”
If the minimum wage had increased along inflationary lines, he said, it would be about $20 by now.
Charlesynquette Duncan, a 19-year-old UF psychology senior, earns minimum wage working at UF’s Southwest Recreation Center.
Duncan said the increase will not make a big difference, but she appreciates the extra cash.
“It’s about $4 more per paycheck,” Duncan said. “More money’s always better.”
UF sophomore Lauren Beadle, 19, shares the same view as Duncan.
The biology and history major works at a zip line company called Treetop Trek in Melbourne over school breaks and occasional weekends.
She uses most of the money she earns to pay for her car, she said, and her parents help support her school and living expenses.
However, some of Beadle’s co-workers rely on their paychecks as their main source of income, and many of them use government-funded financial aid to pay the bills.
Even though the wage changes with living costs, Tattersall said he believes the increase still isn’t enough for workers to support themselves without depending on government aid.
“It’s better than nothing, but it doesn’t advance the working people,” he said.
A version of this story ran on page 3 on 1/8/2014 under the headline "Workers not wowed by wage hike"
