Florida's minimum wage rose to $15 an hour Wednesday, completing a series of increases Florida voters approved in 2020, when the state minimum was $8.56 an hour.
Amendment 2 passed with about 61% of the vote, just clearing the 60% needed to amend the Florida Constitution. It raised the minimum wage to $10 in September 2021 and by $1 every Sept. 30 since.
Six years later, its effects remain disputed. The state's restaurant trade group says the increases have hurt restaurants, while a Gainesville bakery owner says he would have raised wages anyway.
What changed Sept. 30
Tipped workers will earn at least $11.98 an hour, up from $10.98, according to Florida Commerce, the state's labor and economic development agency. Employers may claim up to a $3.02 hourly tip credit toward the $15 minimum, an amount the constitution fixes at the 2003 federal level. If a worker’s wages and tips fall short, the employer must make up the difference.
Sept. 30 marks the final fixed increase. The state will calculate an inflation adjustment using a federal consumer price index, and the new rate will take effect Jan. 1, 2028, leaving 15 months without an increase.
Florida restaurants and bars employed about 871,000 people in May 2026, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, up from about 835,000 in May 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic. May employment reached about 882,000 in 2024 and has slipped about 1% since. The figures don't show how much of either change is due to wages.
"Anything helps"
Dava Glover, a server at the Waffle House on East University Avenue, moved to Gainesville this summer to help care for her grandfather. She said she waited tables at an Olive Garden in Pinellas County before moving, but found few jobs in Gainesville that fit her schedule. When no one returned her calls expressing interest in work, she walked into the Waffle House, secured an interview on the spot and started that same week in July.
She earns the tipped minimum wage, and most of her money comes from to-go orders because an automatic fee is added to them. At tables, she said the average tip is about $5 per table, though some regulars tip well. She hadn't heard the wage was going up as of Sept. 29.
Her pay covers her bills, she said, but it could be a little better. She said in a job like hers, she makes enough money where she can't qualify for government assistance, so balancing groceries and bills "can get tough."
"So, anything helps," she added.
"Not the end of the inquiry"
Samantha Padgett is the vice president of government relations and general counsel for the Florida Restaurant & Lodging Association, which represents the state's restaurant and hotel industries. She said the association opposed Amendment 2 because higher labor costs, combined with other expenses, would make it harder for restaurants to operate and hire.
"It has been a negative for restaurants," Padgett said.
The association doesn't have data on restaurant closures, employment or hours, she said, but members have responded to the increases by raising menu prices, adding kiosks, simplifying menus and cutting servers and hours of operation.
Some no longer open Mondays, others only serve breakfast and lunch and some that once offered full table service now take orders at the counter. Several have moved servers to commission-based pay, usually funded through a service fee, which she said gives workers a more predictable base income.
Labor isn't the only pressure, Padgett added. Food, gas, rent and credit card processing costs have all climbed too.
For restaurants with tipped servers, the problem is the frozen tip credit, she said. As the tipped wage rises and the $3.02 credit stays fixed, tips cover a shrinking share of the minimum, so labor costs rise faster for those employers.
She said tipped servers typically earn well above the minimum anyway, about $17 to $26 an hour and as much as $30 to $35 at some fine-dining restaurants.
She also pointed to wage compression: when the floor rises, employers have to raise pay for more experienced workers to keep them ahead of new hires.
A higher wage does help the workers who earn it, Padgett said, but employers have to ask whether they can afford it across the whole staff.
"You can't just say, great, people make more money," Padgett said. "That's not the end of the inquiry."
If a restaurant cuts its hours to make up for higher pay, she said, the result can be "less work, less hours and less pay overall."
"Lucky to be busy"
Ben Guzick owns Uppercrust, a Gainesville bakery with two locations. It employs anywhere from 50 to 60 employees depending on the season, he said, roughly half in the kitchen and half serving customers. He estimated about half the service staff are students.
Guzick said he was excited when Amendment 2 went on the ballot and considers the increase overdue. Uppercrust paid above the minimum when the raises began and has stayed above it, he said, so Sept. 30 won't change anything for his workers, although he didn’t specify the exact pay.
The bakery raised pay alongside the minimum since 2021, he said, and would have done so without the law, because the company has a responsibility to start workers at wages that let them have "decent lives." Raises for current employees come through performance reviews already scheduled for October, independent of the state wage, he added.
Uppercrust raised its prices two or three times in about five years, Guzick said. By his rough count, drinks and bread cost 75 cents to $1 more than they did in 2021, and croissants 50 to 75 cents more. He credited the number of customers the bakery serves for keeping increases that small.
"We're lucky to be busy, basically," Guzick said.
He said he hasn't cut hours or staff because of wages. The bakery sets schedules and baking quantities based on how busy comparable days and hours have been in recent weeks, he said, which sometimes means a server starts an hour later on a slow morning.
"A step in the right direction"
Valeria Romero, a 19-year-old UF data science sophomore, works two on-campus jobs: as a teaching assistant for an introductory statistics course and a content tutor for athletes at the Hawkins Center, the UF Athletic Association's academic support center. She works about 15 hours a week and earns $15 an hour, so Sept. 30 won't change her pay.
Romero hadn't heard about the increase but supports it. Her parents help pay for college, she said, and she took the jobs to ease that burden and learn to manage her own money. Her paychecks go toward expenses besides rent and food, like chapter dues and dry cleaning a suit.
Lawmakers should keep rising costs in mind, she said. Students who can't afford more than $1,000 a month for an apartment near campus may have to live farther away and drive, she said. Parking near UF is scarce and bus routes have been cut. Even gas to drive home costs more than it did a year or two ago, she said.
"So I think it's only natural that the minimum wage starts to go up as well to match that," Romero said.
Even if the increase isn't large, she said, it's "still a step in the right direction."
Contact Jessie Yang at jyang@alligator.org. Follow her on X @jessie_yang_22.
Jessie Yang is a sophomore studying statistics. She's interested in business, technology, and finance, and is a member of the Caimanes Student-Managed Hedge Fund, where she researches companies and develops investment theses. She's currently exploring a career in investment banking. Outside of The Alligator, she enjoys playing tennis, golfing, and pretending not to struggle on hikes in pretty places.
