By Marcia Heroux Pounds
Sun Sentinel (FL), August 5, 2015
JM Family Enterprises is raising its minimum wage to $16 an hour, nearly double Florida's $8.05 minimum — a pay hike for 400 workers. But the auto giant's shift is even more far-reaching: It also bumps up wages of about 600 hourly employees who already were making $16 an hour or more ...
"The industry is doing well; we are doing well; and we decided this was the right time," said Colin Brown, chief executive of JM Family, a collection of auto-related businesses based in Deerfield Beach that includes distributor Southeast Toyota and JM Lexus dealerships. ... The raise affects a quarter, or 1,000, of its 4,100 employees, including nearly 200 in South Florida. JM Family already was paying more than Florida's minimum, a range of $9 to $11 an hour, to entry-level workers. ...
Over the past year, the Obama administration and Democratic lawmakers have urged an increase in the federal minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2020, well above the current $7.25 a hour. ...
A wage of $11.55 an hour for a single adult is required to cover the basic costs of food, housing, transportation, medical care and taxes in Broward County, and $11.47 in Palm Beach County, according to MIT's Living Wage Calculator. ...
Business for a Fair Minimum Wage, a national network of business organizations, owners and executives, has been recruiting businesses to support a federal minimum wage of at least $12 by 2020. Hundreds of businesses across the nation have signed, including retail chain ABC Carpet & Home, which has stores in South Florida; Zophin-Williams Agency in Pompano Beach; and 3 Pillar Solutions in Jupiter. ...
Copyright 2015 Sun Sentinel