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Creative Loafing Tampa Bay: 2020 recommendations for Florida Amendments: ‘Yes’ on 2, ‘No’ on everything else

By McKenna Schuler
Creative Loafing Tampa Bay, Oct 21, 2020

... Amendment 2: Vote Yes

Amendment 2, also known as the Fair Wage Amendment, would gradually raise Florida’s minimum wage from its current $8.56 to $15.00 by 2026, beginning with an increase to $10.00 next September. ... Supporters—like, actual low wage workers, along with Orlando attorney John Morgan’s PAC, Florida for a Fair Wage—say the amendment would uplift thousands of Floridians and their families out of poverty. Over 120 Florida business leaders from a variety of industries have expressed their support for a $15 minimum living...

Southwest Florida Business Today: Business Owners Back Amendment 2 to Raise Minimum Wage

Southwest Florida Business Today, Oct 19, 2020

As early voting begins across Florida today, business owners and executives in the growing Florida Business for a Fair Minimum Wage coalition are supporting Amendment 2, which would gradually raise the minimum wage to $15 by 2026.

These business leaders say that raising the minimum wage will boost consumer spending, strengthen Florida’s workforce, and help businesses and the economy. They have signed the Florida Business for a Fair Minimum Wage Statement, saying, “Grocery workers, healthcare aides, cleaning staff, childcare workers and other Floridians are working at the $8.56 minimum...

WFTV9 ABC: Amendment to increase minimum wage to $15 on this year’s ballot

By Megan Cruz and Adam Poulisse
WFTV9 ABC (Orlando),  Oct 7, 2020

WATCH VIDEO with Jared Meyers, Owner, Legacy Vacation Resorts

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — This year, there’s a constitutional amendment on the ballot to increase Florida’s minimum wage to $15. The increase would be a gradual move to $15 from $8.56 right now, to $10 next September and then $1 every other year until we got to $15 on Sept. 30, 2026.

If at least 60% of voters are for it, the ballot will pass.

John Morgan who founded the country’s largest personal injury firm, Morgan &...

FOX 13 News: Florida Amendment 2 explained: Minimum wage hike

By Jennifer Holton
FOX 13 News (Tampa), Oct 7, 2020

... Danielle Ferrari, who owns Valhalla Resale in Tampa, supports the amendment.

“Right now our minimum wage in Florida is set at a poverty rate, and the right thing to do is to pay people a fair wage for the work that they do.”

Ferrari disagrees with Horne’s notion that the increase would drive prices up.

“When our communities are raised up from poverty, sales for local businesses will have to go up.” ...

WATCH VIDEO

Read more

Tampa Bay Times: The Florida constitutional amendments on the 2020 ballot, explained

By Kirby Wilson
Tampa Bay Times, Sep. 23, 2020

Florida voters have the power to dramatically change the laws of the state on Nov. 3. Half a dozen constitutional amendments could permanently shape Florida policy ...

Amendment 2: Raising Florida’s Minimum Wage

... This ballot initiative would gradually raise the minimum wage in Florida to $15 per hour by 2026. Florida’s current minimum wage is $8.56 per hour, greater than the $7.25 federal minimum wage.

The amendment would help level the playing field for workers, says Florida for a Fair Wage, the initiative’s sponsor organization...

Nation's Restaurant News: Compensation: Pandemic forces restaurant industry to rethink wages, tip credit

By Nancy Luna
Nation's Restaurant News, Sep 16, 2020

As restaurants slowly return to dine-in service where they can, thousands of jobs have been restored. But how restaurants view and pay their workforce is evolving. ... Industry watchers say the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement have amplified the ongoing debate about paying restaurant workers a living wage and the inequities between the front and back of house, especially in “tip credit” states. ...

Since the beginning of the pandemic-related restaurant shutdown, most foodservice jobs were considered essential ... The work is risky, stressful...

Investopedia: Can a Family Survive on the U.S. Minimum Wage?

Minimum wage is meant to be a living wage, but falls short by a lot

By Andrew Bloomenthal
Investopedia, Aug 18, 2020

The federal minimum wage in the United States is $7.25. It is meant to be a living wage, but this isn't the case in practice. The hourly rate hasn’t kept up with the cost of living since the late 1960s. ...

In 1933, five years before the first minimum wage became law, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt said: “By living wages, I mean more than a bare subsistence level. I mean the wages of a decent living."...

Washington Business Journal: 'A Band-Aid on a gunshot wound:' Small businesses desperately look to Congress for more relief

By Andy Medici
Washington Business Journal, Aug 11, 2020

... Boloco co-founder John Pepper’s journey began as part of a business school project, eventually growing to 22 locations that he sold to a private equity firm before buying it back years later to save what remained of the ailing chain. Set up as a B Corporation that balances profits with social value, Pepper put most of the profits into paying employees and promoting from within.

... 2020 had been looking up, with sales increasing 8% in an increasingly competitive landscape. Then Covid-19 swept across the country...

Associated Press (AP): With loan money gone, restaurants are at mercy of virus

By Joyce M. Rosenberg
Associated Press (AP), August 2, 2020

... Government coronavirus loans in the spring helped eating establishments rehire laid-off employees and ride out the pandemic’s initial surge and wave of shutdown orders.

But that Paycheck Protection Program money has now been spent at many restaurants, leaving them in the same precarious position they were in during outbreak’s early days: Thousands of restaurants are being forced to close down again on mandates from state and local officials combating the virus’s resurgence, particularly in the South and West. And even in parts of the country...