Florida Ballot amendment would raise minimum wage by $1 - Republicans Against it

Five Dollars and Fifteen Cents an Hour:

• More than half of all workers earning Minimum wage are Black or Hispanic.
  

Federal officials haven't raised the federal minimum wage of $5.15 an hour since 1997. Some states have adopted higher minimum wages to help workers at the bottom of the labor force, and voters will decide the issue in Florida during the Nov. 2 election.  A ballot proposal, called Amendment 5, would raise the minimum wage statewide to $6.15 an hour, with annual increases after that to keep pace with inflation.  Since 1997, the number of states with minimum wages higher than the federal level has risen from five to 13, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal economic think tank. This month, however, Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California vetoed a bill that would have raised California's minimum wage from $6.75 an hour to $7.25 in 2005 and to $7.75 in 2006. Schwarzenegger said the legislation would discourage economic growth. In Florida, raising the minimum wage to $6.15 an hour would directly affect 304,000 workers, or 4.8 percent of the state's work force, according to the Economic Policy Institute. If the percentages hold true locally, that would be more than 10,800 minimum-wage workers in Brevard County. The proposal also could affect another 464,000 workers in Florida who now earn between $6.15 and $7.15 an hour, the institute found.  [more ]