FL Legislators to Try & Live on $17 a Day
Posted Sept. 28, 2015 07:59 am | Public News Service
MIAMI, FL - Starting today, 18 Florida state legislators will have to pay for food, transportation and anything else they need with just $17 a day.
Senate Bill 6: Increases the minimum wage to $15 in FL.
Click here to read bill
){kind=link}
It's a part of a five-day Minimum Wage Challenge designed to bring attention to the plight of low-wage workers, and to bills in Tallahassee to raise the state minimum wage.
Patricia Walker, a home health care worker, says she works long hours, takes the bus to see clients and barely scrapes by.
"It's hard, because I have to make a choice sometimes between pay all of one bill and be able to feed myself," she relates. "It's real hard I have to make a choice between everything I do."
A full-time minimum wage worker gets about $1,200 a
month, and when you deduct basic living expenses it
leaves around $17 a day.
The minimum wage legislation would raise it from $8.05
to $15 an hour.
Opponents say that would cost jobs, but proponents say
studies of past wage hikes show that concern to be
unfounded.
News conferences regarding the Minimum Wage Challenge
are scheduled today in St. Petersburg, Orlando and
Miami.
Florida established a minimum wage in 2004. It has risen
in response to inflation, but State Sen. Dwight Bullard
says that formula has been inadequate, leaving many
workers in poverty.
"The minimum wage in Florida is far too low," he
stresses. "You have some estimations that say that if
minimum wage kept up with cost of living it would be
around $22."
Bullard is a sponsor of Senate Bill 6, which would raise
the minimum to $15.
Elsewhere, the Fight for 15 campaign has scored some
victories - Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle have
adopted it, as has New York state for food service
workers. Bills to raise the Florida minimum to $10.10 an
hour failed in 2014 and 2015.
Photos/graphics and links added by the Observer
This piece was reprinted by the Columbia County Observer with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.