JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Florida’s minimum wage rises to $15 an hour Wednesday. In Jacksonville, that’s still about $8 an hour short of what a single adult needs to cover the basics, according to MIT’s Living Wage Calculator.
The $1 increase is the last step in a series of annual raises Florida voters approved in 2020. Tipped workers’ base pay rises to $11.98 an hour. Starting in 2027, the minimum wage will be adjusted each year for inflation.
Doing the math
A full-time worker earning $15 an hour makes about $31,200 a year, or about $2,600 a month before taxes. The raise adds about $40 a week before taxes.
MIT estimates a single adult with no children in the Jacksonville area needs $23.09 an hour, or $48,037 a year before taxes, to get by.
Housing is the biggest expense. MIT budgets about $1,354 a month for it. Transportation adds about $738, food about $377, and medical costs about $261. Those basics alone come to about $2,730 a month. That’s more than a full-time minimum-wage worker earns before taxes, and it doesn’t include a phone bill or internet.
“Prices aren’t going down any right now, and everything seems to be going up,” Jacksonville resident Embree Walker said.
Where you live matters
Rent varies widely across the city. Near Brooklyn, the average one-bedroom runs more than $1,650 a month. In Jacksonville Heights, one-bedrooms go for about $700 to $900.
“I’m just being honest, people can’t afford housing, and I don’t see it getting no better no time soon,” Jacksonville resident Eugene Sykes said.
The cost to businesses
Rebekah Paxton, with the Employment Policies Institute, said wage mandates like Florida’s can backfire. She said restaurants are already dealing with rising food costs, taxes, and rent.
“So what we typically see is that restaurants have to either reduce the number of staff they have, reduce the number hours that they give those staff on their schedules, potentially raise prices at the same time, you know, move to more automation,” Paxton said.
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