Minimum-wage earners in Florida will take home bigger paychecks as of Tuesday.

The state’s minimum wage increased by $1 per hour, as it has each year for the last five years, to $14. Tipped employees also received a base hourly pay bump to $10.98, plus tips.

Back in 2020, Floridians voted to gradually increase the state’s wage floor, then $8.56 an hour, to $15 by the end of September 2026.

By comparison, the federal minimum wage — $7.25 an hour — hasn’t increased since 2009. At $14 an hour, Florida now ties Hawaii for having the 17th-highest minimum wage in the U.S.

But whether that bump will make much of a difference to those earning it remains to be seen.

Entry-level workers in some of Florida’s highest-employment occupations — retail employees, customer-service agents, fast-food workers and cashiers — tend to earn minimum wage, said Ned Murray, associate director of Florida International University’s Metropolitan Center. They’re the ones who will benefit most from this pay increase.

But, while they might appreciate the extra dollar, making ends meet will likely still be a challenge, said Melissa Nelson, CEO of United Way of Florida.

What’s more, she added, that extra dollar could actually cost them hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars in government benefits. A small bump in pay can disqualify a family from crucial benefits, like food, childcare or housing assistance, a phenomenon known as the benefits cliff.

What hourly wage do Floridians need to survive?

Despite the gradual minimum hourly wage increases over the last half-decade, Florida is one of the least affordable states in the country, a recent United Way report found. In only three other states — Louisiana, Mississippi and New York — are a greater percentage of residents struggling to make ends meet.

Per United Way of Florida’s analysis, the hourly income one needs to stably survive in the Sunshine State is nearly $17.

But in places like greater Miami, where the cost of living is higher than the statewide average, one needs to earn more than that to get by.

MIT pegs the Miami metropolitan area’s “living wage” — what a self-sufficient worker needs to earn to cover basic living expenses — for a single adult with no children at nearly $25 per hour.

Add a child to the mix, and that single parent needs to earn more than $41 an hour just to stay above water.

Florida housing costs play a big role

Part of the challenge is that local housing prices have surged since 2020. The cost of renting a one-bedroom apartment in greater Miami has increased by more than 65% over the past five years, reaching nearly $1,900, according to estimates from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Nearly a third of Miamians now spend more than half of their income on housing. For someone earning $14 an hour, that means working about 63 hours a week just to keep housing costs under 50% of their paycheck, leaving enough for essentials like food, transportation and insurance — which, when combined, take up more than 40% of the average Miamian’s budget.

But financial stability requires saving and wealth building, and that’s difficult when housing costs eat up most of a paycheck. Ideally, one spends less than 30% of their income on housing — otherwise, the Department of Housing and Urban Development considers them cost-burdened, a designation that applies to almost 60% of metro Miami residents.

To avoid being cost-burdened, a minimum-wage earner in Miami would have to work more than 100 hours a week.

“Many families are working multiple jobs” just to get by, said Nelson. “That minimum wage is not enough to make ends meet.”

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