TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – A Florida bill aimed at carving out exceptions to the state’s minimum wage law made further headway through the Florida Legislature this week.
The bill (SB 676) would allow employees to opt out of receiving the minimum wage for the following work-based learning opportunities:
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- Work studies
- Internships
- Apprenticeships
- Pre-apprenticeships
- Other similar programs
As of 2009, the federal minimum wage was set at $7.25 per hour, though Florida voters approved an amendment that would gradually raise the state’s minimum wage to $15 per hour in September 2026. Currently, the state minimum wage is $13 per hour.
But under this bill, employees in structured work-based learning opportunities like those listed above could opt out by signing off on a waiver.
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However, Legislative analysts note that this wouldn’t make any changes to the state’s minimum wage itself.
During a Senate committee meeting on Tuesday, the bill’s sponsor — Sen. Jonathan Martin (R-Ft. Myers) — said that the bill would help younger adults and those entering the workforce gain much-needed job experience.
“The problem that I see is that a lot of students — a lot of the high school students, maybe individuals who are going to college — don’t have any job experience when they’re entering the real world,” Martin explained. “One of the barriers to entry for somebody with zero skills who’s never held a job before is the wage.”
Like Martin, economists such as Sean Snaith with UCF’s Institute for Economic Forecasting argue that a minimum wage impedes the ability of businesses to bring on more employees, preventing entry-level workers from getting work experience that could help them get better-paying jobs later down the line.
“Take a high school student that’s got no real tangible skills, hasn’t completed their education, they’re not going to be highly productive,” Snaith explained. “And so if the wage by law is higher than what these inexperienced workers can produce, they’re not going to get these jobs.”
In response to the proposal, state Sen. Tina Polsky (D-Boca Raton) brought up concerns about employers potentially abusing such a rule.
“How do we prevent an employer from kind of forcing it upon — I know they check a box that says this is voluntary, but say, ‘Hey, the only way I can hire you is if you take $2 an hour?’” Polksy asked.
In response, Martin said that workers would still have the ability to negotiate pay, so a prospective employer couldn’t force them to accept a wage they don’t want.
“Florida is a right-to-work state. An employee could quit the next day,” Martin stated. “Assuming they were hired on the spot and paid a wage that was lower than what they wanted or they felt coerced, they could quit in the middle of the day. There’s nothing preventing that back-and-forth between the employee and the employer.”
The bill was ultimately approved by a committee vote of 5-1, sending it on its way to a final committee hearing before potentially arriving before the full Senate for consideration.
If approved, the bill will take effect on July 1.
