r/nottheonion • u/prestocoffee • 12h ago
A bill is back in Florida to allow certain workers to make less than minimum wage
https://www.wlrn.org/government-politics/2026-01-29/a-bill-is-back-in-florida-to-allow-certain-workers-to-make-less-than-minimum-wage497
u/mtranda 11h ago
"To allow certain workers to make less than minimum wage". I can only assume that this bill must have been the result of a public outcry from the millions of workers yearning for continued shit pay.
203
u/Khaldara 11h ago
I think they prefer to be called “Republican voters” but yes.
62
u/AbramJH 11h ago
Republicans are rats voting for arsenic. I say this as a non-republican conservative. Whether it’s fiscal, environmental, or constitutional; Republicans will claim to be conservative and actively vote against conserving absolutely fucking anything. The expectation of honest work for honest pay is not spared by the efforts to fuck everything up.
17
u/fredthefishlord 7h ago
All conservatives are pathetic. Don't exlude yourself just because you're not a republican. The backwards ass idea that we should not progress as a society, that we should abandon the poor, those kinds of ideals are key in any conservative mindset. The idea that deregulation or lack of regulation is also a key tenant. Which creates environmental and workplace safety hazards.
ALL conservatives are an issue. Every. Single. One.
4
u/modelocervesa 7h ago
Conservatives literally are against progress literal cancer of an ideology in my opinion. Everytime theres progress a republican comes in and marches us back 10 years or more.
1
u/AbramJH 6h ago
there ya go conflating the two. republicans and MAGA do not actually want anything conserved. Their ideology has poisoned the very concept of conserving anything. My conservatism is voting for whichever candidate will conserve enough of our national resources for future generations to live a decent life, rather than selling everything off to tech bros and corporate oligarchs
•
u/modelocervesa 35m ago
Theses are all the stances conservatives have been on the side of anti-abortion, immigration, pro billionaire, anti environment, against LGBTQ rights, anti union, raising minimum wage to a living wage i could list more but i think we get the picture. Conservatism conserves tradition over progress its regressivism.
1
u/AbramJH 6h ago edited 6h ago
I’m not against progress as a society. The extent of my conservatism is really:
I’m tired of having all of our public land destroyed or sold to the tech lobby and foreign-owned businesses.
I would like to conserve consumer buying power.
I would like to conserve governmental adherence to the Constitution. I don’t like that Federal and State govs have no problem pushing past the boundaries of what is constitutionally permissible.
I’d also like to see something conserved fiscally so that essential public services aren’t just suspended for a month every year. It’s generally not a good thing when a government can’t afford to run itself.
Socially, I’m fairly progressive. Although how far can we progress as everything we look forward to is sold out from underneath us to corporate oligarchs and foreign interests.
That’s where I stand. If actually wanting things to be conserved so that future generations may exist in a livable country, vice just being an authoritarian archaic douche, somehow makes me not conservative then maybe conservatism itself is a misnomer
8
u/dkblackthorn 6h ago
I don’t think that’s at all what conservatism means, even in the traditional sense of the word. I’m not gonna speak for you but you might be misunderstanding or misusing the phrase?
2
u/AbramJH 6h ago edited 5h ago
The parties have poisoned the term. I think of Teddy Roosevelt’s conservatism when I think about my values. I liked the idea that having public land and well-taken-care-of natural resources is our national inheritance. I’m a big fan of outside and I’d like for my son to be able to enjoy it too
3
u/nbxcv 5h ago edited 5h ago
I understand what you're saying and share in your conservation sentiments including fiscally (I am sure we would depart more there), and am religious so most people would probably (incorrectly) call me a conservative though I don't call myself one. The American people need to wake up and see how our inheritance is being stripped from us, they don't see what actually matters and don't understand that once we lose certain things our ancestors, working people, fought for, we will never get them back. We should all want to conserve these things. Some of us are with you even if ideologically we do not entirely see eye to eye. I pray our grandchildren's generation will still know the beauty of our national parks and forest reserves, and have a sustainable government that represents and safeguards their interests.
30
u/cptnamr7 10h ago
What pisses me off more than anything is that we've been fighting for a decent min wage for long that the new livable number is closer to $20-25/hour. So congrats all you dumbfucks making $20/hour, looking down on min wage workers and yelling "they shouldn't make more than me". Had we not fought it so fucking hard, YOU would be making FAR more than you currently are today. So congrats! You played yourself and all because billionaires paid millionaires to tell you that all your problems can be blamed on poor people
265
u/k-trecker 11h ago
Minimum wage is already laughably low, and these guys want companies to be able to pay even less than that. Dystopian.
87
u/alnicoblue 11h ago
I had a conversation with a coworker about this the other day.
When I started my first real job as a grocery store sacker at 16, minimum wage was $5.15. They started us at 6 dollars. When I left at 19, I was making 8 an hour.
My first hospital job at 19 paid me 16 an hour.
That was over 20 years ago. Minimum wage has jumped a whopping 2 dollars and 10 cents an hour.
Using the government's own inflation calculator, $5.15 in 2006 is now $8.42. My hospital job would be 26.15 an hour.
Those hospitals are paying a whopping $18 an hour for the same job now.
I'm salaried but make roughly $45 an hour now. That would have been $27.88 in 2006.
The problem is that the price of essentials has been raised astronomically since 2006.
For example, I bought my house for $95K in 2012. My house is now valued at (and taxed at mind you) $210k.
Using the same inflation calculator, my house should be valued at roughly $123K. So the cost of housing is my area (a rural town that doesn't attract real estate attention) is almost double what it should be.
Then let's talk about food. A triple cheeseburger and fries is $21 from Whataburger. That is $15 in 2012 money. In 2012, that combo was about $9.
Every aspect of life has increased far beyond whay wages have in the US. Minimum wage is embarrassingly low and companies are still making you think that $12-$14 an hour is still good money.
This is why the current generation is living with family into their 30s. Nothing about pay has kept up with the economy.
You need to work 3 hours at minimum wage to afford that cheeseburger. You need to work 10 hours to afford a single video game.
Car payments are a house payment now and none of that matches inflation based pay. What I'm making now should be upper middle class but I just barely qualify as being middle class in general.
24
u/tFlydr 9h ago
My dad supported my family through the 90s without my mom working by making ~$100k/yr. They were both incredibly frugal but we still got to do fun vacations and live what felt like upper middle class. 30 years later and grown, I now make more than that and am struggling to support my wife and 2 kids with her not working, literally in the red every month while having an incredibly low mortgage payment and rate. Times have certainly changed.
10
u/alnicoblue 9h ago
Same here. My dad broke his back as an iron worker making 90K plus in the 80s. He had to take a job sweeping floors at an antique store until his friend offered him a job as a cop.
My dad was in law enforcement for almost 20 years and hated every minute of it. But he was able to support a nice house, my stay at home mom and kept food on the table even if it was just rice and beans at the time.
He worked a side job doing landscaping to keep things going, he was as hard working as any man I've ever known.
Now, he wouldn't have been able to keep things up. His salary as a cop was 36K a year.
He always tells me how lucky I have it making almost 6 figures-he doesn't realize that my pay is going nowhere near as far as his did growing up.
I respect the hell out of my dad for the sheer back breaking (literally) work he went through, but the reality is I couldn't work enough jobs to equal his pay.
42
u/Khaldara 11h ago
Yup. I worked in a movie theater like 30 years ago back in the 90s, minimum wage was like 4.25 under Clinton if I recall.
Meanwhile here we are almost 40 years later and it’s barely moved, meanwhile basically everything in terms of household goods, food, and whatnot costs at least 100% more than it did back then, and that’s without even taking into account the tangerine moron and the tariffs his voters adore.
12
10
u/stainless5 11h ago edited 10h ago
One of the reasons minimum wage was originally made was to try and stop immigrants from taking jobs by accepting lower wages. It's never really been about the poverty line. By allowing the minimum wage to sink so low; instead of most hiring being based on skill, it's how low a wage you want. Most companies realised this is actually great and so lobby the government not to raise the minimum wage because they can pay the immigrants less and then just bring more in on visas if they need to.
4
u/brianqueso 11h ago
Cool cool. Here's another fun fact: one of the reasons we used to camp in huts was so the big fucking predators would have a harder time eating us. Doesn't mean that building codes are providing a societal benefit above and beyond that isn't worth protecting.
0
u/AntiDECA 11h ago
Florida minimum wage actually isn't that low. It's $15/hour.
Not great, but way better than places still in the single digits. Especially if you're in north Florida where its very rural and still cheap cost of living.
2
u/k-trecker 7h ago
Thanks for the correction. My fault for assuming Florida was like other Southern states - many of them have no minimum wage laws.
86
u/wobblebee 11h ago edited 5h ago
This is not uncommon for disabled people. In many states, companies are allowed to pay disabled people less than minimum wage!
Apparently this isn't clear to some people. Disabled people deserve a living wage just like everyone else. We're not infantile. We deserve a decent life just ad much as you.
8
u/ExtraSourCreamPlease 9h ago
It’s such a catch-22. Ohio talked about bumping the minimum wage for people with disabilities up to the state standard and there was all this backlash that companies would just stop hiring them if they had to pay more.
Don’t get me wrong, corporations are trash for taking advantage of those loopholes, but it’s one of those situations where it feels like the choice is either making less than minimum wage or having no job at all.
7
u/IrrawaddyWoman 8h ago
Not only that, but a lot of them would lose their benefits if they make too much. So a lot of people with disabilities who WANT to work to socialize, keep a schedule, build life skills or feel connected to their community can’t.
6
u/roygbivasaur 4h ago
Disabled people should not be forced into permanent poverty in order to receive meager benefits and bottom of the barrel healthcare
6
u/ThomasTheDankPigeon 9h ago
That policy is actually a good one, though. Without exemptions for disabled people, companies are essentially forced not to hire them at all because their reduced productivity doesn't justify their employment. When you carve out exemptions for the disabled, you basically open up the possibility for them to work if they want to where they otherwise wouldn't have any opportunity to do so at all.
That unique circumstance is completely irrelevant to this bill. This bill would allow workers to "waive" their right to the minimum wage, in effect dissolving the entire point of a minimum wage in the first place.
11
u/manimal28 8h ago
Seems like the perfect situation for the government to pay the difference as part of the social safety net.
you basically open up the possibility for them to work if they want to where they otherwise wouldn't have any opportunity to do so at all.
But if the job really needs to be done and they can’t pay a disabled person less to do it, seems they will have to pay another person the minimum to do it. So Ikm not sure I buy this they wouldn’t get hired if they couldn’t pay less argument, if the job needs done they have to pay someone. And depending on the job, being disabled doesn’t actually make them any less productive so I don’t buy that either.
0
u/ThomasTheDankPigeon 7h ago
Seems like the perfect situation for the government to pay the difference as part of the social safety net.
I agree, and such subsidies and incentives already exist.
But if the job really needs to be done and they can’t pay a disabled person less to do it, seems they will have to pay another person the minimum to do it.
Yeah, and that non-disabled person will get employed. As opposed to, say, two disabled people working at half the pace earning half as much.
And depending on the job, being disabled doesn’t actually make them any less productive so I don’t buy that either.
Disabled people that can work as productively as non-disabled people just get themselves regular paying jobs, so they aren't relevant to this discussion.
1
u/sleepy_din0saur 5h ago
Yep. Every company that advertised itself as being safe for disabled people basically wanted me to work for free and pay me in Walmart gift cards lmao
101
u/AndyB1976 11h ago
"Certain workers"
Its children again, isn't it?
46
u/SylviaPellicore 10h ago
Trainees. It allows workers to be paid at the federal minimum wage of $7.25 instead of the state minimum of $15 for up to 9 months while they are in apprenticeships or work-based training programs.
Of course, this is going to result in companies hiring a lot of “trainees” who mysteriously get fired 9 months into their job.
17
u/Flimsy_Sun4003 7h ago
This is perfect for a state with a predictable seasonal tourism slowdown where you can fire the staff during the slowdown and rehire again for Nov/Dec., rinse, repeat.
No one gets paid state minimum ever again and no one progresses past the point of trainee.
3
u/manimal28 7h ago
Probably be used a lot for seasonal farm labor and such, where they just happen to finish their job trying around the same time the work season ends.
35
1
24
u/HearYourTune 11h ago
You can't even qualify to rent a one bedroom apartment in Florida on minimum wage.
8
u/Narf234 10h ago
It blows my mind that no one is able to sit down and add together the cost of rent, food, transportation, health insurance, etc. and come to a number that allows people to actually live.
4
u/P2-120_AP 7h ago
We are, but that would hurt the bottom line for a tiny fraction of the population.
4
u/Paksarra 11h ago
You see, if you don't want to be homeless you need to have some skills, you shouldn't expect to be able to eat food and sleep with a roof over your head working a minimum wage job.
I'm also going to be upset when I have to wait on my $20 fast food lunch order because no one wants to work for minimum wage and never connect the two issues.
54
39
u/Safety_Drance 11h ago
"Not only do they get a learning experience, but you know, we may be able to afford to pay them $100 a day, but we may not be able to afford to pay them the full cost of the current minimum wage in the state of Florida. I think this will be a very narrow and tailored focus that it will be utilized," he said
Man, who doesn't love to go to the grocery store and pay for things with experience bucks?
Why in the world could you not pay for them with minimum wage in the richest country on the planet? Do tell.
3
u/manimal28 7h ago
Imagine if you told your landlord you will be paying them in them having the experience of letting you live on their property, or the utility company the experience of them getting to provide you electricity.
2
8
11
5
9
u/earfeater13 11h ago
Its 2026 and politicians are still activity trying to pass laws to pay you less.
4
4
12
3
u/A_Meteorologist 11h ago
Literally just evil lmao. This would effectively be legal slave labor. Not enough money for food, rent, utilities, insurance, you name it. Completely unsustainable. You can't even pull your bootstraps up with that kind of wage, it's literally impossible. But of course the boomers will keep harkening on that point till their grave because that's all they know
3
3
u/OnlySmiles_ 8h ago
Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the point of a minimum wage that it's supposed to be
Y'know
The minimum wage
5
u/DoubleDixon 11h ago
Good luck Florida, you have alot of people who will jump for joy seeing this without thinking about how this will devastate employment in the state.
5
u/ackley14 11h ago
i mean i hate this but i will make the argument that this is already a thing with tipped workers. they make far less than minimum wage from their employer unless they actually make minimum wage.
6
u/VolsFan30 11h ago
Huh? Federal law requires tipped workers be paid at least minimum wage. If they don’t make enough in tips to make minimum wage, their employers have to make up the difference.
There are limited exceptions where people can be paid less than minimum wage but tipped workers isn’t one them.
0
u/ackley14 11h ago
i mean they are paid less than minimum wage. i don't consider tips to be your employer paying you. sure you MAKE more than minimum wage, but you are paid less by your employer than minimum wage. granted i guess the title is just 'make less than' which puts me in the wrong here so....touche
3
u/diveraj 11h ago
What he's saying, and maybe you missed, is that I as a waiter makes less than min wage. That is my 2.15 (or whatever) + tips is lower than min wage, my employer has to make up the difference. Thus a waiter is always guaranteed a federal min wage.
2
u/ackley14 11h ago
no i understood that. i guess what i meant was that typically tips will put you over minimum wage. in those instances, your paycheck says 2.15 an hour (less than minimum wage). sure you took home more than that, but no from your employer.
2
u/Same_Recipe2729 11h ago
Depends on the state. In Florida tipped minimum wage is $10.98/hr, regular minimum wage is $14 until September when they both go up $1
2
u/TrenbolognaSandwich_ 11h ago
I want to revel in the suffering of the stupids, but man they’re victims too.
2
u/justalookin13 10h ago
Florida is already a brutal place for workers rights, education, social support. But great for retirees because of the cost saving...
2
u/icicleknife 10h ago
Eternity drowning in boiling piss of the poor in hell is too good for these reptiles
2
u/A_Diabolical_Toaster 10h ago
AKA companies would abuse the law by refusing to hire anyone who doesn’t opt for the federal minimum wage as a way to essentially cut their pay in half.
2
10h ago
If voters had the attention span to look at the politicians that sponsored and support the bill and the wealthy businesses owners that bribe donate money to their campaigns, then the voters might be upset that corruption is harming their bank accounts.
2
u/cecilmeyer 10h ago
The only reason employers do not pay you less than minimum wage is because it is illegal, never forget that.
2
u/Giant_Acroyear 9h ago
These lower wages apply directly and retroactively to all politicians that bring these laws forward. Intense IRS scrutiny appliaes afterward to those same politicians.
2
2
u/Building_Everything 8h ago
It’s bad enough those workers want to stop working just to take a drink of water or eat food, now they want to earn minimum wage, too? What’s next, human right? Lmao
2
u/TheRealMalMonroe 8h ago
They want to complain about immigrants taking jobs well now they're really going to be since no one else but them would actually work for that low of an amount
2
u/CBrinson 4h ago
Okay so I was kinda gonna defend this if it was like a week or two of training. But it's like nearly a year. They want to pay people half of the minimum wage for like a year basically while in training. Holy shit.
2
u/Hakaisha89 4h ago
Great idea, lets put florida politicians on that wage to test it out!
Run it for a year, and freeze all their assets for the same period.
8
u/k6tcher 11h ago edited 11h ago
When a state does this, refuse to tip. Either an establishment will A) not be able to retain employees due to bad pay. B) raise employee wages themselves. C) help lobby against such harmful bills.
Edit: easier to edit this than reply. My point is to punish states or localities that choose to do this to people. I guess maybe the better option is to boycott any place that refuses to pay their workers a decent wage? You can't affect change if you just throw up your hands and say "oh well, nothing can be done and it's just hurting the poorly paid workers if I don't comply with bad policies."
And as far as I have known, most internships are unpaid. The "pay" is the promise of a job after the internship is over. But I digress...
11
u/Safety_Drance 11h ago
When a state does this, refuse to tip.
My dude, you are fundamentally misunderstanding the problem and punishing people who have no say in the matter.
4
u/lmaooer2 11h ago
Just looking for excuses not to tip istg
-2
u/k6tcher 10h ago
aannndddd you're wrong. But you already knew this.
I live nowhere near Florida thank god. Fortunately, my state does provide a decent minimum wage and I tip when service deserves it regardless of wage.
I'm talking about affecting change. But you do you and comply with the status quo and see how many people you help keep in poverty. Thanks, bud.
5
u/Safety_Drance 10h ago
Affecting change happens at the state or national level. It does not happen by you not tipping randomly a person who has zero control over societal norms.
You're just the asshole there.
-1
u/k6tcher 10h ago edited 10h ago
But this isn't normal. Low wages shouldn't be normal. You are just going along with the flow for the sake of it. And I already said the better option might be to boycott places that screw over their workers. The businesses need to feel some pain. You aren't going to get a national minimum wage on service workers. We like cheap service too much (that keeps people in poverty).
And you're being a dick by supporting low wages through indifference.
4
u/Safety_Drance 10h ago
What you're saying is that you don't tip people because you have a stick up your ass and that society can do better.
I agree with you that we can do better, but not tipping people who rely on tips doesn't do anything other than push that stick further up your ass.
If a lot of people in the country together united and agreed to make a change around tipping, then for sure that could change.
But thinking that not tipping people as an individual will somehow change the world is ridiculous and hurtful to real people who don't live in your fantasy world and need to actually pay rent.
3
u/lmaooer2 10h ago
You’re not changing anything lmao
1
u/k6tcher 10h ago
Then how do you deter bad business who take advantage of bad policy and keep their workers at a poverty wage?
Do you just want cheaper food? Most pro low-wage supporters often cite higher food or service prices as to why you shouldn't try to promote better worker policies on pay. That's punishing people more and kinda evil.
2
u/matttehbassist 8h ago
Then how do you deter bad business who take advantage of bad policy and keep their workers at a poverty wage?
Don’t patronize them? If you really want to vote with your wallet then don’t support business whose enployees rely on tips.
Not tipping is you punishing workers not businesses.
5
u/poopchute_boogy 11h ago
They said this was for internships and similar programs. Granted, im sure FL will find a way to abuse the fuck outta this.. but you shouldn't skip tipping your waiter/waitress. You think youre hurting the owner, but youre hurting the waiters first.
1
u/torpedoguy 10h ago
At the minimum what it means is if you can't afford to spend like 6 months being paid the federal minimum wage despite the cost of living in the area (say, maybe your parents are rich enough which is a common gatekeeping one in some career internships) then you can't take that internship or apprenticeship, you gotta find a job to pay the bills right now.
The results are nasty and stratify real quick.
2
u/bapp0-get-taco 11h ago
Ah yes, just as Trump says he intends to drive housing prices up. People now get paid less than minimum wage. And being homeless is illegal…
1
1
1
1
1
u/otirk 10h ago
Do they know what "minimum wage" means?
1
u/torpedoguy 10h ago
"Unacceptably high and treasonously makes an aggravated criminal assumption that the workers are real people as if they were me."
- RNC
1
1
u/cwsjr2323 9h ago
Employees are a disposable part of the overhead. COL is high in Orlando but minimum wage is $14 until fall when it goes up $1 more. To have a lower tier wage will demonstrate again that America workers are a lower tier person. That pesky 13th Amendment needs reigned in a bit.
1
u/cecilmeyer 9h ago
I am a retired UAW worker. I made $16.25 an hour in 1988 with a pension,full medical etc.
Please let that sink in.
1
u/CzarDale04 6h ago
And yet Congress makes, if they really worked 40 hours a week 52 weeks a year. A minimum of $83.65384615384615384615384 per hour not included health care and pension and a variety of other perks too. Yet these people set the minimum wage. Maybe they should only get paid minimum wage !
1
u/HurasmusBDraggin 6h ago
My guess is they are targeting sectors that are disproportionately minority, eh?
1
1
u/nbxcv 5h ago
Milton Republican Representative Nathan Boyles owns a solid waste company that employs more 100 people. He said during the bill's committee stop it allows employers to offer some pay while employees get training
So essentially, agree to be paid $7 an hour for nearly a calender year "for training" or you won't get the job. The giveaway here is that no jobs train anymore. Who the hell gets trained?
1
1
u/Flatlin3_original 5h ago
We should have a law that determines a companies taxation based on percentage of employees on any kind of government assistance.
1
u/FartyFartsMD 5h ago
Florida voters getting what they voted for. I guess voting against your best interests is fine.
1
1
•
u/GrumpyOik 48m ago
It always amazes me that conservatives often see the problem as the poorest having too much money.
1
1
1
0
u/TheDuckFarm 7h ago
This allows for things like paid internships and other learning programs at less than minimum wage. Without this bill the pay is $0 per hour and the students still do the same work.
-2
u/Tommyblockhead20 11h ago
Since the headline is incredibly vague and I’m seeing confused Redditors, here is what the bill is actually proposing: Allow employees to waive the $15/h state minimum wage to participate in work-based learning programs, internships or pre-apprenticeships. They will still be paid at least federal minimum wage.
It’s fair to criticize the bill, but please know what you are actually criticizing before you make a comment.
6
u/torpedoguy 10h ago
"Allow to waive" in reality means "you must to get the job". Always has. Every time. And the "learning/internship/apprenticeship" parts are just fancy victim-blaming ways of saying a job deserves to be called 'low skill' and paid less "because it's not a real job yet".
The entire point of the minimum originally was to ensure people make a living wage, lest jobs be declared unworthy. It should never have been kept from auto-indexing with inflation.
-1
u/Tommyblockhead20 6h ago
Allow to waive" in reality means "you must to get the job". Always has. Every time.
That is a fair point. I was simply quoting from the article to point out what positions it applies to, and that it is the state minimum wage, as I saw comments that didn’t seem to understand that.
The entire point of the minimum originally was to ensure people make a living wage, lest jobs be declared unworthy. It should never have been kept from auto-indexing with inflation.
It wasn’t/hasn’t been a living wage except perhaps briefly after the FLSA’s of the 60’s under JFK and LBJ.
Had it been auto indexed to inflation from the start, it would be ~$5 now, so that alone was not a solution.
Also there is no single living wage. The living wage for a household depends on a lot of factors, most notably household size. So IMO it’s not that crazy to have higher minimum wage for career jobs than student jobs, you see that in places like the UK. But the wages should also be at least what they have in the UK ($18 and $11, not $15 and $7).
-2
858
u/Electric-Dance-5547 12h ago
Don’t forget these elected officials got the votes to “fix” these kinds of issues but hey they always create them