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Op-Ed By Karen Woodall
Orlando Sentinel, March 1, 2013

... A large body of academic research has shown that higher wages not only increase purchasing power, they improve productivity in the workplace. Both of these benefits mean that when minimum-wage workers get a raise, the benefits spread beyond them to the entire economy.

Floridians understood this principle in 2004 when more than 70 percent of voters amended the state constitution to increase the state minimum wage above the federal minimum by $1, with an automatic annual increase based on inflation. Today, the minimum wage in Florida is $7.79 per hour. ...

A new poll conducted by the Pew Research Center shows 87 percent of Democrats, 68 percent of independents and 50 percent of Republicans support the president's proposal. Yet Congress has only passed legislation three times in 30 years to increase the federal minimum wage.

Had the federal minimum kept up with inflation over the past 40 years, it would be $10.56 instead of $7.25 or $9. Currently, the annual income for a full-time employee working the entire year at the federal minimum wage is $15,080.

A study released last year by the Research Institute on Social and Economic Policy at Florida International University pointed out that full-time minimum-wage workers in Florida earn only 82.8 percent of the federal poverty threshold for a family of three of $19,090. ...

Those who object to raising the minimum wage warn that businesses will simply lay people off. However that was not Florida's experience, as noted in [a study released last year by the Research Institute on Social and Economic Policy at Florida International University, RISEP]: When the minimum wage was increased in 2005, the jobless rate fell for the next eight months, extending a decline that began in 2003. And employment rose until the recession began in 2007.

Likewise, the group Business for a Fair Minimum Wage has identified at least 26 different studies that refute the claim that increasing the minimum wage causes increased unemployment and business closures. ...

In 2010 one out of every six people in Florida lived in poverty — including one out of four children. It really is time to make work pay.

Karen Woodall is executive director of the Florida Center for Fiscal and Economic Policy, a Tallahassee-based nonprofit that conducts research and analysis on tax and budget issues that impact middle- and lower-income individuals and families and small businesses.

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Copyright 2013 Karen Woodall and Orlando Sentinel