Effort to raise Florida minimum wage passes signature hurdle

A petition drive to ask voters to gradually increase Florida’s minimum wage to $15 an hour has enough signatures to make the November 2020 ballot.

The Department of State website shows the ballot has gathered slightly more than the 766,200 registered voter signatures needed to get a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot.

The effort is headed by trial lawyer John Morgan, who also led the successful effort to put legal use of medical marijuana into the state constitution.

The measure calls for raising the current minimum wage from $8.46 an hour to $10 in September 2021 with $1 an hour increases annually until it reaches $15 in 2026.

The state Supreme Court still needs to approve the ballot language.