Florida Senate leader says bill allowing employers to pay more workers less than minimum wage is likely dead

Florida Senate President Ben Albritton last week confirmed to reporters he expects a controversial bill that would allow employers to pay certain workers less than minimum wage is likely dead in this year’s legislative session.

“I don’t love it, to tell you the truth,” Albritton told reporters Thursday.

The bill (HB 541/SB 676), sponsored by Republican Sen. Jonathan Martin and Rep. Ryan Chamberlin, sought to allow employers to pay interns, apprentices, pre-apprentices and other work-based learners less than Florida’s minimum wage if the employer signed a form to “opt out” of receiving the bare minimum. The House version was later amended to cut out apprentices from the list of workers who could opt out.

Florida’s minimum wage currently sits at $13 an hour — nearly double the federal minimum wage (now officially a poverty wage) of just $7.25 an hour. In 2020, more than 60 percent of Florida voters approved a state constitutional amendment to raise the state minimum wage from $8.56 to $15 an hour by Sept. 30, 2026. The ballot measure, Amendment 2, received more votes in Florida that year than either candidate for president, including Donald Trump.

“I think if somebody works, whether they’re being an apprentice or whatever, the minimum wage is in the [state] Constitution for a reason,” Albritton told reporters. When asked if the bill is dead, Albritton reportedly responded, “I would expect so.”

Under state and federal law, certain kinds of workers can already be paid less than minimum wage, including workers under 20 years-old (for the first 90 days of their employment) and workers with disabilities (some of whom are legally paid as little as 25 cents per hour).

Opponents of Martin and Chamberlin’s proposal blasted their “opt out” legislation as a cheap ploy to pay young, experienced workers less. Some also argued the proposal was potentially unconstitutional, and would allow for employers to misclassify workers as “interns” in order to pay them less.

“It opens up the doors for businesses to exploit its workers, especially young people, low income families, by unknowingly waving their right to a fair wage,” argued Satin Fye, a “proud unionist” from Miami-Dade County and mother of two teenage sons, speaking to the Florida House Commerce Committee. “This bill is anti-worker, it is anti-family and it is anti-Florida.”

Both bill sponsors, facing public pressure, ultimately added limits to their “opt out” proposal, limiting a worker’s ability to opt out of the state minimum wage to the first nine months of employment, or two college semesters. Rep. Ryan Chamberlin, the sponsor of the House bill, argued the bill would “add more jobs to the market, lower the cost of labor, increase the pool of workers, increase small business profits, and reduce the cost of living for consumers.”

He also publicly denied that the point of the legislation was to pay workers less.

“It’s not about paying people less,” Chamberlin said, in front of the House Commerce Committee. “It’s about allowing unique situations to take place that aren’t taking place that would accelerate somewhat beyond the minimum wage environment.”

Sen. Jonathan Martin, the Senate bill sponsor, defended the proposal as a way to ensure people with fewer skills wouldn’t be “missing out” on opportunities their employer doesn’t want to pay them the full minimum wage to hire them for.

“If we think that $13 an hour is what a bag boy at a grocery store should be making in rural Florida, then I think we have a misconception of either what’s reasonable, or we’re not relating that to the cost of goods and services anymore,” Martin claimed.

“If the young people who want the skills want to work … I want to make sure that the employers can afford to bring them on,” he added.

Employers appear to want this, too. Campaign finance records show that Martins’ political action committee, Friends of Jonathan Martin, has received $40,000 in campaign contributions from the so-called Voice of Florida Business PAC, also known as the Associated Industries of Florida, since October. Publix Super Markets, a funder of AIF’s political activities, gave Martin’s PAC its own $2,500 contribution ahead of session, as did the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association.

The FRLA is a trade group representing employers in the hospitality and tourism industries, whose chief lobbyist last month criticized Florida’s rising minimum wage, framing it as a burden to Florida’s restaurant owners.

Chamberlin’s bill (HB 541) has cleared all three of its committee stops as of publication, but has stalled in the House chamber (i.e. it hasn’t been scheduled for a vote). The Senate version of the bill (SB 676) was temporarily postponed by Martin last week following public comment and debate on the bill in the Senate Rules committee. Another controversial bill that would have stripped temp workers of basic protections on the job has also stalled, and likely won’t pass, labor advocates told Orlando Weekly.

Florida’s 60-day legislative session began in March and is scheduled to conclude Friday, May 2.

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This article appears in Apr 23-29, 2025.