With activists gearing up to bring an amendment to the state Constitution raising the minimum wage, a new poll shows it starts off the 2016 election cycle with solid support. Currently, the minimum wage in Florida stands at $8.05.
St. Pete Polls took a poll on behalf of Saint Petersblog which was released on Friday that shows 65 percent of Florida voters back raising the minimum wage while 30 percent are opposed to it. To amend the Florida Constitution, 60 percent of voters need to support a proposal at the ballot box.
Almost two-thirds of those surveyed -- 65 percent -- back raising the minimum wage while 30 percent do not want to see it changed. A quarter of Florida voters -- 25 percent -- support raising the minimum wage as high as $10 an hour while 17 percent want to cap it at $12.50 an hour. Almost a quarter of voters --23 percent -- want to see it go as high as $15 an hour.
The poll shows a major partisan divide on the issue, with 87 percent of Democrats backing raising the minimum wage while 52 percent of Republicans do no want to see it changed. Only 9 percent of Democrats do not want to change the minimum wage while 42 percent of Republicans want to raise it. Voters outside the major parties generally support raising the minimum wage, with 64 percent of them backing it and 30 percent of them opposing it.
Voters in conservative North Florida are more likely to oppose raising the minimum wage. In the Jacksonville, Panama City and Pensacola TV markets, at least 40 percent of voters do not want to see a change to the minimum wage.
The poll shows a racial divide on the issue. Black voters overwhelmingly back raising the minimum wage, 92 percent to 7 percent. More than two-thirds of Hispanics --70 percent -- want to see the minimum wage go higher while 26 percent do not. A majority of whites -- 62 percent -- back raising the minimum wage while 32 percent oppose the idea.
The poll of 2,788 Florida voters was taken from July 18-28 and had a margin of error of +/- 1.9 percent.
“The poll was conducted through a Web-based email polling system,” St. Pete Polls noted in a memo accompanying the poll. “The results were then weighted to account for proportional differences between the respondents' demographics and the demographics of the active registered voter population for the state of Florida. The weighting demographics used were: political party, race, age, gender and media market. The voters polled were chosen at random within the registered voter population within the state of Florida.The random sample used was made up of a sampling of registered voters from the state of Florida.”
Reach Kevin Derby at kderby@sunshinestatenews.com or follow him on Twitter: @KevinDerbySSN
