Too much, too soon | Editorial, Oct. 7

Deserving of $15 an hour

Did it ever occur to the Tampa Bay Times Editorial Board in opposing Amendment 2 that Florida’s minimum wage workers are also customers, taxpayers and parents? That today’s $8.56 an hour minimum wage not only cripples their ability to live decently, it impairs our state’s economy? That the scary statistics used by today’s special interests against a gradual rise to $15 an hour are the same used against the 2004 minimum wage amendment? And that Florida’s job growth continued unaffected by that increase?

I wish that you had come door to door recently with me registering voters in Tallahassee’s Frenchtown neighborhood, part of Florida’s poorest Zip code, to see firsthand the miseries created by our poverty-wage economy. Florida’s leaders have long bragged about our low-wage economy, promising a future prosperity that never happens. Predictably, decade after decade, Florida remained a low-wage, high-poverty state. My vote for $15 is a vote for the hard-working, worthy families of Frenchtown. And I look forward to them being fully rewarded for their labors and adding to our future economy.

Bob Rackleff, Tallahassee

Too much, too soon | Editorial, Oct. 7

Keeping the poor, poor

Is the Times Editorial Board of the belief that the economic future of this state’s residents is based on keeping 1.1 million Floridians at poverty or near-poverty wages? And if so, then would not your reasoning suggest reversing the minimum wages to improve the state’s financial future to $5 or even $1 an hour?

Gregory Matthews, St. Petersburg

Too much, too soon | Editorial, Oct. 7

No other remedy

The Times Editorial Board recommends voters reject Amendment 2, because it is “too much, too soon.” How many people can get by now on $10 an hour without taking a second or third job, and how many would be able to do so even on $15 an hour six years hence? Few, if any at all.

The most cogent argument against Amendment 2′s $15 an hour minimum wage holds that raising the minimum wage is not a matter that belongs in the Constitution, but rather should be enacted by law. Indeed, but in a state where the Legislature limits or even denies benefits of any kind to lower-income workers, what other recourse is available to Florida’s working class?

Fred Kalhammer, Sun City Center

Too much, too soon | Editorial, Oct. 7

Never trickled down

Amendment 2 wouldn’t be necessary if supply side or trickle down economics actually worked. The Reagan, Bush and Trump tax cuts were supposed to wind up in our paychecks. They didn’t. Neither did they pay for themselves. Instead, they added to the federal budget deficit. So the only thing left to do is to force businesses to do what supply siders said they would do voluntarily.

Carlos DeCisneros, Tampa