ST. PETERSBURG, Fla — As inflation reaches a 40-year high in the United States, the City of St. Petersburg is raising its minimum wage to help ease the financial burden on local government workers.
The city announced Thursday that, beginning April 1, all its part-time employees will make at least $15 per hour. The decision comes several years after St. Pete City Council approved a policy to pay full-time employees at least that rate. At the time, it also gave the higher minimum wage to part-timers who had been there at least five years.
But, new part-time hires were not included at the time. This change levels the playing field, meaning people who've worked there for under five years will benefit from the higher minimum wage, too.
The city said the change would help 211 of its part-time workers.
“Everyone deserves to earn a living wage whether they’ve been on the job for five years or five days," St. Pete Mayor Ken Welch said. "St. Petersburg led the way in 2015 to provide a $15 minimum wage and it is time we extend that to all employees, regardless of tenure.”
This move will cost the city about $218,000 this fiscal year.
As a city spokesperson explained in an email, it essentially expedites a relatively-new Florida law that is already increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2016. Voters approved that constitutional amendment back in November 2020. The statewide law applies to both public and private-sector workers. And, it had firm support, garnering more than 60 percent approval among voters.