Florida Governor Rick Scott has staked his administration on his ability to bring the state new jobs. But while job numbers are growing, wages for those jobs are lagging.
Florida’s Republican lawmakers aren’t big on taxes, but many are skeptical of trading tax breaks for jobs, too. At the same time, offering incentives to bring companies—and jobs—to Florida has been the cornerstone of Gov. Rick Scott’s time in office. And he’s asking the Legislature for more money to fund his efforts. But state economist Amy Baker tells House lawmakers it’s time to look a bit closer at wages.
“When you’re in the midst of the great recession,” Baker says, “just worrying about jobs and not thinking about wages is probably fine.”
“You want to get people back to work and productive work regardless of what the wage is,” she goes on. “But as you move to a more normal economic environment you probably want to start thinking about wages as well.”
Typically, Florida pays about only about 87 percent of the average wage for a given job.
