Florida is on the path to a $15 minimum wage. Tip-credit miscalculations are everywhere.
Amendment 2 ramps Florida's minimum wage to $15 by 2026. Tipped-employee math is where most wage violations hide — and where the biggest FLSA cases come from.
Florida voters approved Amendment 2 in 2020, putting the state on a path to a $15/hour minimum wage by September 30, 2026. Each year, the floor rises by $1. For tipped workers, the picture is more complicated — and it is where most wage-and-hour cases originate.
How the tip credit works
Employers may pay tipped employees less than the full minimum wage and claim a 'tip credit' for the difference. Florida's tip credit is $3.02/hour, producing a cash minimum below the headline number. The employee's tips, combined with cash wages, must equal or exceed the full minimum wage for every hour worked.
Where the math breaks
- Side work time. Hours spent cleaning, opening, or closing that are not tip-producing can violate the 80/20 rule — which limits non-tipped work to 20% of hours.
- Tip pools including non-tipped employees. Cooks, dishwashers, or managers cannot lawfully share in a tip pool.
- Tip credit notice. Employers must provide written notice of the tip credit before applying it. Failure to do so voids the credit entirely for the period of the failure.
- Credit-card tip deductions exceeding the actual processing fee. Common and frequently unlawful.
- Uniform or tool costs reducing wages below minimum — a separate FLSA violation.
For workers
Keep your own records. Screenshot shift schedules. Save pay-stub images. Note unusual deductions. A contemporaneous record — yours, not the employer's — is often the decisive evidence in a wage-and-hour case.
