The Florida Roundup - Changes to Medicaid and SNAP eligibility, Florida’s minimum wage and weekly news

Episode Date: October 2, 2026

This week on The Florida Roundup, we spoke about changes to eligibility for Medicaid and concerns over the state’s handling of Medicaid eligibility notices with the Florida Trib’s Sharmila Venkatasubban (00:00). Then, we looked at changes in eligibility and funding for SNAP in Florida with Cindy Huddleston of the Florida Policy Institute (09:34). And later, USF economics professor Michael Snipes joined us to talk about Florida’s latest minimum wage increase (27:42). Plus, we heard the first in a three-part series exploring why energy costs are increasing for Floridians (37:20) and a celebration of art and science in the Everglades (46:38).

This is the Florida Roundup. I'm Carlton Gillespie. The month of October is here. It's fall, y'all, the season where things begin to change. No, of course, I'm not talking about the leaves or the weather. We don't do much of that here in Florida. Rather, it's the start of a new fiscal year for the federal government, meaning a host of federal regulations officially took effect October 1st. That includes big changes to eligibility for Medicare and SNAP, formerly known as food stamps. We're going to start our program with Medicaid, as this week coverage has been significantly narrowed for legally present non-citizens. That's thanks to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed last July. Green card holders, Cuban and Haitian migrants, and citizens of free association states like Palau and the Marshall Islands will keep their coverage. But those with humanitarian statuses, assailies, refugees, trafficking victims, and temporarily protected status holders will not.

In Florida, that could mean around 177,000 people will lose coverage. It's too early to tell the impacts of this change. Instead, we're looking at how the state will notify those who are no longer eligible. Why? Well, the last time the state had to notify a large group of people that they were no longer eligible for Medicaid, which was back in 2023, it ended with confusion and lawsuits. Has the state learned its lesson? Will you or someone you know

lose access to Medicaid or snap benefits? Call us 305-995-1800 Radio at the Florida Roundup.org. Joining us now to talk about it is Charmilla Van Kattisubin, the Florida Trib's senior editor and health accountability reporter. Charmilla, welcome to the Florida Roundup. Thanks so much for having me.

So we're having you on to talk about the last time Florida. sent out a big number of these ineligible notices to people that were on Medicaid. Can you tell us the nature of why these people were deemed ineligible? It goes back to COVID-19, right? Right. So in 2020, the federal government gave states billions of dollars to keep people enrolled in Medicaid during COVID.

And then in 2023, after that program ended, the states, including Florida, started a process called unwinding. They began rechecking eligibility and sending. out termination letters to those the state said no longer qualified for assistance, primarily on the basis of income. So that same year, the Florida Health Justice Project sued the state over those notices, arguing that because they were often so confusing, they violated the Constitution, and specifically because they didn't tell people who in the household was using coverage, what income the state

was using to determine eligibility, and what information it was using to calculate that income. And then this year, a federal judge cited with those plaintiffs who, ruling that the letters weren't just confusing and vague, you know, but also inaccurate and sometimes contradictory. So what happens to these people who don't know or believe they were wrongly terminated? What kind of process do they have to potentially get reinstated after these letters that were deemed, like you said, not just vague and confusing, but violated the due process of the Constitution? So you can request a hearing, but you're going to be waiting. and a lot of people aren't getting that interim coverage they're entitled to.

And in some cases, the requests haven't even been acknowledged yet. And we're talking about more than 500,000 people who received termination notices. One of those was Maria Joseph, and you mentioned the inability to get health care coverage in the meantime. Tell us what happened with Maria. So again, the class of people in this particular lawsuit are those who were recipients of family-related Medicaid. So parents and guardians of children, children, and pregnant women. And Maria Joseph, who's a hospice nurse and a client of the Florida Health Justice Project, was one of those hundreds of thousands of people who received a very confusing termination notice

and an error because she was actually pregnant at the time and qualified for continuous coverage during her pregnancy and for a full year after giving birth. So she was pregnant with her fourth child when she found out through her midwife that she'd lost coverage, and she was informed during a routine appointment, and then she pointed her to the Florida Health Justice Project, if I remember correctly. But that's when she took another look at her eight-page letters she got from DCF, Department of Children and Families,

and she also shared that letter with me. It mentioned the loss of food assistance, that her unborn baby was enrolled in Medicaid, but it buried in all that the line that said Maria Joseph ineligible, and it didn't indicate what she was ineligible for. So she eventually got her coverage back, but she did miss an ultrasound, which I can only imagine is a very scary thing to miss and to not know when you'll be able to reschedule it. So the legislature has allocated millions towards updating DCF's notice system, and we should say that, like you mentioned,

the Department of Children's and Family is the one who is sending these notices. When was that system last updated? From what I understand, the front end of that system was updated in 2023, so like a modernization of the front door, but behind that door is still the same 30-year-old crumbling legacy mainframe that hasn't been updated. I'm sorry, by front door you mean like the face of the website, like the stuff that somebody is interacting with? Yes. When I refer to the back end, what I'm referring to is the part of the system that the eligibility staff of DCF uses in order to determine eligibility in order to troubleshoot to field questions to basically do the job that they're required to do

to administer these programs. So that back end, that, you know, the legacy mainframe has not been updated. And in court, in a, you know, in a recent hearing, the lawyers for the state have even described that system as so old, it predates the computer mouse. So if that system is inadequate and aging, then it ties the hands of those frontline workers who need it to solve problems for the people who depend on public assistance to afford things like food and health care. Let's talk about the court rulings on this. Walk us through the process that these notices have gone through in the legal system. Yeah. So as I mentioned before, the Florida Health Justice Project sued the state over those notices, arguing that they were confusing, that they didn't include necessary information that people would need in order to verify whether or not they actually are ineligible and then appeal that ruling in 2026 at the beginning of this year in January, a federal judge agreed with the plaintiffs. and ruled that the letters weren't just confusing and vague, but inaccurate and contradictory,

and also required the state to do several things, send out corrected notices to the people who received those inaccurate letters and those confusing letters, stop sending out termination letters until it fixed the system and make it very clear to people what the pathway for appeal is. So how can they request a hearing? And let them know that they can request a hearing and how do they go about doing that? And you mentioned that the state had argued that. that it was hard or nearly impossible for them to fix these confusing Medicaid notices. But once the court ruled, it only took them a couple months to get this right.

Right. Like once the judicial order was issued, the state managed to send out those corrected notices by May 1st. So looking ahead, now that these new federal restrictions are taking effect this week, that ends Medicaid eligibility for many lawfully present immigrants who don't yet have green cards. one, do we know how Florida will be impacted and do this court ruling have any bearing on that process? No. So in terms of the termination notices, the judge only put a hold on termination letters for that class of people. Termination letters for everyone else kept going out. And termination letters as of October 1st that are being sent out based on immigration status have also started going out too. So in terms of whether or not you're going to receive a letter, that ruling doesn't have any bearing. But, you know, you might be able to look at it and look at what was problematic about those letters and sort of ask, do we need to ask those same questions about these letters going out? Like, will people have the right information they need to determine whether or not their Medicaid is being terminated incorrectly?

And do they have access or will they have access to hearings or the call center? And I think especially for this class of people, one of the kind of the compounding issues here is that this is a specific class of people, many of whom, like we said, are lawful. present residents, but who are immigrants, are maybe less likely to come forward and make noise about this? Yeah, I mean, I think so. And the other thing you have to think about is so while in the Chey-N-D case, the one we've been talking about, we've been talking about the system's inability to accurately determine whether or not people were eligible or not based on income.

In this case, you have to look at what are the databases the state is using to determine someone's immigration status and whether or not that's accurate. So, you know, I think there's a different set of questions, but they clearly overlap. Sharmilla Venkatasuban is the Florida Trib's senior editor and health accountability reporter. Sharmilla, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much. The one big, beautiful bill act will also have a drastic impact on SNAP. Similar rollbacks for non-citizens take effect here, but so too do expanded work requirements.

But the biggest change is how SNAP is funded and administered. previously the federal government covered the benefits and shared the administrative costs with the states 50 to 50. Now states bear 75% of the administrative costs and they would have to cover part of the cost of benefits because of new rules around error rates. Here to talk about those changes is Cindy Huddleston, senior policy analyst at the Florida Policy Institute. Cindy, thank you for joining the roundup. Thank you for having me. There you are, Cindy. Yeah, I'm excited to be able to talk about these cost share shifts because it's not something that I think a lot of people are aware of and certainly not aware of how drastic that impact may be on Floridians and the people who are participating in SNAP.

So the cost share shifts have not yet been fully implemented here in Florida. Right. But we fear that these are really going to play a big part in a decline in the SNAP program, which has already started. Well, that's what I kind of think is important to focus this conversation in on. We talk about numbers, not just the state dollars that they may have to now pay to fully fund this program, but the number of people, just how many Floridians are on SNAP presently and how many are at risk of losing those benefits? Yeah, well, right now there are about 2.2 million people who are participating in SNAP in Florida. And the thing to keep in mind, and a lot of people don't realize this, that is out of those participants, more than half are estimated to be children and seniors.

And in addition to those folks, there are also hundreds of thousands of people with disabilities, as well as almost 100,000 veterans who participate in the program. And the program has a myriad of benefits that impact those participating households and the neighborhoods in which they live. So we're talking about people who, I don't think necessarily, if you ask someone who's participating in the SNAP program, that the first picture you have in your mind would be of children and seniors. But that is mainly who we're talking about. Right. You send about half. That's about a million people would be seniors and children. Exactly.

And you kind of touched on this earlier, but this is a program that in the last, you know, five years, you know, specifically has had serious, serious attrition to it. already. Absolutely. There has been a steep decline in Florida participation and it's about 621,000 people since last August, including a drop of over 247,000 children. Now this decline is much larger than anyone expected after HR1 or the one big beautiful bill was passed, not just in Florida, but throughout the whole country. And the conventional wisdom is that this is likely attributed to

to not only the specific policies in HR1 that cut eligibility to the SNAP program, but also to the $187 billion cut in federal funding for SNAP over a 10-year period that was enacted in that bill. So it's not just these new regulations that have gone into effect this week. There was already immense pressure on this program. Absolutely. States knew that there was going to be pressure on them to cut their error rates to minimize the amount of cost share that they would.

have to be paying for grocery benefits and that a lot of that stress and anxiety caused states to implement policies and procedures that unfortunately have kept eligible people out of the program. And now, sorry, go ahead. I was going to say, now the cost share shifts have not been fully implemented here in Florida, but for the first time ever, HR1 is going to force many states with error rates of at least 6% to pay a part of the grocery benefits that the state provides to families in need. And it's a range of percentage of the states will have to pay. But if the state's error rate is 6% or over, then they will be having to pay a portion

of the cost of grocery benefits. Yeah. And I want to dive a little bit deeper to that in just a moment. But let's fully try and paint the picture on who is no longer eligible for SNAP as of these October 1st regulations that are that are in effect now. I think primarily we've talked about permanent resident non-citizens, but they've also expanded work requirements, right? Can you explain that? Yeah, absolutely. One of the cuts in HR1 expands the categories of people who will only be able to get food assistance for three months in a three-year period if they don't meet a mandatory

20-hour-per-week work reporting requirement. And this cut. extends that work reporting requirement to older participants up to age 65, people who are experiencing homelessness, parents of children at least 14 years old, veterans, and some former foster youth. Now, when this eligibility restriction was announced, DCF estimated that it almost immediately put the benefits of roughly 181,000 current participants in the state at risk. which is unfortunate. We know that most people who can work in SNAP do work, but because jobs that pay low wages

have very little flexibility many times. People in those jobs have very little flexibility over what their schedule is, and they find themselves scheduled by their bosses, often to work less than 20 hours a week. Many also have to take off work on occasion in an emergency, for example, to take care of a sick child.

So those benefits for these people are at risk. So are there are there carve outs though? Or are there carve outs for folks who are in this new work requirement category who may have a disability or some other reason they can't be gainfully employed for 20 hours a week? Yes, absolutely. And that's important for people to know them out and to be able to advocate for themselves. Because we see over and over examples of people who have medical conditions that should take them out of this. requirement who are nevertheless being subjected to work requirements and who have been losing

their benefits. So it's very important that people be aware of what these new requirements are and be able to advocate for themselves to be sure that they don't lose their benefits improperly. And you just heard our conversation with Charmilla van Kada-Suban about the mistake or the incomprehensible of one judge called them letters that were sent out to folks who were then uneligible for Medicaid. Is there an issue that there may be some kind of false negatives or confusing messages sent out to people like you mentioned who may have a medical reason not to work and may be kicked off anyway if they can't advocate for themselves? Absolutely. We hear not only about people who misunderstand a notices, but also just about mistakes that are made on the part of

the state and subjecting people to work requirements who shouldn't be. There are also people who have undiagnosed medical conditions, especially some people who have mental conditions that might prohibit them or prevent them from being able to work 20 hours a week, who are being funneled into these work requirements, and yet have very little chance of getting and keeping a job that allows them to work at least 20 hours a week. And we know that when people lose their benefits because of this work requirement, that not only are they more likely to go hungry, they're also forced, you know, deeper into poverty, which is not conducive to work. Right. Can you give us an idea for those who still are on SNAP? What is an idea of how much

are they receiving per day or per week? Yeah. The amount that people receive in SNAP is quite modest. I do want to say, though, that even though it's modest, it goes a very long way to help prevent food insecurity in the state. Most people in the state get about, about a little over $6 a day, which is not very much to be able to put healthy food on the table. But it does, but it is significant if you have nothing and are struggling to put food on the table at all. So it's a very low amount, not at all, a generous amount that you get in stamp very modest, but it is nevertheless very important. Right. I mean, $6 a day.

It is an assistance program. That is what the A and SNAP stands for, but does not seem like $6 a day could cover the cost of a full meal. It does not, which makes another thing that has gone in place in Florida, which is kind of incongruous when you consider the amount of SNAP benefits that people are getting are food restrictions in what you can buy with your stamp benefits.

Right. And even though, you know, it may seem like it makes sense to be able to restrict the kinds of foods that people can buy with SNAP. Cindy, I'm sorry, I'm sorry to cut you off. I want you to hang on the line because I want to continue this conversation after just a very short break if you'll hang out with us. I sure will.

You're listening to The Florida Roundup from your Florida Public Radio Station. This is the Florida Roundup. I'm Carlton Gillespie. Next week on our program, Florida's ballot amendment three. If it passes, it could have big implications for local municipalities and the services they provide. That's especially true for services like libraries. That means budget cuts. and staff reductions. It could even mean your local library closes down. How would that make you feel?

What does your local library mean to you? Radio at the Florida Roundup.org. That's next week. This week, we're continuing our conversation with Sidney Huddlestone, senior policy analyst at the Florida Policy Institute about the changes to snap that took effect this week and what that means for Florida. Cindy, you're still with us? Yes, I am. Thank you for holding over and sorry for cutting you off before the break, but we were talking about the benefits for SNAP recipients are somewhere around $6 a day. But the other side of that, the compounding issue there, is that the types of food and the things you're able to purchase with those $6 has changed. Yes, it changed last year. And it was in what the state says is an attempt to help families participating in SNAP eat a healthy diet.

We in Florida began restricting the types of food you can buy with SNAP last year to exclude certain things like soda, energy drinks, ultra-processed desserts. And I get that this may sound like something you can get behind, but with the low benefit amounts in the SNAP program, especially in Florida where we have very high food inflation compared to most other states, ensuring that families eat a healthy diet really has to begin with adequate benefits. and incentives to be able to buy healthier foods. We know from studies that were done on Florida and how SNAP participants spend their money, that participants would overwhelmingly prefer to purchase healthier items if they could afford those options with their monthly SNAP benefits and had transportation to get to affordable stores.

Okay. But for the most part, this is not in the cards for a lot of SNAP participants. Okay. I want to go to Ed in Jacksonville, who's called in. He has some questions about the work requirement. Ed, go ahead. You're on the Florida Roundup. Yeah, I mean, I'm over 65 and I'm working.

I won the lottery yet. So what is wrong with, yeah, and I have a health issue, by the way. But, you know, you do what you do? What is it wrong with people who are healthy and the 65 who are not taking care of more children or their guardians to somebody who might be disabled or like a parent to be able to work 20 hours? I believe they can also volunteer 20 hours because people who are healthy should be doing something except for short-term benefit is fine. It's long-term benefit here that seems to be the one that seems to be the problem.

I mean, because I can tell you, a lot of these people are working, just working under the table, or they're in a criminal activity that is stealing weak at, and they'll report that. Okay, Ed, Ed, thank you so much for your call. Cindy, I want your response to Ed's comments. Yeah, I think that studies have shown that most people in SNAP program who can work do work. And the problem is that there are so many things that can go wrong with these SNAP reporting work requirements. And we see it happen. We see it happening in Florida.

We've seen it happening in other states. That it puts the benefits of people who are trying their best to meet this requirement at risk. There are exceptions carved out for people who have medical. conditions that prevent them from working. But we see even with those folks that they fall through the cracks and are being referred to work when they can't. And it's just a slippery slope for many people that they can't climb out of or get back up the hill after they're being told they're being sanctioned and lose their benefits. Okay. I want to jump now to the administrative cost. I know this is something you really wanted to talk about because this is maybe underspoken about. But how much more

is the state set to pay now with this new split with the federal government where Florida now pays 75% of the administrative costs of SNAP? The administrative costs for SNAP are at 75% are going to be about let's see about 205 million every year starting in fiscal year 2027. But the big threat is going to come when we're going when Florida starts having to pay for, grocery benefits. And unfortunately, right now, because of Florida's snap error rate, we look like we're going to be on the hook to pay for about a billion dollars the first year that we start happening to pay for grocery benefits. That's just in the grocery benefits. And the reason that that's happening is because of our what's called the error rate. What is the error rate?

Yeah, the error rate. And there's a lot of misunderstanding about what an error rate is. An error rate in the SNAP program is by and large unintentional mistakes that are made by either the household or the agency. It's not just households. It also looks at what the agency has done. And because there's very little, according to USDA and other studies that have been conducted on the SNAP program, there is very little fraud that actually goes on the SNAP program. So we're talking about unintentional errors that people are committing that or the state is committing that either underpay people, people or overpay people. So those are what error rates are.

Florida has been working, I believe, I believe them when they said they've been working diligently to get that error rate down knowing that this cost share shift was going to be coming. But unfortunately, it hasn't been enough. And at this point, we're at this point now, we're just gonna have to wait until a year from now when the error rate for this year for 2026 is released

before we'll know what flood we'll have to pay, but unfortunately, all the signs point toward us having to pay the maximum amount for grocery benefits, which would be about a billion dollars. And so the level of error rate, right, to pay that max amount is somewhere like 6%, is that right? Yes. And Florida's rate is near 12. Yes, it is.

States that have snap error rates of 6 to 7.99% have to pay 5% of the cost of benefits. If you have an error rate of 8 to 9.99%, you have to pay 10% of the cost of benefits. And if your error rate like Florida is 10% or higher, you're going to be on the hook to pay 15% of the cost of benefits. So it sounds like the state will pay more for SNAP while serving less people with that service. That's not the only downside to this, right? It's not that SNAP now gets more expensive for the state per person. but the loss of SNAP money has big impacts in the local communities where it is dispersed, right? Absolutely.

People spend their SNAP benefits by and large in their local communities. So we know that, you know, small business owners, you know, small stores are really going to suffer the brunt also along with participants. And in addition to just the billion dollars that Florida may be on the hook to pay for grocery benefits when it goes into a, effect. Florida has also, when they've tried in trying to get the snap error rate down, we know that states like Florida have been taking a lot of measures to reduce those rates by policies. And we don't have a full picture of what Florida's been doing. But we do know that they have taken and implemented certain policies to attempt to reduce the error rate. But we unfortunately think that some of that could have also contributed to the enormous decline. in participation in Florida that was unexpected, even though we expected H.R. 1, the one big, beautiful bill, to mean a decline in participation. No one thought that the decline would be to the extent that it has been. Sydney Huddleston is a senior policy analyst at the Florida Policy Institute. Cindy, thank you for your time, a conversation that it sounds like we'll be having for a few

years to come. Thank you. October 1st is also the date, a batch of state laws take effect. They range from increased penalties for animal cruelty and rental fraud to Meg's law, which bans the sale of nitrous oxide from gas stations and smoke shops. The law is named after Kathleen Dahl's sister. Meg was a baby of our family, sadly passed away at age 29 as a result of her addiction to nitrous oxide. She was actually found behind a smoke shop in Orange County in Orlando. Meg's law also creates felony penalties for the manufacture and distribution of Xylus. known as the street drug, Trank, with exceptions for veterinary uses, and now you can get a vanity license plate supporting the ultimate fighting championship. But most consequently, for many

Florida workers, the final increase of Florida's minimum wage is here. In 2020, voters approved a wage that would gradually increase until this year. From now on, the wage will adjust with inflation. But now that it's finally here amid a growing affordability crisis, how much does $15 an hour help workers in Florida? And is it putting a strain on businesses and communities? Samantha Padgett from the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association says businesses are already dealing with higher prices across the board. You absolutely want your team to be well paid and to receive a fair wage, but you also have to look at on the balance. What does that do to the ability of the business to continue to operate and to thrive? Joining us to talk about this is Dr. Michael

Snipes, an associate professor of instruction of economics at USF's Sarasota Manatee campus. Dr. Snipes, thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me. So because of this rise, Florida's minimum wage has gone up more than 75% in six years. That's bound to have some big changes on the economy statewide, but $15 an hour means different things in different parts of the state. $15 an hour may not seem much to someone who lives in, say, Miami-Dade or Tampa, but it does. to someone in Levy County, for instance.

How is this change impacting those local economies? Well, I think that it's going to have two primary effects that really are going to affect the entire state. And one is when we increase this minimum wage to $15, that's going to represent an increase in cost to firms. So firms are going to see their costs go up, specifically their labor costs go up. And so the question then becomes, well, what are businesses going to do? with that increase in cost.

And most of the time they're gonna try and shift most of that increase in cost onto consumers in the form of higher prices. So there is a possibility for this to have an inflationary effect and that could kind of make the inflation that we have already slightly worse. And at the same time that it has maybe an increase in cost negative effect for business,

it's also going to have a positive impact for workers. Now $15, you know, like you said, said is going to have different purchasing power in different parts of the state. And I think that it's important to really kind of reframe the conversation about that idea of purchasing power. So it's not so much how much income you have that matters. It's the purchasing power that that money represents that really matters. So if we have an increase from $14 to $15, I mean, that's certainly not going to be a bad thing. That's going to be putting more money into you know, minimum wage workers' pockets. But at the same time, if it's not necessarily keeping up

with inflation or keeping up with growth in the economy, then really our purchasing power might actually be going down or holding steady, even though we might have more money in our pocket. Right. Okay. So you've touched on inflation, which has been very stubborn in Florida. How much of that is attributable to the growth in minimum wage we've seen over the last six years? It's not much. The inflation that we're seeing now is really due to different policy choices. Part of the good thing about how this law was implemented is that it gave businesses plenty of warning that this was going to happen. So businesses are going to have an opportunity to make adjustments, make plans, and try and minimize any cost effects that this might have on those businesses. A lot of the inflation that we've been seeing, especially over the past two years, is coming from different administration choices.

primarily in Washington but also in Tallahassee and so a lot of the growth is not necessarily coming from these changes in the minimum wage laws they're coming from different policy choices which which are what like what can give us an example of some of those things that have have increased inflation or have had those kind of impacts on keeping inflation up sure the primary one is tariffs and this has been an issue since the current administration entered office and when we have you know we have certain tariffs on certain of certain goods that are 50%.

So you're increasing the cost of that good, of that material by 50%. And so if we have people who are importing lumber from Canada or steel from another country, those types of goods, if they're subject to a tariff, and many of them are, they're so fundamental and so kind of core to the American economy that every industry in some way is going to be using steel,

is going to be using petroleum. So anytime we have a tariff, that's increasing the cost. the cost of doing business, not just for one sector of the economy, but really for the entire economy. So this tariffs and the uncertainty surrounding the tariffs, when they're going to be there, when they're not going to be there, how big they are, that's really been a big driver for inflation, especially over the past two years. And it's something that impacts the purchasing power of people like you were talking about, right? Because, yeah, it's not just wages are going

up, grocery prices, gas, housing, construction costs, medical costs. Those, are all up and there is a difference between a $15 minimum wage and a living wage. Can you explain that? I mean, how much is this rise in wage offsetting all of those increases? Not very much. I mean, the whole idea behind the minimum wage in the first place was to give people the minimum income that they would need in order to have a quality of life. And when we kind of approach it like that, the minimum wage is a minimum wage is a minimum.

is really kind of designed to have a certain standard of living in mind kind of built into that. Right. But when we have growth in the economy and pretty steady growth in the economy like we've had for the past couple years, if a lot of that value that's being generated and a lot of that production and a lot of that growth, is it necessarily going down to the people who produce it? Isn't necessarily going down to these minimum wage workers. A lot of the new value generation that's happened over the past couple years has stayed concentrated

at the top 10% at the top 1%. at the top 1%. And so this increase in the minimum wage, it's not going to hurt. I mean, it's certainly going to be beneficial, but it's not really keeping up with the rest of the economy. I mean, tying it to the consumer price index, that's certainly a good thing.

But that's really only kind of focusing on one particular piece. If we focus on just kind of growth in the economy in general, we're looking at a living wage, and again, living wage, what's the minimum wage that you need in order to lead, you know, some kind of life. When we look at what that minimum wage should be, not just with inflation, but with growth in the economy, we're talking more close to about $25 as a minimum wage as opposed to 15. I'm Carlton Gillespie.

You're listening to the Florida Roundup from your Florida Public Radio Station. I guess the other, the aspect of that, right, the living wage and the kind of these minimum jobs having this purchasing power that you're talking about. And you're the economist here. So please correct me if I'm using this. phrase wrong, but the velocity of money, right? We heard about it when we were talking about SNAP recipients. They spend their money in their local communities, and that can help the economy overall

because, you know, $50 in a minimum wage worker's hands moves throughout different sectors of that local economy. That's definitely true. You can kind of think of it as these ripple effects. So somebody might have an increase in their income, say, due to an increase in minimum wage, Well, we can think of that as kind of throwing a rock into a pond, well, we're going to have an initial splash, an initial benefit to the people who are receiving this higher minimum wage, but it absolutely will ripple through the economy. So if I increase my spending because I have an increase in my minimum wage, well, that's going to represent an increase in income for the businesses that I spend my money at.

And then that's going to represent profit, and then they can take that profit and use it to pay their workers, pay for any maintenance or insurance that they might have. So, yeah, we're thinking about these minimum wage laws, it's really kind of more important to think about having that living wage as opposed to just having a policy in place that provides a minimum wage. Thank you. Dr. Michael Snipes is an associate professor of instruction of economics at USF Sarasota Manatee campus. You are listening to The Florida Roundup from your Florida Public Radio Station. This is the Florida Roundup. Carlton Gillespie. We've been talking about issues of affordability and how many Floridians are feeling priced out. Beyond health care and food costs, another added expense for families is a rise in electricity bills. So what's behind those increases? From our partner station WUSF in Tampa,

Gabriella Paul investigates the rising cost of power. Thaddeus Williams sometimes lives by candlelight to save on energy. Yes, yes. Who we? Pull that you out right there. Today, the yellow glow of various patron saints shining through the tall glass jars illuminates his living room. Despite efforts like these, William says his Tampa Electric Bill is still moving in the same direction. Tico is just going up and up and up and up. You know, it shouldn't be this high for electricity. He pays about 200 bucks a month for power, although lately he says it's been closer to three. William says that feels high for a family of two that's cutting back on usage. He's a 75-year-old retired veteran, renting a two-bedroom house with his young daughter.

I'm thinking I'm using the same amount each month. And then I try to use less by not cutting on different lights. And then it still be the same thing. At the end of the money, it'd be more. Williams is not alone in his frustration. Data shows typical Tico bills jumped 60% in the last decade, outpacing inflation. It's a similar story for investor-owned utilities, Duke Energy, Florida, and Florida Power and Light. Brooke Ward is an affordable energy advocate in Hillsborough County.

She says the climbing cost of power comes down to two things. The first, most people know about. Rates is a term of art. That is specifically how much you're being charged for the unit of energy that is being used. However, that is only a fraction of your bill. Then there are surcharges. It's how investor-owned utilities pass on costs to customers. Sitting at his kitchen table, Williams looks over his list of charges.

charges on a recent bill. We're paying for stuff on our bill that we have no idea what we're paying for, you know, on that Tico bill. Other than our lives, they got all kind of surcharges and this kind of charge and that kind of charge. Unlike base rates, which utilities can only increase every few years, these items can be tacked on annually. Some are known as pass-through costs.

Like they sound, they directly pass on costs like the price of fuel to customers without markup. Then there's clauses on your bill that help utilities recover money. for things like storms or energy advancements. Andrew Sutton, a representative with Florida Power and Light, says that's because customers don't just pay for the energy they use on the back end. They pay for every part of the process. First is the cost of fuel to generate electricity at our power plants.

Second is the cost of delivering that electricity to your home through poles, wires, and substations across the grid. And third is the ongoing work to maintain and strengthen that system. On a typical bill, customers like Williams pay for tree trimming, raising equipment, and undergrounding power lines under a storm protection clause. They also cover the cost of dismantling old power plants and building new ones. If there's a bad storm or hurricane, customers pay for that too. Duke Energy Florida representative Anna Gibbs says investments like these are crucial to keeping up

with the energy demand in the state. Duke Energy, a company that is relied on to produce power for places like hospitals and 911 centers and, you know, all different types of critical facilities. We absolutely have to have the ability to produce power 24-7, 365 days a year. This is the justification often made by utilities to the state board that approves or denies requests to raise electricity prices. Walt Trierweiler is with the Office of Public Council, which represents consumers' interests in these cases. I don't argue that utilities aren't entitled to a rate increase. I'm trying to establish what's fair. Let's transparently look at what they have, what they need,

and why customers should be asked to pay for it. At the end of the day, he says utilities have more incentive to turn a profit than to keep prices low. Investor-owned utilities owe their fiduciary responsibilities and allegiance to their shareholders. the people who own company stock. They're answerable to them, not to customers. It's part of the reason a customer, like Williams, can struggle to pay his power bill

at the same time his utility is raking in record profit. Last year, investor-owned utilities made the most money off Florida's residential customers compared to any other state, more than $6 billion in profits. Still, officials with the investor-owned utilities in the Tampa Bay region say affordability for their consumers is top of mind. Sherry Jacobs with Tico says that she can understand the financial stress on customers, especially in a state where shutting off the AC is rarely an option. Affordability is a real concern. And especially in Florida, where the summer months can be so challenging for power bills because of our air conditioning use, we know that puts extra strain on

folks. Energy advocates like Brooke Ward push back on the status quo. The solution is not to turn off your RACC. The solution is not to go without electricity. The problem is being caused by the system. Advocacy groups in Florida are calling for reforms to that system, like capping utilities profits and increasing scrutiny to the state board regulating utilities. In the meantime, residents like Williams are left with few good options. He's joined his utilities payment assistance program. He's already cutting back on energy where he can. And as a renter, he can't weatherize his home or put up solar panels without landlord approval. So for now, Williams sits with his daughter in his candlelit living room and says faith is getting him through. I pray. And my little prayer

warrior here, when she can see me going through, she's, Daddy, take a deep breath. Take a deep breath. Let's pray. And we pray, and God has got me through. I'm Gabriella Paul in Tampa. That was the first installment of a three-part series on Energy from WUSF. Stay tuned next week for a part too about whether solar power could help bring down energy costs. More on energy costs. This week, Tico filed a proposal detailing how the utility will manage the cost that large-scale data centers add to the grid. Tico's plan creates a new rate for large-scale customers like data centers and imposes certain requirements for those users. Those customers would also be required to sign a 20-year contract to ensure that if Tico builds

more power infrastructure to support their utility needs. the company would have to pay financial penalties if it leaves before then. A new state law requires all corporate electric utilities in the state to submit plans for how they plan to protect consumers from the costs associated with these power-intensive data facilities. Thursday, October 1st was the deadline to submit. Tico submitted its plan one day before. The Public Service Commission must approve any plans before they can take effect. Duke Energy submitted its plan back in April. Meanwhile, Florida Power and Light, moved ahead of the state's mandate.

Its plan was approved by the commission in late 2025 and has been in effect since the beginning of this year. I'm Carlton Gillespie, and you're listening to the Florida Roundup from your Florida Public Radio Station. From fossil fuels to climate change, a term missing from Florida's newly proposed K-12 science standards. After nearly 20 years, the Florida Department of Education is making changes to its standards. But first, the state is asking for public input.

As Central Florida Public Media's education reporter Kayla Kissel tells us, at a statewide virtual listening session, one word came up again and again. Evolution. Evolution. Evolution. Evolution. Evolution. Evolution. Nearly 300 people joined the online listening session for the first rewrite of Florida's science standard since 2008. But two major topics are largely absent from the material, evolution and climate change. The state's education commissioner says the new standards emphasize observation,

reasoning in the natural world without ideology. Robin Williams, a retired biology and environmental science teacher, spoke during the public comment period. She said teaching science without evolution is like turning the clock back 100 years. Evolution is a fundamental underlying process unifying all of biology. To leave it out is ideology posing as biology. Other educators support the new standards like Andrea Boracach, director of the University of Central Florida School of teacher education. She says as long as science is done seriously, the rewrite is long overdue and exciting. It's really not about any particular word or words. It's more about the processes that the students are doing. But it is defined by accountability for like a method. If approved, the standards

would be phased in over four years with teacher training beginning this school year. The department is accepting written comments and says it will use feedback from the listening tour to refine the standards before a state board of education vote in December. I'm Kayla Kissela. I'm Kayla Kisle. in Orlando. And finally, this week on the Florida Roundup, we explore the intersection of science and art. What better exemplifies this nexus than the Everglades? Writers like Zora Neal Hurston and Peter Matheson found high drama in the muck. Scientists also mined the swamp to understand how its waters help sustain South Florida. And beginning today, both will be featured at the Miccosukee Arts and Science Symposium. From our partner station, WLRN in Miami,

environmental editor Jenny Stilettovich spoke with the events organizers. Art and science are two sides of the same coin. They both originate from a place of wonder, creativity, asking questions, and seeking to understand truths. Kevin Kinnif is the chief sustainability officer for the Mikosukee tribe. As Houston was pointing to, in the end, it is about trying to interpret information and experiences. Houston is poet Houston Cyprus, who found the Love the Everglades movement and organize what would be the second symposium on art and science in the swamp.

We may tell the story differently. We may look at things differently, but I think we're all looking at the same thing just from our own unique perspectives. During the day-long event at the Mikasuki Casino and Resort, artists and scientists will take turns explaining what they do to tell the story of the Everglades. We try to represent very complex components of the Everglades landscape, and some of the best ways to do that is through maps and through interpretation of what the landscape shows us, which in and of itself is a beautiful expression. And I think that finding and how do we get this data, this experiences, is best achieved as a community effort.

Haitian filmmaker Dudley Alexis's new documentary Edge of Hope will be screened, followed by a discussion between Alexis and tribal activist Betty Osceola. There will also be field trips, a fashion show, a dance party, and what organizers describe as creative shenanigans. I'm Jenny Stilettovich in Miami. That's our program for today. The Florida Roundup is produced by WLRN Public Media in Miami, with assistance from WUSF in Tampa.

The show is produced by Bridget O'Brien. Denise Royal is WLRN's senior producer of content streaming and news products. WLRN's director of live original programming is Katie Munoz, and the vice president of radio is Peter Merritt. The program's technical director is M.J. Smith. Engineering help from Doug Peterson, Harvey Brassard, and Ernesto J. Our theme music is provided by Miami jazz guitarist Aaron Leibos at Aaron Leibos.com. If you missed any of today's show, you can download it and pass programs on the NPR app.

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