FLORIDA (CBSMiami) – Several new laws take effect January 1, restricting this and cutting that, but one welcome law is an increase in Florida’s minimum wage.

By law, Florida’s estimated 210,000 minimum-wage workers will be paid no less than $7.79 an hour, a 12-cent increase, beginning January 1.

Under a 2004 constitutional amendment, Florida’s minimum wage is recalculated every year and is tied to the inflation rate. Florida is among 10 states that will increase the threshold next week, reports the News Service Of Florida.

The number of minimum wage jobs is a small percentage of the 7.5 million people employed in the Florida workforce.

The increase is expected to increase annual incomes of minimum wage workers by about $370 a year, according to data from the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington D.C.-based think tank that focuses on low-income wage issues.

Ninety percent of the low-wage workers are over age 20; 85 percent work 20 hours per week or more; 46 percent have at least some college education, the institute indicated.

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