Orlando Ranks 49th Out of 50 Markets for Wages
The Bureau of Labor Statistics released fresh numbers on the earning power of working Americans. The Orlando/Kissimmee market ranked forty-ninth out of fifty top markets for hourly wages. While it’s an improvement from being in last place much as it has been for many years, only Las Vegas ranked worse in this recent ranking.
The BLS numbers indicate a quarter of Central Florida jobs pay less than seventeen dollars an hour in the hospitality and personal care sectors; this in a market where the average rental rate hovers just below two thousand dollars a month, according to research from Zillow.
Area workers are blaming the financial impacts of the Trump Administration’s tariff policies, the effects of federal immigration policies on consumer prices and the stalling of federal services during the government shutdown for turning a precarious financial situation into something unmanageable.
Jennifer Quinones is a cook with the Patina Restaurant Group – she works at the Italian Pavillion at EPCOT where she has been preparing meals for Disney visitors for eleven years. She is a wage earner and has found herself struggling in this past year. Quinones is a member of UNITE HERE Local 737 – a service industry union representing more than nineteen-thousand hospitality workers in the region’s tourism corridor – including the Disney and Universal properties.
1199-SEIU United Healthcare Workers East represents healthcare workers in Florida – including hospital and nursing home employees. Sherry McCaslin is a member of 1199-SEIU and a certified nursing assistant with a physical rehabilitation clinic in Rockledge.
1199-SEIU has more than twenty-five thousand members in Florida – and the union has been fighting for higher wages for its employees and sounding the alarm over recent federal policies impacting their personal budgets – including immigration policies, the Federal DOGE cuts, the impacts of the Big Beautiful Bill and the fallout from the recent government shutdown.
Roxey Nelson is the Executive Vice President of 1199-SEIU United Healthcare Workers East. In speaking with Engage producer Richard Copeland, Nelson says she hasn’t seen her members’ wages increase with the cost of living in over a decade.
This trend is being felt in nearly every community in the country – but why is Central Florida, one of the top tourism destinations in America, so low in the ranking of wages? Rollins College associate professor of business Marc Sardy says the tourism industry is part of the problem.
CFPM’s One Small Step Draws to a Close
Central Florida Public Media listeners are well acquainted with StoryCorps – the initiative that connects the voices of individuals telling their stories with the rest of the world in an effort to “help us believe in each other by illuminating the humanity and possibility in us all – one story at a time.”
One Small Step is StoryCorps’s effort to match people together, with differing opinions, perspectives or backgrounds – to have a civil conversation, looking for shared experiences and ideas. The mission is to highlight the commonalities among members of a community, rather than dwelling on the differences.
Last year, Central Florida Public Media embarked on our own One Small Step excursion – spearheaded by Rebecca Fernandez, our Director of Community Collaboration. With the help of reporters Abe Aboraya and Kayla Kissell, the team spent the better part of the past two years putting together members of the Central Florida community. The initiative concludes this year, Fernandez and Kissell joined Engage producer Richard Copeland to talk about the mission and the impact of the program. They were also joined by two One Small Step participants – Chris Mondello and Shia Kirby.
UCF Alzheimer’s Research Incorporates Saliva and Songs
Scientists at the University of Central Florida are studying saliva from dementia patients to better understand how music can benefit aging brains.
It’s no secret that music impacts people. Hearing a familiar song, especially one from your formative years, can bring back all sorts of memories.
But there’s still a lot scientists don’t know about the effects of music, especially on people with dementia. Researchers at the University of Central Florida are hoping to learn more through a new partnership between UCF’s School of Performing Arts’ Pegasus String Quartet and the College of Medicine.
