PUNTA GORDA, Fla.—Minimum wage workers in Florida saw a pay increase on Thursday after nearly 61 percent of Florida voters approved Amendment 2 in the November 2020 election. Florida is the first state in the union to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour by ballot measure. However, it won’t reach $15 right away. For now, the amendment raises the wage from $8.56 per hour to $10 per hour beginning Sept. 30. Each year after that, the rate is set to increase by $1 until 2026. The last time Florida saw a minimum wage increase on the ballot was 2004, when Florida Amendment 5 was approved and 71 percent of voters approved of raising the minimum wage to $6.15 per hour. Twenty-six minimum wage increase measures were placed on the ballot from 1996 to 2018. Two measures in 1996 were defeated and the other 24 were approved. The federal minimum wage was …