Faraway Tallahassee is frequently and wildly out of touch with the daily lives of Floridians.
Higher utility bills? Hey, it’s only a few dollars a month. Unaffordable housing costs? They’re coming down. Sky-high property insurance? It’s getting better.
So let’s see how Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Legislature put a positive spin on a Florida Atlantic University poll showing that almost one in two Floridians are so strapped by the high cost of living that they are thinking of leaving the state.
That half the population believes life would be better in North Carolina or New Hampshire is a stunning indictment of the DeSantis record and a threat to the state’s economic future.
Sunshine and beaches are no longer enough. If even a fraction of FAU’s poll numbers translate into outmigration, it could be devastating.
A state built on growth
As the nation’s third-largest state, now home to an estimated 23.4 million people, Florida depends on population growth.
DeSantis can crow all he wants about an influx of conservatives fleeing to a deep-red Florida, and he predicts a mass exodus of New Yorkers to Florida who will not want to live in a city run by a socialist mayor.
But if they do come, there’s no guarantee they will stay in a state with some of the highest costs of living in the U.S.
Florida gained more than 700,000 new residents between 2021-2022, according to census data, but lost almost half a million, too.
When NBC News interviewed several of them last year, a theme emerged.
A West Palm Beach physician and his wife, a teacher, were having trouble making ends meet. A retail worker said her job paid for car insurance or homeowner’s insurance — not both. A Palm Beach private chef said money saved from not paying a state income tax was eaten up by car insurance, rent and food.
Too many political stunts
Tallahassee isn’t alone in ignoring pocketbook issues.
Palm Beach County commissioners approved 35,000 affordable housing units over 16 years, but the Palm Beach Post found that developers built fewer than 1,100.
Far too often, the DeSantis administration and state lawmakers have focused on cheap culture-war victories until a crisis forced them to act.
A devastating lack of affordable housing did not happen overnight. It exploded because too few people in power paid attention to the growing number of Florida residents who are unable to pay for a roof over their heads. It was comprehensively addressed only when it could no longer be ignored.
Lawmakers in both parties deserve credit for positive steps, including the insurance reforms that have triggered a $950 million refund to certain Progressive auto insurance customers.
But many have also been reluctant to acknowledge how fixes fall short. Take homeowners’ insurance. High-profile reforms brought insurers back into the state. Rates are no longer surging. But the average Broward premium would have to drop by roughly 31% to return to 2022 levels.
Then there’s electricity. The Public Service Commission that approves utility rates, with its members appointed by DeSantis, is no ally of ratepayers. The PSC is more lapdog than watchdog.
The Florida Phoenix reports the PSC has approved increasing utility bills by double digits for major utility companies since 2019, including 38% for Florida Power & Light and 68% for Tampa Electric.
A majority of legislators rejected PSC reforms that might curb hasty electricity hikes.
They also preempted local living wage ordinances. Had HB 541 or SB 676 passed this year, they would have “allowed” workers to opt out of minimum wages guaranteed by the Florida Constitution.
Vote with your pocketbook
Bills already teed up for the next session in January include HB 191, which makes it harder to receive unemployment benefits.
In keeping with Tallahassee’s habit of creating phony rage-bait to distract from real problems, a Broward lawmaker, Republican Rep. Hillary Cassel, has sponsored a bill outlawing Sharia law, as if ending the nonexistent threat of Muslim women in burqas would keep the lights on. It won’t.
Floridians don’t need to move away. They need to stay here and demand serious bipartisan solutions that work.
If the best that Florida lawmakers can come up with are ways to pay people less and ignore their utility costs, then Floridians should follow the example of fed-up voters in Virginia, New Jersey and New York — and find candidates who will.
The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Opinion Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman, and Executive Editor Gretchen Day-Bryant. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com.
