Who we are

Floridians United For Progress LLC is an organization that is dedicated to fighting for a better fututre for all Floridians. Florida is an extraordinary place and it’s enviornment and people deserve to be protected and deserve to have the conditions to thrive. The natural beauty, vibrant communities, and rich history, make this state a place worth fighting for…and we are here to be part of that fight.

Why We’re in This Fight – so many reasons, but here are a few…

Education

Florida has consistently ranked last in support for public schools K-12. Teacher compensation is 50th nationally and the average salary is about $18,000 less than other states. In addition, Florida ranks 41st in per-pupil spening meaning the government is not investing in our students. There’s no need to wonder why Florida has a teacher shortage.

  • Privatization is also a large problem as around $4 Billion taxpayer dollars are being siphoned away from public school students and given to the wealthy to subsidize their private school educations (about 70% of recipients already attend private schools.)
  • Charter schools are also expanding and very problematic as they don’t have any formal accountability to the communities they serve. For-Profit companies that promise innovation and strong academic programs far too often are unstable, don’t adequately support students, and don’t need to meet the same requirements as public schools in terms of academic performance.
  • The Network for Public Education Reports that “The consequences of these decisions far too often affect the children least likely to seek alternatives: those in poverty, those with disabilities, those in rural communities, and those whose families lack the time or resources to navigate the educational options.”

Housing Afforability

Affordable housing is a huge issue in Florida as rental rates are increasing, property insurance premiums are basically unaffordable, and stagnant wages aren’t aligned with the housing costs. In addition, corporations are buying up much of the residential property here and taking away homes from individuals and families.

  • Rent prices have increased drastically from around $1,194 in 2015 to $2,208 today.
  • There are not enough affordable housing units (only 25 available for every 100 low-income renters).
  • A report from the Florida Housing Coalition notes that 2.5 million Floridians spend about 30% of their income on housing costs and 1.5 million more spend over 50% of their income on housing.
  • Corporate investors own around 120,000 residential homes and that number continues to grow. Private equity also owns more than 10% of Florida’s single-family rentals. This means that individuals and families are getting pushed out of the market to buy a home.

Worker’s Rights

Tallahassee is anti-worker and cares deeply about big business, corporations, and utlra weathly and have been destroying our workers and worker’s rights. They’ve desicrated the Unions making it extremely difficult to organize and fight for better working conditions. Many workers do not get sick days, have incredibly low wages, and don’t have collective bargaining rights to fight back.

Moves like these are titled “right to work”, but in the end they really equate to a right for employers to screw over their employees. In addition, minimum wage and average salaries lag far behind many other states, making it difficult to survive with such high costs of living in Florida. Florida has one of the largest wage gaps in the nation. The median annual wage is around $46,860. However, according to a study, the cost of living is $56,148 in the state. That means the average Floridian is just over $9,200 short every year of affording the essentials.

Healthcare

Florida’s health care system is being set back decades. Women do not have bodily autonomy, they are trying to eliminate vaccine mandates, the government did not expand Medicaid, hospitals are grossly understaffed, and there are physician shortages in rural areas. Not only that, in this land of old people, Florida is near the bottom nationally for senior healthcare access and availability under medicare and medicaid.

Let’s add to that list because Floridians for Affordable Health Care reports that Florida is in the top 5 most expensive states for health care. Because the subsidies have dropped off, hundreds of thousands of Floridians have lost their health care and about 12% total of the population are uninsured. All this puts people at a greater risk of extreme medical debt or making the choice to sacrifice their health or risk their lives to avoid that debt.

Environment

Overdevelopment has drastically harmed the wetlands, wildlife habitats, and other natural spaces in the state. More apartments, houses, stores, data centers, infratructure, and everything else that goes into building degrades our natural spaces and strains our resources, like clean water. Examples of overdevelopment include wetlands being filled, forests cleared, farmland paved over, gopher tortoises being bulldozed over, and more all to make way for high density housing projects. This not only threatens our ecosystems, but it increases gridlock, flooding, sinkholes, and depletes the Aquifer. And the government wants more and continues to sacrifice Florida to the developers. Just this year they passed House Bill 1389, which expands the range of eligible building sites and limits local government from restricting certain types of building.

There is also the governments failure to address the underlying causes of sea level rise and increased hurricanes…yes, despite the science they still don’t believe in or want to address climate change. This means they’re spending ridiculous amounts on short term solutions for flood control that fail to address the cause. In 2024, they passed House Bill 1645, which resulted in protecting profits for the fossil fuel industry rather than protecting the people by addressing climate change and the ongoing environmental impacts.