John Morgan suggested he couldn’t think of a better way to spend several million dollars.

“All of the money and all the time was well worth it,” he said. “What this does for people … it is life-changing.”

Morgan, a prominent Orlando personal-injury lawyer, made his comments in a video news conference Wednesday, the day after Florida voters passed by a slim margin Morgan’s Amendment 2 ballot initiative to gradually increase the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour.

His measure passed with 60.8% voter approval, just enough to surpass a 60% supermajority that Florida required for passage of that amendment and five others on the 2020 ballot.

The amendment requires employers to raise Florida’s minimum wage to $10 in 2021. Then, the minimum wage will increase by $1 a year until it reaches $15 an hour on September 30, 2026.

“We barely got to 60%, but we got it,” Morgan said. “And last night, the working poor in Florida won in a very, very big and forever way. And not only did they win, but their children won, and forever and ever, this raise will be here … maybe still not enough, but at least enough to give people dignity.”

The passage marked a significant victory for Florida’s low-income workers, including service workers who carry Tampa Bay’s and Central Florida’s economies on their shoulders.

It also marked a major victory for Morgan, the crusader and maverick founder of a ubiquitous Florida law firm that trumpets a “For the people” slogan. Earlier, he emerged as a force in Florida’s successful medical marijuana ballot initiative, and he reiterated strong feelings Wednesday that marijuana should be legalized for recreational use as well.

Morgan said Wednesday he spent about $6 million and “an inordinate amount of time” getting Amendment 2 on Florida’s ballot and passed. His “good fortune” and “good luck” obligated him to “share that good fortune with others,” he said.

He said he and others had to "fight like hell" against opponents, including Florida’s governor, House speaker, and Senate president, plus the Florida Chamber of Commerce and the restaurant and hospitality industry.

“So,” he said, “I feel like David vs. Goliath in my battle here.”

As Morgan celebrated, opponents of the measure spoke out strongly, criticizing supporters as uninformed.

The Florida Chamber of Commerce warned that the gradual increase in the state’s minimum wage will result in an expansion in automation, a loss of jobs, a decrease in worker benefits, a flight of businesses to other states, and an increase in the state’s cost of living.

“I'm disappointed that it's obvious that people didn't really understand how this was going to hurt people with low skill levels in the job market,” Dr. Jerry Parrish, chief economist and director of research at the Florida Chamber Foundation, told Spectrum News on Wednesday. “This is going to have an effect on you if you have a low skill level, trying to maintain the job over the next few years.”

In the medium term, Parrish said, companies may begin to cut benefits and to decrease the number of available full-time jobs in favor of part-time jobs.

He speculated on the possible effects of the amendment on restaurant servers and other tipped employees. Restaurants must ensure that servers earn at least the minimum wage through a combination of tips and salary. Florida’s so-called tipped minimum wage now stands at $5.54, the minimum hourly rate that employers must pay tipped employees.

“Let's say you're out to eat, and you used to think your server was making $5 an hour, and now they're making at least $15 an hour,” Parrish said. “Are you going to tip as much? And, certainly, if you get one of these 20% restaurant surcharges, which we've seen in other parts of the country, you might not tip at all.

“I've talked to a lot of restaurant owners, and they say their wait staff was totally against Amendment 2, because they're pretty sure they're going to end up making less.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center, meanwhile, hailed the passage of Amendment 2 as a benefit to impoverished Floridians, particularly women of color.

“The new wage structure will give people a chance to lead a more economically stable life,” Carrie Boyd, Florida policy counsel for the SPLC Action Fund, said in a news release.

With a reference to his own impoverished upbringing, Morgan emphasized the issue of income inequality and his belief that all people deserve a living wage and a dignified existence.

He delved into world history and warned of social uprisings that led to Castro’s Cuba, toppled the czars of Russia, and cost Marie Antoinette her head.

“All the unrest and the anger that we have in this country, I believe comes from income inequality and a lack of dignity,” he said.

Regarding social uprisings, he said, “It has happened throughout centuries — that, at a certain point, the people storm the gates and say, ‘I need help.’ I've asked myself a bunch of times if I was so poor and my children were so hungry, would I steal food? And my answer is, yes, I would, but we shouldn't have to do that, not when we can do something like raise the minimum wage.”

He also spared no words for some critics and for billionaire chief executives who pay their workers poorly.

“People who work in these theme parks are living in their cars and showering at work,” he said. “It is sub-human. It's not fair.”

Told of an economics professor who believes the economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic make Amendment 2 a bad idea for Florida, Morgan said: “I have very little use for economic professors or economists. … There are true objections that I see, and then there are excuses. And this professor is making an excuse by using the pandemic, where six years down the road, the minimum wage goes to $15 an hour.

“I would just tell this professor, ‘Why don’t you try to live on ($8.56) an hour, and then you come back and tell me how your life is going?’”

As for arguments from business owners and lobby groups that the amendment will lead to layoffs, Morgan said: “That's a flat-out lie. Do you think the owner of the restaurant is going to wash the dishes? Do you think the owner is going to bus the tables? Do you think the owner's going to cook the food? Do you think the owner's going to mop the floors, or mow the grass? No way. That's a scare tactic. It's not going to work.”

He added: “They're going to be thanking me, because what they're going to have two, three years down the road is less turnover, happier employees, better morale, better productivity, and a retention of their workforce.”

Amendment 2 next goes to the Florida Legislature. After passage of the medical marijuana amendment in 2016, state lawmakers included language in the law that prohibited the smoking of marijuana for medical purposes. Morgan sued, arguing that a smoking ban didn’t align with language of the amendment, and he won.

Gov. Ron DeSantis in early 2019 signed into law a bill that removed the ban on smoking medical marijuana.

“I don't know what they're going to do or what they're going to try,” Morgan said of state legislators on the minimum-wage amendment. “I'm lucky that I'm friendly with (key legislators) so we can have a conversation, but if they try to undermine the will of the people, I'll do what I did last time: I'll sue the state, and I'll win.”