subtracting Float.MIN_VALUE from another float number has no effect in android application

Question

I am working on an android application where for a part of the app, I have 2 floating point values and I cannot have them be exactly the same because this is causing a bug in one of my screens. Those numbers are being sent from a server and are out of my control (e.g. I cannot force them to be different).

The app is written in Kotlin, but I assume that this issue is similar (if not exactly the same) for Java, as Kotlin uses the JVM behind the scenes.

I thought of a "creative" way of solving this without changing my logic too much, by subtracting Float.MIN_VALUE from one of them, making them almost, but not exactly the same. What I actually need to happen is for if(a == b) to fail (where b is actually a - Float.MIN_VALUE).

But to my surprise, when the code runs, if(a == b) returns true. When I opened the "evaluate" window in Android Studio here is what I found out:

Let me reiterate that currentPayment is a Float, so there shouldn't be any auto-conversions or rounding going on (like when dividing Float by an Int for example).

Let me also point out that I can guarantee that currentPayment is not Float.MAX_VALUE or -Float.MAX_VALUE (so the result of the operation is within the bounds of Float).

According to docs and this answer Float.MIN_VALUE is the smallest positive non-zero value of Float and has a value of 1.4E-45, which is confirmed here:

I also saw in another post (which I cannot find again for some reason), that this can also be thought of as the maximum precision of Float, which makes sense.

Since currentPayment is a Float, I would expect it should be able to hold any floating point value within the bounds of Float to it's maximum precision (i.e. Float.MIN_VALUE). Therefore I would expect currentPayment to NOT equal currentPayment - Float.MIN_VALUE, but alas that is not the case.

Can anyone explain this please?