Minimum Wage Debate

NOTE: EACH question that you need to answer is in a box!

There are three main parts of rhetoric (the art of persuasive speaking or writing)
(examples)
1. Ethos-The speaker as trustworthy by the audience
2. Pathos-Emotional appeal to the audience
3. Logos-Logical appeal to the audience
WARMUP 1: What do you believe is the best approach to forming opinions about economics?
Choose one or two of the three parts of the rhetoric listed above. (Ethos, Pathos and/or
Logos)
I believe that logos are the best approach to form opinions on economics.

WARMUP 2: Agree or disagree: “Facts Don’t Care About Your Feelings.”

Agreed.

WARMUP 3: Should the government be allowed to tell a private company how much they
must pay their employees? Why or why not?
The government should not be allowed to tell private companies how much they
should pay their employees. Each company’s payments differ based on how their
business is doing. If the government were to regulate a certain of pay throughout
private companies, it could result in multiple businesses closing.

WARMUP 4: Make a guess, approx. what percentage of American workers are paid the
FEDERAL minimum wage hourly? (find the answer here)
Around 45% of American workers are paid the federal minimum wage hourly. (Correct
answer 2.3%)
Vocab:
Minimum Wage: Minimum wage is defined as the lowest amount that employers can legally
pay their workers per hour of labor. (source)
Minimum Wage definition in your own words: The legally lowest amount of payment an
employer can pay their worker per hour.

Unintended Consequences: is that actions of people—and especially of government—that

have effects that are unanticipated or unintended. (source)
Unintended Consequences definition in your own words: An unexpected side-effect
caused from the actions of people or government.

Predict what some unintended consequences (see definition above) of raising the
minimum wage might be: Raising the minimum wage could potentially cause
businesses to close, shorten hours, raise prices, or fire employees.

Based on the below graphic, what appears to happen too fast food prices after the minimum
wage is raised? After the minimum wage is raised the fast-food prices went up a couple
of dollars.
Debate Summary:
Supporters of raising the Minimum Wage say that minimum wage laws protect workers from
being taken advantage of and helps working families.
Opponents of raising the minimum wage say that minimum wage laws cause workers to lose
their jobs and cause the prices of goods and services to go up.

In this assignment, YOU get to decide whether you support or oppose raising the minimum
wage. Analyze the following two websites to answer the below questions.
Read the five reasons the Altnet.org Website uses to support raising the minimum wage.
Evaluate which is the strongest argument in support of the minimum wage:
One of Auerback’s strongest arguments is that supporting the minimum wage will help
people get out of debt. He states that wages aren’t up to date with the productivity. This
has caused sales to be slow and raise the dependenceon food stamps. If wages were
updated, more people can pay off debts and rebuild the middle-class.

Read the four reasons why the Cato Institute Website opposes raising the minimum wage.
Evaluate which is the strongest argument opposing the minimum wage: Raising the
minimun wage won’t reduce poverty. Only a small amount of workers lived in poverty
and studies showed that the wage increases had no effect on the poverty rates.

Analyze cartoon #1 (below) Does the artist support or oppose raising the minimum wage?
The artist supports raising the minimum wage.

Evaluate the messages in cartoon #1 (below):

The rich complain about raising the minimun wage because people could lose their
jobs. But if it were raised, people like the butler could have one job instead of more to
keep them financially stable.
Analyze cartoon #2 (below) Does the artist support or oppose raising the minimum wage?
The artist opposes raising the minimum wage.

Evaluate the messages in cartoon #2 (below):

When the minimum wage rises it’ll do more harm than good. Prices will go up and
people will lose their jobs.
Analyze the two below maps showing minimum wage rates by state and unemployment
rate by state. Hypothesize a relationship between a higher minimum wage and
unemployment: States with high minimum wages also had a high unemployment rate.
While states with lower wages had less unemployment rates.
Source of the above map. Keep in mind this is before Covid-19 mtpr.org

Imagine you are a member of the House of Representatives, write a press release for the
public to read your position in support OR opposition of raising the minimum wage. In one to
five sentences, write a statement justifying your position: The minimum wage should not
be increased. Each time we rise the minimum wage we cause more unemployment and
raise prices. There are also studies that show that these increases don’t affect the
poverty rates. We need to find ways to stablize prices that fit with the current minimun
wage. The reason we need to constantly raise the minimun wage is because we aren’t
fixing the issues, only prolonging it.

THE END.