I am analyzing Jeffery Dorfman’s article “Almost Everything You Have Been Told About The Minimum Wage Is False” and writing about why his article should not be publicized in The Shorthorn newspaper. I have gone through Dorfman’s rhetorical appeals and have determined that his reasons and evidences that support his claim may not be completely lucid and valid. The students of UTA are most likely not going to care about this article, because Dorfman’s reasons and evidences are not focused on the students’ perspective. UTA students are likely to be the minimum wage workers who work to pay for their tuition, rents, food, books, any outside school activities, and etc. Even though this issue of minimum wage itself is much related to the university …show more content…
He did not physically mention his expertise on this subject. So I went ahead and researched about him on his website, and I was able to find information that would build his credibility. Dorfman is a professor of economics at the University of Georgia, and he consults on economic issues to a variety of corporations and local governments. He uses economics as a lens to analyze governmental policies from the local to the international level. The author also tries to reveal his ethos appeal by having a particular focus on government policies that attempt to redistribute income or wealth either openly or in direct ways. However, Dorfman does not clarify if he deals with the issues that university students may encounter. He particularly stated that he deals with governmental policies from “the local to the international level”. Even if he seems to be qualified to write about this particular issue, he lacks in building a complete credibility with The Shorthorn …show more content…
For this reason, Dorfman mentions how the number of minimum wage workers is tremendously small compared to the entire working population. He tries to provide evidence for the readers to comprehend better. He gives numeric evidences by providing the percentages. However, he fails to implement data that is relevant to the university students. There are 3.6 million people who get paid at or below minimum wage which is only 2.5% of the entire working population. He then splits that number up by the ages. 31% of them are teenagers and 55% of them are people who are twenty five years old or younger. This means that only about 1.1% of all workers are over twenty five years old who get paid minimum wage and this is 0.8% of the entire U.S population. Though his reason is clear, his supporting evidence is not suitable to be on the university newspaper. He provides the data that tells that 0.8% of the whole U.S population over twenty five are minimum wage workers. However, university students are mostly under twenty five which is the majority of the minimum wage working population. Therefore, his reason and evidence are not applicable for The Shorthorn readers to