Rhetorical Strategies: Minimum Wage Whether an opinion piece is effective depends on the expertise of rhetorical strategy of an author. This can either make a written piece convincing or unconvincing to the target audience. A clear example of how rhetorical strategies make a piece more convincing is the comparison of David Laska’s, “Minimum Need for a Minimum Wage Increase”, and Shamus Khan’s, “The Promise of More: Why We Should Raise the Minimum Wage”. By using rhetorical analysis on both opinion pieces Laska clearly makes a better argument. He makes use of logos by including statistics, an expert’s research in the field of minimum wage, and historical data to attack Obama’s decision to raising the minimum wage. He includes pathos to create a sense of disappointment and hopelessness in Obama’s decision effectively to convince his mainly conservative audience. In comparison, Khan also makes use of logos by mainly focusing on historical and some statistical data to convince his more liberal target audience. He also makes use of pathos to instill a sense of remorse for minimum wage workers, and also to call the readers to action. His evidence seems a little weak though, because in one case he forces the reader to open a link for another article for evidence and it seems that his claim relies too much on pathos.
First, it is important to note how the author’s ethos affects the basic effectiveness of the article since credibility of writers is vital to convince the target audience. Interestingly, neither author makes use of the ethos appeal in their respective articles, but their credentials are readily available. David Laska is Communications Director of the New York State Republican Party. His credentials make him a credible source about the minimum wage increase debacle because his involvement in politics naturally involves that he has knowledge in the labor situation of the country. His involvement in the Republican Party though makes him susceptible to having conservative bias, since the party is known for conservative ideals. In comparison Shamus Khan teaches in the sociology department at Columbia University, he writes on elites and inequality in America, and made a book published by the Princeton University Press entitled, “Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul’s School”. His credentials by themselves make him a credible source about the minimum wage debacle because he is clearly very informed of the labor situation with his writings about the elites and inequalities in the country. His reputation and past work though makes him susceptible of having a liberal bias. Second, it is noticeable that both the authors make extensive use logos. Laska makes use of logos by including statistical and historical data of for instance of how employment for teens fell by 6.9 percent since the minimum wage raise of 2007 (Laska, 1). His inclusion of the expert opinion of economist David Neumark of University of California at Irvine further increases credibility of Laska’s opinon piece with the use of logos. Neumark found a negative employment effect on low-skilled workers in 85 percent of the more than 100 academic studies that he looked about minimum wage (Laska, 1). It is really hard to argue with an expert in the field of minimum wage, since it is assumed that they know more about the topic than the average reader.
In contrast, Khan uses logos by relying on historical facts of the minimum wage law from President Roosevelt’s time in 1938 to the present in order to make the argument that raising the minimum wage has been good for the development of present day America. He also makes use of logos by including historical statistical facts, like:
As the minimum wage has remained flat, productivity has increased, and so too have corporate profits. If the minimum wage of the 1960s had increased with productivity, it would stand at around $15/hour. If it increased with inflation, it would be more than $10/hour (Khan, 1).
This long quote appeals to his liberal audience in an important way because it gives light on how the government, which they may perceive is working for the conservative agenda, wronged the people of the country. A problem I see with Khan’s use of logos is that he tries to back his opinion piece at one point with the use of a hyperlink to another article. The information that he links is very important because he was referring to the benefits of minimum wage, which are vital to his argument of raising the minimum wage. He also fails to provide other expert opinions other than his own as opposed to Laska. Third, the two opinion pieces also make use of pathos. Laska makes use of pathos to further push his ideal that Obama is making the wrong decision about raising the minimum wage. He tries to create a sense of disappointment and hopelessness with Obama by stating that “the minority youths that will be hurt the most by Obama’s latest economic folly are among his most loyal supporters”, and how he basically “left them out in the cold” with his decision (Laska, 1). The “left them out in the cold” part is particularly effective since it is a commonly used expression that can evoke deeper feelings than the other more sophisticated wordings of the article. Khan also makes excellent use of pathos to make the readers feel sorry for minimum wage workers by stating that they “work tirelessly and still can’t make ends meet” (Khan, 1). Another way that he uses pathos is by calling his audience to a higher purpose by saying that raising the minimum wage is a responsibility, since otherwise the value of work is cheapened “if at the end of working a long day, our fellow Americans still live in poverty, with little hope of escape, and no promise of just a little bit more next year” (Khan, 1). The problem I see with Khan’s use of pathos that it seems his argument relies on it too much. His pathos is way stronger than his logos since most of his data are just a retelling of the history of minimum wage in America.
Finally, it is also important to take note that the articles are in fact in different sections of the news and from different publishers. This in effect makes up for some of the differences in ideology of the two opinion pieces. The target audience is distinct for the different section and publishers of the news. Laska’s piece is included in the opinion section of the Latino coverage of Fox Entertainment Group (News Corporation) news. This clearly means that his target audience centers on the Latino population of America, which is one of the most affected segments affected by a change in the minimum wage rate. In regards to the publishing company, Fox Entertainment Group (News Corporation) is renowned for having a conservative bias in their coverage of the news. This means that for this opinion piece, the author is trying to convince the Latino population that they are being misled by the “liberal” government that is in place.
On the other hand Khan’s opinion piece was posted in the labor section of Time Magazine. Since the piece is in the labor section, the target audience would in effect be people that are interested in the economy and the workforce of the country. The publisher affects the target audience too since Time Magazine is known to having some sort of liberal bias, which in turn would lead to fewer readers that support the conservative agenda (Bubner, 1).
In conclusion, it is clear the Laska’s opinion piece was more effective in terms of convincing his target audience because he addresses the conservative ideal of not raising the minimum wage with more concrete evidence than Khan. Khan is not as effective in convincing his liberal audience that raising the minimum wage is good since he relies too much on the use of pathos, which is not as concrete as logos. If he included the benefits of minimum wage that he mentions in his article as opposed to putting a hyperlink to another article, his argument might even be better than Khan’s opinion piece. The reason for this is that Khan’s has an inkling feeling of it being a personal attack against President Obama.

Works Cited
Bubner, Stephen. "How Biased Is Your Media?: A New Freakonomics Radio Podcast."Freakonomics.com. William Morrow, 16 Feb. 2012. Web. 25 Feb. 2013.
Laska, David. "David Laska: Minimum Need for a Minimum Wage Increase."Foxnews.com/. Fox Entertainment Group (News Corporation), 25 Feb. 2013. Web. 25 Feb. 2013.
Khan, Shamus. "The Promise of More: Why We Should Raise the Minimum Wage." The Promise of More Why We Should Raise the Minimum Wage. Time.inc, 21 Feb. 2013. Web. 25 Feb. 2013.