Background and Pedagogical Rationale: This assignment emphasizes precise thinking and language. Students are often insensitive to or unaware of the distinction often made between “nominal” and “real” values: For instance, the distinction between “nominal” and “real” Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or, likewise, between “nominal” and “real” wages.
In order to receive a good grade on this assignment, students need to be sensitive to –and be able to explain—long run changes in the “nominal” and “real” value of the minimum wage. It is imperative that the student is able to describe/explain what is “going on” with changes in the minimum wage.
As a simple exercise in quantitative writing, the emphasis is tightly focused on tracking and explaining changes in data or a specific variable.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
Practicing and mastering the skill of quantitative writing
Emphasizing and describing long run changes in an economic variable
Interpreting graphical and/or tabular data
Practice in data gathering related to a specific economic issue
TASK:
You are tasked with the responsibility of writing a brief “note” on trends in the minimum wages. Overall, you are expected to describe what’s going on with the minimum wage in the United States: Has it increased? Has it increased during some time periods but decreased in others? What’s the demographic profile of persons earning the minimum wage in the United States? What explains the difference between trends in the nominal and real value of the minimum wage? Your “note” must include a graph that displays and compares trends in the nominal and real value of the minimum wage. Your “note” need not be longer than 2 pages but should certainly be no shorter than one page.
EVALUATION:
Grammar and style
Usage of credible source for data
Inclusion of a graph
Accurate description of what “story” is being told by graph
References relevant chapter in text
