Minimum Wage In James Surowiecki's The Pay Is Too Damn Low

The article analyzed is James Surowiecki’s article “The Pay Is Too Damn Low.” It was written for the readers of The New Yorker. The agenda of this article was to inform readers about the problem of minimum wage being too low, and argue that raising the minimum wage is not completely adequate to solve the issue of poor plight. It was effective in achieving this because it reached its target audience by keeping the argument short and simple but dense, and galvanizing its readers into informed action.
Firstly, the straightforward word choice is appropriate for its audience. The readership of The New Yorker is made up of mostly non-economist laymen, and economic jargon would make the argument inaccessible to them. The structure, specifically the length, of the article is also effective. With the advent of the Internet, attention spans have grown shorter, with the younger generation preferring brief and
appealingly packaged articles over other options. In addition, The New Yorker, like other newspapers, has a website where their articles can be accessed easily and quickly, drawing in a bigger readership among young people, their target audience.
However, that is not to say the argument itself is not appropriately sophisticated for its well-educated audience. The argument’s mixture of ethos and logos is useful in enlightening the readers on the issue. Ethos is effective with audiences of every background, and especially here, where the audience feels the historians and economists being cited are better formally educated than they are. In addition, the logos—the numbers and historical facts—adds credence to the argument, strengthening the author’s claims in the eyes of the reader.
Finally, the tone speaks to their piece’s young activist reader base.
The audience, mostly socially liberals, are those who wish to be more politically active and informed. They want to hear what they can do to fix an issue from a source that is equally passionate about the topic. The tone is appropriately rousing, providing a course of action along with its ethos- and logos-driven information. In addition, the article was published when readers would be most susceptible, having acquired some information on the topic from the news, but still lacking the knowledge to have informed opinions or act. Accordingly, the readers learn more about the issue, see that the solution will be complicated, and are satisfied having obtained the information to act.
This argument knows its audience well and succeeds in reaching it. It keeps its points brief and informally worded; it explains to the presumably uninformed; and it utilizes ethos and logos to educate an audience that wants to be educated, then leaves them with a piece of new information to ponder and carry with
them.