Using NewsHour Extra Feature Stories

Overview: NewsHour Extra feature stories can help students identify and interpret key issues in current events. This activity anticipates one class period, but the follow-up essay might be assigned as homework, or in another period.

Warm Up: Use initiating questions to introduce the topic and find out how much your students know.

Main Activity: Have students read NewsHour Extra's feature story and answer the questions on the reading comprehension handout.

Discussion: Use discussion questions to encourage students to think about how the issues outlined in the story affect their lives and express and debate different opinions.

Follow-up: Students can write an 500-word editorial on the topic expressing their views and send it to NewsHour Extra [extra@newshour.org] for possible publication.

Evaluation: Students are graded on their answers to reading comprehension questions and/or their editorial.

Story: Lowest Paid Workers May Get Raise, 02/21/07
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/jan-june07/minimumwage_2-21.html

Initiating Questions:

1. What is the federal minimum wage?

2. If your state has a minimum wage, is it different than the federal minimum wage?

3. What are tax cuts?

Reading Comprehension Questions: (click here for printout)

1. Why is raising the minimum wage a priority for Democrats in Congress?

Many current members campaigned on the issue and are anxious to deliver on their promises.

2. Why does Congress want to make tax cuts while raising the minimum wage?

Critics of the wage increase claim that it would unfairly punish small businesses, restaurants and retailers. As a result, both the House and Senate bills include tax provisions to help companies pay the higher wages.

3. What are some of the tax breaks the House of Representatives and Senate bills would give businesses?

In both bills, businesses that hire former welfare recipients and at-risk youth, for instance, would be eligible for some tax relief. Small businesses would continue to get tax credits for equipment purchases. And restaurants, which employ many of the nation's low-wage workers, would receive a number of special tax breaks.

4. What are the differences in how the House of Representatives and Senate bills would finance the tax cuts?

The Senate bill, which is much more generous to business than the House's, would finance the cuts by targeting large corporations, closing loopholes that are beneficial to high-paid workers. The House bill, on the other hand, would end a tax shelter that allows wealthy people to pass money to their children.

5. How will the House and Senate resolve differences between their two bills?

Over the next few weeks, the competing bills will be debated in a conference committee, a group comprised of members from both the House of Representatives and Senate. When a compromise is reached, the committee will present a revised bill to both houses of Congress for a final vote.

6. If the House and Senate agree on a bill to raise the minimum wage, what has to happen before the bill becomes a law?

For the wage increase to become law, both houses of Congress will have to agree on a final draft of the bill and send it to President Bush for approval.

Discussion Activity (more research might be needed):

1. Research the history of the federal minimum wage, especially the years in which it has risen. Do you think it is time for the minimum wage to increase again? Why or why not?

2. Pretend that you support the House of Representatives' bill to increase the minimum wage. How would you compromise with the Senate to come up with a final draft of the bill? What tax cuts would you agree on? How would you finance those cuts?

3. Imagine you owned a small business and your employees made minimum wage. Would you be in favor of the House or Senate bills? How could you adjust your business to pay the higher wages?

Write a 300-500 word essay on either of these topics providing clear examples. Send your completed editorial to NewsHour Extra (extra@newshour.org). Exceptional essays might be published on our Web site.