TOW #18- The Crisis of Minority Unemployment (Argument)

The New York Times Editorial Board published an article this week about the necessity of a solution for minority unemployment in America and Congress's failure to put a solid plan in place to fix this issue.  Subsidy programs have been proposed and disapproved by Congress multiple times in the past years making it very difficult to fix this impending issue.  The author starts by introducing the problem of minority unemployment and emphasizing its importance to the functionality of America.  To support this, he uses statistics of the unemployment rates of various races in different cities with large minority populations.  This introduction to the article's argument puts it in perspective for the audience so that they can understand its importance.  The author then reveals that the subsidy programs have been proposed and shot down by Republicans in Congress, targeting a specific group to blame for the issue.  This is an effective strategy in order to get the audience to feel strongly towards this group in order to make a change.  The use of statistics showing subsidy program success in other communities is extremely helpful to the argument of the article.  By showing the success of the proposed programs, the author can convince the audience that subsidy programs are not only necessary but that they would be effective if they were used in America.  In the conclusion of the article, the author points out the advantages of increasing employment for the minority groups.  The author points out that the suggested programs would not only solve the issue of minority unemployment, but provide other benefits as well because "Work reduces alienation, gives people a stake in society and allows children in poor communities to absorb the ethic they need to be successful."  The strength of this argument is caused by its appeal to logos as the author works in different statistics about subsidy programs to show how effective it would be in America.  The only part of the article that may have weakened the argument is in the concluding paragraph when the author writes, "If Congress fails to take on this crisis, as it has failed on so many issues...".  The bias that is revealed in this dig at Congress's actions weakens the author's argument by showing that he or she already has a rivalry with Congress's decisions.  Rather than focusing on the Congress's decision about this specific issue, the author zooms out to a wider scale showing their underlying feelings of discontent with Congress.  Besides the flagrant bias in the conclusion, the article offered a very strong argument overall that convinced me of the issues of minority unemployment in our country.