1. The purpose of an editorial/commentary is to explain, persuade, warn, criticize, entertain, praise or answer. What do you think is the purpose of the Thomas Sowell's editorial? Explain your answer.

2.  For each of the following statements made by Mr. Sowell in his commentary, ask a parent whether he/she knew each to be true.

1. minimum-wage laws reduce employment opportunities for the young and the unskilled of any age. It has been happening around the world, for generation after generation, and in the most diverse countries. (para. 4)
2. for countries with unemployment rates around 25 percent…Spain, Greece, and South Africa are always there, whether or not there is a recession. Why? Because they have very generous minimum-wage laws. (para. 7)
3. Switzerland…has no minimum-wage law at all. Over the years, I have never seen the unemployment rate in Switzerland reach as high as 4 percent. Back in 2003, The Economist reported: “Switzerland’s unemployment neared a five-year high of 3.9% in February.” (para. 8)
4. In the United States, back in what liberals think of as the bad old days before there was a federal minimum-wage law, the annual unemployment rate during [Republican president]Calvin Coolidge’s last four years as president ranged from a high of 4.2 percent to a low of 1.8 percent. (para. 9)
5. Low-income minorities are often hardest hit by the unemployment that follows in the wake of minimum-wage laws. The last year when the black unemployment rate was lower than the white unemployment rate was 1930, the last year before there was a federal minimum-wage law. (para. 10)
6. The annual unemployment rate for black teenagers has never been less than 20 percent in the past 50 years and has ranged as high as over 50 percent. (para. 13)
7. the black-white gap in unemployment rates for 16- and 17-year-olds was virtually nonexistent back in 1948. But the black teenage unemployment rate has been more than double that for white teenagers for every year since 1971. (para. 15)