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January 15, 2015 - Image 4

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Opinion

JENNIFER CALFAS

EDITOR IN CHIEF

AARICA MARSH

and DEREK WOLFE

EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS

LEV FACHER

MANAGING EDITOR

420 Maynard St.

Ann Arbor, MI 48109

tothedaily@michigandaily.com

Edited and managed by students at

the University of Michigan since 1890.

Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily’s editorial board.

All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4A —Thursday, January 15, 2015

M

y friends tell me that
I’m too political when
I write, and that those

who don’t know me
as a person would
never understand me
to be the awkwardly
funny
and
dynami-

cally strange person they see every
day. They challenged me to write this
week’s column on something apoliti-
cal, something “fun” and “light” that
many students could relate to. The
Golden Globes were a convenient
excuse for me to tap into my “main-
stream” interests, and share my
thoughts on popularized cinema and
television in America.

My new favorite show is “Jane

the Virgin.” I think it’s brilliant,
and apparently so does the Hol-
lywood Foreign Press Association.
It’s a mix of “Ugly Betty” quirk and
“Gilmore Girls” sentiment, but bet-
ter. Last night, Gina Rodriguez (a.k.a.
Jane) won the Golden Globe for Best
Actress in a TV Series, Musical or
Comedy, beating television veterans
and icons like Julia Louis-Dreyfus
and Taylor Schilling.

On this new CW series, Rodri-

guez plays the show’s protagonist, a
23-year-old virgin who is artificially
inseminated by accident and decides
to keep the baby, partly because her
pregnancy is the father’s only chance
at biological parenthood. The show
is a balance of deep respect for reli-

gion with a realistic and admirable
depiction of the varying factors that
accompany all reproductive health
options when it comes to carrying
a pregnancy to term or terminating
that pregnancy.

But without intention or effort, I

watch Jane through a critical frame-
work that deconstructs the meaning
behind every interaction, theme and
decision made by this fictional fam-
ily onscreen. And while I think this
show is brilliantly executed and has
done a fantastic job portraying vary-
ing
and
diverse

Latino/Latina
narratives as well
as tons of queer
and
empowered

women, the show
still has just one
element that irks
me, and that’s the
name.

Jane is not a

“virgin.” She is just a 23-year-old
who has not had a penis in her vagi-
na. Virginity is a social construct. In
America, virginity is rooted in the
historic commodification of women
and a religious precedent of male
ownership. The concept of virginity
is meant to make people, especially
women and non-heterosexual indi-
viduals, feel badly about their sexual-
ity and sexual experience. This social
concept is a way of policing other peo-
ple’s bodies and classifying a sexual

social ideal. The virginity of a female
body is impossible to prove unless an
individual declares and labels oneself
as having engaged sexually before.
But there, too, is an issue, seeing as
no formal sexual act defines virginal
status from non-virginal status. It’s
socially understood that unless a
penis penetrates a vagina, sex has not
been had. This definition delegalizes
anal sex, oral sex and other forms of
sex as “real sex,” and upholds hetero-
sexual norms. So while I love Jane, I
do not love the title so aptly given to

her simply because
there
has
never

been a penis inside
her vagina.

I truly adore

this
show
and

Rodriguez,
and

I think that the
show itself begins
to
challenge

the
dangerous

social construct that is “virgin-
ity.” As Jane gradually continues
to acknowledge that her worth as
a human being is not tied to her
sexual activity (or lack thereof),
every Monday night at 9 p.m. we get
to watch the deconstruction of this
historically oppressive concept. I
think that’s pretty cool.

— Carly Manes can be reached

at manes@umich.edu.

Jane is not a virgin

Edvinas Berzanskis, Claire Bryan, Regan Detwiler, Devin Eggert,

David Harris, Rachel John, Jordyn Kay, Aarica Marsh, Victoria Noble,

Michael Paul, Allison Raeck, Melissa Scholke, Michael Schramm,

Matthew Seligman, Linh Vu, Mary Kate Winn, Jenny Wang, Derek Wolfe

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

W

hile raising the mini-
mum wage has always
been a relevant topic,

it’s garnered more
attention
since

fast food work-
ers
began
pro-

testing
for
$15


hourly wage.

I’ve
heard

numerous
opin-

ions
on
the

minimum
wage,

ranging
from

people
wanting

$15 wages to those
that think we shouldn’t raise the
minimum wage at all. The minimum
wage should definitely be raised
yearly to keep up with inflation, but
raising it to $15 isn’t a feasible option.

A $15 minimum wage is like com-

munism: a good idea in theory but
bad in application. I think everyone
likes the idea of the lowest-income
citizens doubling their wages, but
this actually only hurts these citi-
zens. The basic model of labor supply
and demand shows this.

Since higher wages are incentive

to work more, the supply of workers
increases as the wage increases (i.e.
the supply curve slopes upward).

Contrarily, as the wage increases,

producers cannot afford to pay for as
much labor, decreasing the demand
for workers in the market (i.e. the
demand curve slopes downward).

This means that the markets will

adjust until they reach the one wage
where laborers demanded equals
laborers supplied. At this point, sup-
pliers are producing as much output
as they want, and laborers are work-
ing as much as they want.

This doesn’t happen if we have a

minimum wage higher than the equi-
librium wage.

Setting the minimum wage solidi-

fies a specific wage, meaning that
the market can’t move to an equi-
librium position. We’re stuck with
an excess amount of job seekers,
and as you can see from the chart
below, this means that a high mini-
mum wage will drive some people
working at the equilibrium wage


to unemployment.

At least to me, the loss of jobs alone

is justification not to significantly
raise the minimum wage. A mini-
mum wage should be helping those
on the lower socioeconomic end,
and while some would benefit from
the increased wages, others would
be forced into a lower class and be
unable to find jobs.

This idea isn’t just abstract; it’s

proven in application.

SeaTac, a suburb of Seattle, recent-

ly raised its minimum wage to $15
dollars per hour and has seen clear
consequences. The local hotel closed
its restaurant, laying off 15 workers in
addition to a night clerk and mainte-
nance worker.

Additionally, as seen in the labor

supply model, the increase in wage
causes an increase of laborers seek-
ing employment. The Clarion Hotel
has received an influx of applicants
from outside the city seeking the
new wage, and as some of these
people have more skills than current
employees, the hotel must consider
laying off less-qualified workers to
hire better workers, only further
stratifying minimum wage workers.

Those still employed at the air-

port also incur costs of the increased
wage. A woman working at the air-
port exclaimed her disdain for the
changes, revealing how her shiny
$15 wage came with the loss of
her 401(k), health insurance, paid
holidays, vacation, overtime oppor-
tunities and available food while
working. She also must pay for park-
ing and receives less in tips. These
losses minimize the benefits of her
increased wage, indicating that the
extra money she’s receiving is less
than the difference between her new
and previous wage.

Now, all of this may lead you

to believe I’m against raising the
minimum wage, but this isn’t com-
pletely true. There’s a difference
between raising real wages and
nominal wages, and I support rais-
ing nominal wages so real wages
stay the same.

Let’s just super quickly define real

and nominal wages. A nominal wage
is the numerical amount of money
that you receive. $12 is always greater
than $11, and $11 is greater than $10.

Real wages are how many goods

that your nominal wages can buy
you. For simplicity, assume the aver-
age price of goods in an economy is
$2, and you receive $11 per hour. Your
real wage is $5.50 per hour, because
it’s relative to what goods cost.

Real wages are more important

than nominal wages. If you could
choose between receiving $15 per
hour when average goods cost $2 and
$100 per hour when average goods
cost $50, it’s more economically
sound to choose the $15 option. Even
though $100 is more nominal money,
you can buy more goods with $15 per
hour, which is the purpose of work.

It’s also important to note that

the increase in the average price of
goods — called inflation — occurs
almost every year in an economy. The

Bureau of Labor Statistics compiles
data to discover how much inflation
occurs each year (I won’t bore you
with how they do this).

Given
this
information,
it’s

important that a worker’s nominal
wage is tied to increase yearly by the
same percentage as inflation. If this
didn’t happen, workers would lose
money each year. Even though their
actual paycheck wouldn’t decrease,
they would be less wealthy given
that everything around them costs
more money.

Tying the minimum wage to infla-

tion won’t hurt companies, either.
Since the average prices of the
products they sell increases, they’re
bringing in more nominal revenue.
Providing the excess of this revenue
to workers only redistributes the
wealth so companies aren’t benefit-
ing from laborers’ losses.

Now, this is certainly a lot more

complex in application than in theo-
ry. Not all companies increase their
prices by the average amount. It is,
after all, an average. So work would
need to be done to more accurately
figure out the price increases across
different markets to minimize error.

But this system could work very

effectively. Scaling the minimum
wage to inflation helps workers hold
onto their already-low incomes.

This information also explains a

lot of the misconceptions that exist
around raising the minimum wage.
Many websites, even the Bureau of
Labor Statistics itself, state that rais-
ing the minimum wage won’t cause
people to lose their jobs. But their
evidence relies on studies examining
prior increases in minimum wage.

When you examine the real values

of these past wages, they are close to
the real value of the current wage,
only being a dollar or two greater
than or less than our current real
minimum wage of $7.25. These small
differences aren’t comparable to the
larger differences that occur with a
minimum wage of $15.

I’m a huge proponent of helping

adults who are struggling to live on
the current minimum wage. I really
am. An adult working a minimum
wage job is a constant struggle, but
we need to focus on policies and ideas
that will actually help these people.
Raising the minimum wage will only
create new problems for people liv-
ing on minimum wage. Instead, we
need to advocate programs and trade
schools to help these people move
into higher-paying positions.

— Michael Schramm can be

reached at mschramm@umich.edu.

MICHAEL
SCHRAMM

Maximizing the minimum wage

P

resident Barack Obama announced on Jan. 9 a federal proposal
that aims to extend two years of free tuition to all students
wishing to attend community college. The president unveiled

his ambitious plans for higher education in Knoxville, Tennessee,
where a similar state-level policy has already come to fruition. If all 50
states participate in the program, an estimated nine million students
will benefit. Eligible candidates will include solely high-school seniors.
Socioeconomic status is not a factor for consideration; however, students
must earn a minimum GPA of 2.5 to maintain their free enrollment.
While this new proposal is a leap forward for the U.S. education system,
concerns and amendments still remain for the proposition.

The call for universal access to higher

education will ensure all students are afforded
at least two years of community college
without financial burden, assuming the
requirements are met. Full-time community
college students will save approximately
$3,800 in annual tuition. Due to the climbing
costs
of
higher
education,
community

colleges have become increasingly focused on
vocational training, as opposed to the liberal
arts and sciences. With free tuition, students
will have more liberty to choose majors
based on passions and interests rather than
practicality. A high-school degree no longer
suffices for a wide range of occupations in
our nation’s society. By 2020, 35 percent of
job openings will require at least a bachelor’s
degree, and 30 percent will require some form
of college education or an associate’s degree.
The anticipated influx of students will not
just prepare the youngest generation for the
workforce, but also stimulate improvement
in the quality of education community


colleges provide.

The plan is estimated to cost $60 billion

over a 10-year period. The source of subsidies
is general at best, which is a cause for concern
for those who fear that large expenses
will further push the nation into debt.
Highlighted in the proposal thus far is the
following: states that choose to participate in
the program will be expected to cover one-
quarter of the cost, while federal funding
will cover the rest. These states will have the
flexibility to allocate particular resources to
students in need.

With states slated to have plenty of

autonomy in the process, they should be
held responsible for a number of different

factors. States will have the opportunity to
create more early intervention and outreach
programs,
expand
community
college

offerings and improve the affordability of
four-year universities. States should also
ensure that students in need of financial aid
are guaranteed room and board, books and
transportation. FAFSA, the financial aid
application filled out by students across the
nation, should be streamlined to conveniently
process school applications and financial
aid
packages
side-by-side.
With
these

considerations, Obama’s proposal will surely
give American students the competitive edge
they need to thrive in today’s rapidly-evolving
economic climate.

The new plan will model after community

college initiatives in Tennessee, which
have shown great success. In Tennessee, 90
percent of high-school students applied to
the state’s community college program in
the past year, the first cycle of the program.
Only 40 percent of Tennessee students
were expected to apply. Furthermore, the
Tennessee College of Applied Technology, a
participant in the program, has a graduation
rate of 80 percent with 85 percent of students
placed into jobs, showing the potential and
demand of a national program to improve the
work force.

Obama’s proposal foresees many changes

not just in the education system, but also
in the long-term economy. The possibility
for students to receive two years of free
higher education will enhance the quality of
community colleges, bridge the segregation
between students of various socioeconomic
statuses and provide more job opportunities
for generations to come.

A college for every community

FROM THE DAILY

Gabrielle DeCaro/Daily




— Kinesiology junior and Black Student Union secretary Cap Kendall told



The Michigan Daily during a protest on police brutality Wednesday

evening, regarding her negative experiences with campus police.


NOTABLE QUOTABLE

It’s to the point where I don’t

even want to reproduce

and bear children.”

minimum wage

new laborers
competing for jobs
Laborers lost
from equilibrium

Real wage

Labor

Real wage

Labor

economic
maximizing wage

Quantity of labor without a minimum wage vs. with a minimum wage

Virginity is rooted

in the historic

commodification

of women.



CARLY
MANES

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