 to, I will operate the spotlight. I'm going to put Laila in the spotlight. You know that you're on, right? Yeah. All right, you're on. I'm handing off. Good luck. It's been a pleasure. Okay, awesome. Hello everyone, and welcome to the virtual 2021 annual undergraduate economics club debate. As said before, my name is Laila Kadoe. I'm a junior economics student with a minor in business and IT. And I am the moderator for today's debate. The session is being recorded and the recording will be available from the economics department website. And today's proposition for the debate is the United States should institute a minimum wage of $15 at the federal level. On the matters of format, the debate will go as follows. We'll begin with 15 minute opening statements from each group, starting with the affirmative. And then we will have a five minute break. Next, we will get into a 16 minute argument and rebuttal section that will be broken down into four minute increments. It will go from the affirmative speaking for four minutes and then the negative. And then we'll have another five minute break. Next, we will have a 10 minute question and answer portion from the judges. We will finish with a five minute closing statements from both the affirmative and the negative with the negative having the last word. On the matters of keeping time, I'll be tracking the time of my phone to ensure that everyone is getting the appropriate amount of time to speak. And I will also display the thumbs up reaction. I wanna see if I can do it here. I'm not entirely sure if this gives the option to do that. So worst case, I'll try to type something into the chat. What about hand raised? Would hand raised work? Yeah, I can do that instead, but I will do that when the speaker has like one minute left just so they can wrap up their thoughts. And now I'm going to introduce the participants and the judges. So for the affirmative, we have Jay Gupta, Gabe Davis Hollander, Sean McQuaid, Michael Stevenson and Tyler Heffernan. And then for the negative, we have Yusuf Zerbuah. Sorry if I mispronounced your last name. Lindsay Porter, Wyatt Troy and Benjamin Hall. And our judges for this year are Stephen Clark, Samari Easy and Bill Troy. And now I'm just gonna give a little background on our three judges before we begin. So starting with Stephen Clark, since 2011, he has been the president of Advanced Fund Solutions, LLC, Eat and Vance Management Exchange, Traded Products Business, recently acquired by Morgan Stanley. Before joining Eat and Vance, Stephen held positions at Old Year Joint Assessment Management, Cooper's and Lybrand, which is now PWC, the Berkshire Companies and Putnam Investments. Stephen earned a BA in Economics from UMass Amherst and has an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Next we have Samari Easy, who is a recent graduate of UMass Amherst. She graduated with a double major in Economics and Political Science. Samari currently resides in New York City where she works as a financial analyst and is the CEO of the Female Economist. She created the Female Economist to close the wealth gap experienced by low-income families and women of color. During her free time, she trades stocks and teaches other people how to do so as well. And lastly, our third judge is Senior Lecturer of Business at the University of New Hampshire, Bill Troy. Prior to academia, Bill held a series of consulting, advertising and marketing positions in computing and networking. He started his career as an economist for the US Department of Labor. Bill holds a BA in Economics from UMass Amherst with a Commonwealth Scholar and Phi Beta Kappa Honors and an MBA from the Johnson School of Management at Cornell University. Bill is a founder and 27-year member of the Economics Alumni Advisory Board. Thank you, judges, for taking the time today to debate. I mean, to judge this debate this afternoon. Okay, and now that all of the rules and participants have been introduced, we will now start the debate. So I am going to get my phone set up and I will give the floor to the affirmative. You guys will have 15 minutes for opening statements and I will start once the screen officially changes to the first speaker. Oh, I'm the first speaker, should I just? Yeah, you can go right ahead. Okay, thank you very much. We have heard a lot about the minimum wage recently. Some say that it should be raised to $15 an hour over the next five years. Other politicians state that 11 bucks is more appropriate and some believe that the minimum wage law should be abolished. Before we delve deep into the debate, it's important to discuss the history of the minimum wage. In 1938, the Fair Labor Standards Act was passed into law as an important facet of the New Deal. In addition to improving working conditions, it established a minimum wage of 25 cents per hour. Prior to this, workers were at the mercy of their employers. Child labor was rampant that people bled out and sweatshops were pending on the dollar. Although we were far removed from the gilded age, the 20s and 30s were a period of immense inequality. Further magnitude by the Great Depression. In 1938, the minimum wage was 25 cents per hour. Since then, it has been raised 22 times by 12 different presidents. Today, it stands at $7.25 per hour. On paper, this seems like solid progress. However, it has not been sufficient. Wage stagnation largely began in the late 1970s. From 1945 to 1978, the hourly compensation of lower income and middle income workers rose 91%, which was right in line with productivity growth of 97%. From 78 to 2017, the hourly compensation rose only 9% compared with a 74% increase in productivity growth. No matter how you look at it, this clearly illustrates that workers are not paying paid to do. We have determined that raising the minimum wage will improve the American economy and the quality of life for its citizens. Raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour over the course of the next five years would have many benefits, such as economic growth spurred by consumer spending, a sharp decrease in poverty, less reliance on government assistance, and the high cost of living for the younger generations would be easier to manage. Social mobility would be restored and the United States would be on a positive economic trajectory. Now to the first point, much America seems to have languished in our new economy. We can blame the pandemic all we want, but this trend has been persistent for some time now. It seems like each passing generation becomes more financially insecure. More millennials are living at home than any generation before them. 50% had to move back home at some point during the pandemic. Under normal circumstances, still 22% of millennial Americans stayed at home after college or to return to their childhood bedrooms at a later date. It's easy to think of millennials as children, but the youngest are now 25 years old and the oldest are approaching 40. These are solid adults. Contrast now with 2001, just 20 years prior, the percentage of adults living at home was nearly half at 11.7%. Why is that? Is this entire generation lazy and inept? Maybe, but millennials are more educated than previous generations. And the data shows that the majority of them do attempt to find work. Many of them work minimum wage jobs, either full-time or in between professions. In the greatest and richest country in the world, we should be more concerned about this. Americans need more money in their pockets to move out, purchase houses and set themselves up, especially as costs of living continue to rise. The cost of medical care rose 4.6% in 2019, the largest year-to-year increase since 2007. Housing went up 3.2%, education rose 2.1%, food prices went up 1.8%. You combine this increase in cost of living with stagnant wages and a competitive economy and we have many Americans feeling the heat. Nearly half of Americans in 2020 stated that raising costs of living are the biggest threat to their financial security. Although raising the minimum wage would not solve all of the younger generation's ills, it would certainly help many of them get on the right track. God knows the millennials need a lucky break. In the news, we are constantly seeing more publicity surrounding minority injustice as played our country. Racial inequality was especially evident through a battle with the COVID-19 pandemic. People of color were employed at higher levels and essential work, putting their lives at risk for the good of our society and we're still faced with an unlivable wage. This unjust wage is nothing new to the minority communities. Looking back in American history, minimum wage has always been a hurdle for minorities. This was protested by American civil rights leaders who advocated for higher minimum wage, wages during the March on Washington in the 1960s. One such leader, Matthew Amon, said we need to dedicate ourselves today to securing a minimum wage, which will guarantee economic sufficiency to all American workers. Today we see that the economic policies passed in the 1960s do not continue to be adapted with our growing economy. In our political system today, since 2009, there's been no increase in the minimum wage, which is a blatant racial injustice that must be corrected. Furthermore, there is no reason that incumbent congressional members should not be pushing this policy forward as recent polls suggest that two thirds of Americans surveyed by the few research centers support raising the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour. Those opposed to the minimum wage by emphasizing the labor costs that it will place on businesses and production is reminiscent of America's addition to slave labor. Paying workers more obviously will have increased costs. However, as outlined by my team, this is an empirically weak argument against implementing the policy. While raising the minimum wage will not remedy the entire issue of racial injustice, the data shows that minorities in our country have been underpaid. Economic policy can target these minority communities. For example, the policy to raise minimum wage to $15 will deliver the largest benefits to the black and Latino-American workers, about $3,500 annually for a year-round worker. Furthermore, racial inequality of pay is seen in the data from state and congressional districts that show that African-Americans and Latino-Americans are paid 10 to 15% less than white workers of the same characteristics. Through the use of economic policy, Congress can seriously begin to address these issues. The Economic Policy Institute also showed that by raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour, there are other minority groups that would benefit. Almost one in four of those who would benefit is a black or Latino-American woman. It is undeniable that the data shows that we can address this institutional racism through economic policy and greatly improve the lives of millions of people of color. One of the most prominent counterarguments to raising the minimum wage is that it will hinder macroeconomic growth by increasing the operating cost of firms. Despite these claims, research has consistently proven that an increase in the minimum wage corresponds with an increase in macroeconomic output. In a study conducted by the Federal Reserve of Chicago, it was determined that households comprised of low-wage workers spent an additional $2,800 per year after a $1 per hour increase in the minimum wage. Contrary to a trickle-down approach to increasing consumption, increasing the income of low-wage workers is more impactful because to those making less money, additional income provides significantly more utility. Building on this concept, the Institute for Policy Studies recently found through basic multiplier models that for every additional $1 increase in the income for a low-wage worker, $1.21 is added to the overall economy. Every extra dollar going into the pockets of high-income Americans, by contrast, only adds about 39 cents to GDP. They concluded that if the $26.7 billion that Wall Street bankers made in bonuses in 2013 had gone to minimum wage workers instead, the United States GDP would have grown by about $32.3 billion, over triple the $10.4 billion expected from the Wall Street bonuses. Though an increase in the minimum wage will inevitably put a strain on the operating costs of firms, the overall economic outcome will be positive through increasing the wealth of those most likely to consume, and therefore most likely to increase output. Another important factor to consider is how a current minimum wage increase will affect the output of future generations. Increases in minimum wages will allow for parents to provide children with stabler lives and more educational opportunities. It is well known that these factors correlate positively with increased output by increasing the likelihood of innovation in future generations. Time and time again, the data show that an increase in the minimum wage will contribute to increased, sustainable and fair development throughout America's economy. Perhaps one of the most relevant benefits of raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour is the boost it would provide to social mobility. Social mobility is defined broadly as defined by Botanica as a movement of individuals, families or groups through a system of social hierarchy or stratification. But we can translate it broadly to one's ability to move up economically or create a self-sufficient life despite their socioeconomic background. When evaluating the effectiveness of a mandated $15 minimum wage on social mobility, we're most interested in low and middle income earners who are not able to afford conditions of self-sufficiency. According to the Birkins Institution, 37% of US households or 38 million people overall did not earn a self-sufficient wage before taxes in 2019, which provides clear evidence that there is ample need for wage hikes among such earners. Indeed, social mobility can be directly increased by a higher minimum wage. Earlier studies by the Birkins Institution included that a higher minimum wage would boost earnings among the bottom third of earners by 19%. A 19% wage hike such as this on a national scale would have a tremendous impact allowing for struggling families to make ends meet and achieve self-sufficiency. This creates better conditions in the present and propels younger generations towards education, careers, self-sufficiency and greater economic contribution. Of course, this begs the question, how can we conclude that the $15 minimum wage is the right price point for creating upward social mobility? For this, we may look to another 2019 study by the Birkins Institution that examined multiple mandated minimum wages over 53 metropolitan areas with over 1 million residents. The study found that the typical family sustaining wage threshold is around $14.70 per hour, proving that the $15 minimum wage point is well suited to create upward social mobility in metro areas, which are majorly representative of the earners nationally that are unable to achieve self-sufficiency. There is a notion that rather than mandating a minimum wage, we ought to allow for money from the higher spectrum of earners to boost social mobility through the trickle down effect. However, as economist Joseph Sicklet cited in his book, The Great Divide, one of the best actions we can take towards increasing social mobility is the opposite, trickle up economics. Simply a $15 minimum wage is not good, it is not only good for our struggling workers, it's also good for our economy. Mandating a $15 minimum wage is fundamental to tackling the struggles of our economy at present. Whether increasing well-being, decreasing racial disparities or boosting economic and social mobility, the minimum wage of $15 an hour has the power to transform the lives of the American people as well as the aggregate American economy. The case is evident. A $15 minimum wage is a clear path for inclusive prosperity in America. Thank you, affirmative. The negative will now have 15 minutes to present their main argument as well. Before I'd like to begin, I'd like to thank all of those who are coming and who are watching. The minimum wage is an event we've had all too often. It usually comes down to, as the other side says, a living wage or a non-living wage. But as we can see, that does not mean the same thing federally on a federal level. The costs in different areas across the country vary greatly as a house in Mississippi is not the same thing as a house in Boston, Massachusetts. These things are important to factor in when discussing the minimum wage. These things are important because it could create massive inflation for some and have a positive effect for others. And I will concede this point, that a $15 minimum wage may be viable in parts of the country, but it may not be viable in other parts of the country. The other side has said that the minimum wage will promote racial equality. But from what we've seen throughout history, minimum wage has actually been used as a barrier of entry to black workers in the United States. Before the 1930s, black employment rate was actually slightly lower than whites in 1930, but followed up by the Davis Bacon Act of 1931, that was not the case. And by 1954, black unemployment rates were double of those of whites. And these things are very important because we talk about who these policies are gonna affect the most and these policies are going to hurt the people they attend to help. As it turns out, younger people as the person debating for the pro-side said earlier are going to be mostly affected because as it turns out, 50% of the minimum wage workers are indeed 24 years or younger. And it's also important to note that when we're making this policy decision that minimum wage workers make up 1.5% of all hourly paid workers. Why is this significant? Well, when you make policy decisions, you often do not make it upon 1.5% of anything. And as it turns out, if half of those people are younger, said to be younger, 24 or younger, then it is almost the case that the minimum wage is meant for something. It is meant to be an area of entry for people who do not have the skills to be equipped. And I'm actually glad that the other side talked about income mobility as it pertains to minimum wage. And as it turns out, minimum wage isn't going to do much for poverty because people already move in and out of brackets continuously. A study from the University of Michigan followed people, individuals. We're not talking about brackets, we're talking about individuals who are in the poverty line, who are under the poverty line. And the bottom 20% of the quintile in terms of there's a chance to the United States. And they found out that from 1975 to 1991, 95%, 95% of the people who were in poverty have left the poverty and only 5% remain. And of those people who left, 29% were in the top 20% by 1991, meaning that there were six times as many people. As they were in the top 20% compared to the bottom 20%. And this is important because age is important. And as it turns out, if you were to just Google up immediate income by age, people continuously make more money as they get older. Why is that? Because they gain more experience, they gain more knowledge. All of these things are true. And minimum wage is meant to drive people to work better and harder. And according to the OECD, the United States ranks fifth in terms of percentage wise in terms of adults who have a two or four year degree or have received an education throughout a vocational program. What this is called a tertiary education. The United States is ranked fifth in the world in tertiary education, which is higher than every single European country. The minimum wage isn't meant to be something people live on or not live on, but isn't supposed to be something that is permanent. It is meant to be a driving force for people to make themselves better, to improve their skills, to acquire knowledge. And that is why the minimum wage fits they where it is, federally speaking. But if other states want to implement minimum wage, they can do it freely. Because if you try to implement the minimum wage, it will affect some states more severely than others. For example, we have data graphs that talk about the minimum wage in every country. And for example, Texas has the same, this is exactly the same as the federal minimum wage you have today, 725. And California has $13. Now, when you're phasing it in, are you going to phase it in the same requirement of years or are you going to purposely, each state is going to be different depending on what their already pre-existing minimum wage is. There's a lot of bureaucracy involved and I'm going to hit back on the point that again, we're talking about 1.5% of paid hourly workers. And should we really be pacing a policy decision based off 1.5% of the people who work in the United States, half of whom are young people and most likely the not are going to her higher incomes in the future. And with that, I would like to take it over to Lindsay if she has something else to say. Yeah, and although it's great to look at and learn from the benefits of minimum wage increases in the past, it's important to remember that we're looking at now, facing one of the worst economic recessions since the Great Depression. Now is the wrong time for a federal minimum wage increase for small businesses, small businesses which make up 50% of the GDP. They've already been hard hit by the COVID-19 shutdown and they cannot afford the greater costs of government mandated minimum wage increases rather than those by market demand. According to a study by the Heritage Foundation, 53% of restaurants have been shut down during the COVID pandemic. And I quote, for a restaurant with five full-time workers making minimum wage, a doubling of the federal minimum wage from $725 to $15 would mean an $85,800 wage increase. With low restaurant profit margins of about 5%, that would require an extra $1.717 million in food sales, end quote. Rising wages are good when they're for market demands like in the pre-COVID stage of growth but when it's by government commands such as this on the federal level, especially, it's not very good. According to macroeconomic theory, it would create a price floor in which of the employees have to pay higher wages that will create deadweight loss in social surplus which will ultimately be inefficient. Furthermore, it'll be a greater barrier for small businesses to enter the market if they can't afford the minimum wage increases as opposed to a big monopoly or chain such as Amazon, Apple, Microsoft. Many large companies even encourage minimum wage because it decreases the competition. Again, remember, small businesses make up about 50% of the GDP and it's vitally important that we protect them. From a quote from the Congressional Quadrant Office, employers, especially small family and mid-sized businesses will be disproportionately hurt by the extra costs incurred. The local neighborhood stores and businesses with razor-thin profits will be forced to raise prices to make up for the additional labor cost. And large corporations with big budgets will weigh the increased labor costs and elect to invest in technology to displace minimum wage workers replacing them with automated technology. Therefore, we should not raise the federal minimum wage $15. Thank you, negative. We are now going to have a five-minute break for both teams to collect their thoughts and prepare for their arguments for rebuttals. I will now set that timer. Are they going to break out into breakout rooms or do it? I'd suggest breakout rooms. Okay. Otherwise, they'll hear each other. Yeah, I know. That makes sense. Do I have the power to do that? Or, Michael, are you going to do that? I don't know that we have the options for breakout rooms in this Zoom webinar. Great. So I hope maybe they can text each other. I'll work on breakout rooms. I didn't... What? I'll see what I can do. Hold on. I think that this might be too much work, but if everyone who is on the separate teams have each other's phone numbers, you can mute yourself and your audio and your computer and FaceTime each other as another option if we can't figure out a breakout room. I think we're all good either way. I think it's going to work out fine. Never a dull moment on Zoom, huh? It's a Zoom world. While they're thinking, we need to think about how we're going to put the judges in a place to deliberate. Got to think about that. Here's an option. I can start a totally separate Zoom meeting. We'll send them to a different... Because I cannot see... I'm looking at the help pages. I can't see how to do breakout rooms in a webinar. It's like, it's not in there. So my thought is we'll offer them a separate Zoom meeting. Val, I'll make you host. I'll transfer host to you. Make a separate Zoom meeting for the judges. We'll confer there and then we'll come back. That sounds like a good plan. That sounds fine. Okay. Generally, the deliberations take less than 10 minutes, by the way. It's not usually a long wrangle. Oh, I'm expecting an albiter. Okay. We're waiting here. Someone can compose a letter to Zoom. Like, when we add a webinar, we can't add stuff without taking stuff away. I use Zoom every day for teaching, but I never have used a webinar format. So I wish I could help. Yeah, we're all used to the regular Zoom. That concludes the five minute break. Hopefully everyone was able to meet with their team and at least prep for that. So now we're going to have our 16 minutes argument and rebuttal section broken down into four minute increments. We're going to start with the affirmative. They're going to get four minutes to lay out their counter argument. Can we start? Yeah. Okay, great. So just to start out with this two minute interval because I'm going to pass it off to Jay in a minute. I wanted to go to the point that you've brought up that those minimum wage workers only constitute about 1.9% of the population, which would thereby in his words, render it kind of insignificant for policymakers especially. However, I wanted to bring up that nearly 40%, 47% of wage workers actually make under the $15 hourly wage mark. And in fact, that's by the broken institution and other different institutions have projected that more around 53 to 58%. So there's a substantial amount of earners who may not earn exactly 725 an hour but they're still earning in the 8, 9, 10, 11 potentially even 12, 13, 14 wage. Now this may seem like a good step but when we think about it and we think about the rising cost of living this is still very much insufficient. Especially when you think of something like buying a sandwich or a chicken breast. Some things that people would consider basic necessities to live, to eat, to nourish themselves. These usually cost in a range of 10 to $12 and this is constituted by an hour of labor. When this is broken down, it seems almost preposterous that we would assume even though workers are not making exactly 725 an hour that just because they're making maybe $8 an hour, $9 an hour, $10 or $11 an hour that they are receiving the sufficient amount of compensation. With that I'll pass it off to Jack. Thank you very much, Gabriel. I'd just like to respond to a couple of points. I heard that raising the federal minimum wage is a bad idea because it's not properly calibrated to the cost of living in each state. The purpose of the federal minimum wage is to provide a floor for wages. It is a baseline. It is not supposed to be calibrated with each state. In addition to that, I also heard that a depression the fact that we're in the middle of an economic crisis is a bad reason to raise the wage. I would kind of, this is the perfect moment to do it. This was the intention of Mr. Roosevelt at the New Deal era and we all know that it worked out wonderfully. Our workers are struggling. They need money to feed their families in advance of their lives. In addition to that, although there would be some job loss, the wage gains would be substantially larger. As a result, you had to have fewer people in poverty. It's estimated that 900,000 people would be pulled out of poverty by adding this measure. In addition to that, the fact that this has done over five years would cushion the impact of small businesses. And many of the studies against this argument assume that the increase occurs overnight, which is very, very misleading. Firms will not need to lay off workers as they will be able to afford a price increase. In addition to that, there's always a trade-off to consider with every major economic policy. And in this case, the benefits greatly outweigh the negatives. If I have to choose between increasing consumer spending, helping the poorest Americans, and bringing this country back versus worrying about a few small businesses, I'm gonna worry about the country as a whole. Anything less would be bad governance. Okay, thank you, affirmative. Now the negative gets to four minutes to lay out their counterargument, and they can start now. Awesome, thank you. So I first wanted to address many of the statistics that you guys used in your opening arguments, looked at national averages, which from our point of view, is an overly simplistic measure when the cost of living varies so much by state. Additionally, the federal increase would ignore differences between states and cost of living primarily. And going in the order of how you guys presented your arguments, you started with talking about how many millennials had to how many millennials had to move back home once the pandemic hit. And I certainly don't think that the pandemic is, or I don't think a once in a century pandemic should be the basis for public policy moving forward. Additionally, when you consider that many of those people having to move back home were already living in states with higher than the national average minimum wage. Next, you guys cited the executive pay at Goldman Sachs, particularly the bonuses. And I think we'd cite that as a larger problem than you guys did, because by raising the minimum wage, you would not necessarily affect executive pay. Next, labor participation would decrease. I heard a lot of statistics about the difference in unemployment rates. However, at no point did I hear labor participation. And with that executive pay and labor participation, there is no evidence that raising the minimum wage would cause inflation, which would disproportionately affect low income earners. And with that, I'd like to hand it over to you Seth. So as you guys mentioned, that you guys said that minimum wage is going to be a tool to help curb systemic racism. But in the past, systemic racism has been implemented via minimum wage. Thomas C. Leonard, historian of economics of personal rights, progressive economists like their neoclassical critics believed that binding minimum wage would cancel jobs. However, the progressive economists also believed that loss in minimum wage workers was a social benefit as it performed the eugenics service, riding the labor force of the unappliable. And not only that, Thomas Soule cites that in 1925, a minimum wage law was passed in the Canadian province of British Columbia with the attempt in effect of pricing Japanese immigrants out of jobs in the lumber industry. Another quote Soule gives a Harvard professor of that era, referred approvingly to Australia's minimum wage law as a means to protect the white Australian standard of living from the indigenous competition of the colored races, particularly of the Chinese who were willing to work for less. And so when you talk about systemic racism, I don't really think that if you're going to really hamper down that I don't really think it's going to help the people who you proclaim to be seeking to benefit the most from it. And I think that it will genuinely hurt the people who you seek to help. And with that, we would like to take away from our time. Okay, thank you, negative. The affirmative now has four minutes to respond starting now. Okay, so our first point of counter was we wanted to talk about your small business claim and how raising minimum wage would hurt small businesses. And we do agree with you that some small businesses will suffer as a result of a minimum wage being raised. But we do have three points that may sway people in our favor. So the first is that employees will respond to a minimum wage increase with increased productivity and less turnover, meaning that higher wages incentivize employees to stay with businesses, which and we all know that employees leaving businesses and quitting their jobs because of low pay is a high cost to business owners. Our second is that, sorry, is that increased or higher minimum wages will increase the overall aggregate demand, which will help businesses and help offset some of the costs that they're suffering. And our third is that we are willing to accept, as Jay was saying, a small trade-off for some small businesses to suffer, whereas many minimum wage workers will benefit on the whole. Oh yeah, so I would like to address just a few of the points brought up by Yusuf. I think there was definitely some confusion going back and forth on how the minimum wage would address minority communities. Just looking at statistics that have been provided by the Economic Policy Institute, we see again that approximately one in four of those who would benefit by raising is a black or Latin American woman. Furthermore, we see that the policy to raise the minimum wage to $15 will also deliver the largest benefits to the black and Latino American workers, which is approximately $3,500 annually for a year-round worker. And to also address the point of spending, studies show that lower income consumers will spend far more of their money since they have less available to be able to save. So I think adding to our point of targeting these communities that are historically underpaid would also increase spending, especially in local small business communities when we'd see higher spending rates due to the increase. And our rebuttal. Okay, thank you. So now we are going to have a two-minute break so the judges can organize their questions and then we will transition into the 10 to 15-minute questions from judges for both sides. Wait, don't we have one more rebuttal? Because they have one more rebuttal. You're completely right. Yeah, sorry. My brain is all over the place. The negative can do their four-minute rebuttal and then we will transition into the two minutes. And you guys can start now. So I generally find it funny that the other side said employees are more likely to stay with their businesses if they get paid higher wages. Now, why would young people want to stay working at a minimum wage job forever? That doesn't make sense. You're admitting that you're de-incentivizing people from pursuing other skills and developing themselves and that seems counterproductive. You just said employees are more likely to stay with their business and you're de-incentivizing people to be more productive. And as we can see with the statistic I put up earlier about the tertiary education that people in the United States have the fifth highest in the world and it's higher than every European country and it's meant to drive people to do better. And that's to me as I think of flaw and that big and major flaw in that argument. And you guys also said that you guys can see that some small businesses will have to shut down because the minimum wage law. But ultimately you're deciding the winners and losers. You're basically dictating that some people can have an increase in pay while people get out of business and get paid zero. What type of, it's not good for the economy. You're basically making people, you're telling people you're earning zero dollars and you're basically giving other people a raise and you're not doing it genuinely through a free market form. You're artificially doing it via the government. And you guys talk about the idea that people who tend to be lower income tend to spend more money. Well, that's funny because that's going to increase the wealth inequality. And I'm pretty sure you guys are also aware of the inequalities that exist there. And so if there's gonna be spending their money regardless, then it's really going to probably, it's not really going to have an effect on inequalities that pertains to wealth. And so I just find many of these arguments can be flipped on their heads. And that with that we rest. I would actually just like to add to this. I feel that there's not enough stress on the issue of different costs of living standards and different wage laws that are implemented across the 50 states. As you're well aware that the federal minimum wage has not had an increase since 2009. Since then, many states have taken their own liberties to increase minimum wage laws or change minimum wage laws as they see fit. This, as we can also see, has an effect on the cost of living standards across these states. Basically because the federal minimum wage has not been increased, has not been used as a policy tool for over 10 years now. It is rendered ineffective due to the differences in wage laws and cost of living standards in each state. You have proposed that increases in minimum wage would be gradual and therefore have a less than inflationary effect. However, because there are real differences in subsistence levels among the states, I feel that you are underestimating the inflationary effects of increasing the minimum wage. Say, a state like Montana who follows the federal minimum wage but whose state law is actually $4 an hour. So they follow the 725 federal law. To have an increase of wage that is reaching the $15 over the span of five years is gonna be a lot more harmful than say, in Massachusetts I believe it's $12 or $13 an hour spreading out the increase to $15 over $2. It's a $2 an hour increase. Spreading that out over five years has a much less effect than increasing the wage by two-fold over the course of five years. Okay, thank you, negative. So now as I said before, we're going to have a two minute break for the judges to organize their questions and then we'll get into the 10 to 15 minute questions from both sides. Okay. So should I be clicking on one of these sites right now? On the chat, I guess. Might be muted. I was gonna say maybe do it by chat here. I think we'll, I'm wearing a blue shirt. Okay, we'll do it by chat, that's fine. We'll save that for deliberation. We'll save that for deliberation. I guess we could try putting you in the, if you guys would like to talk to each other for a minute. We can try that. Okay. Bill? So Bill? Yeah. And Samari and Steve. I sent you a link. Click that link now. I'll see you in that room. Okay. This'll be interesting. You're still in the main room. The main, you're still on the main Zoom. Can you hear me? Can you hear me okay? Steven, you're still in the main debate. I know, I don't see the, I don't see the link from Michael. Unfortunately, Michael's not here to find out where Michael went. Did he text you? He's back. Yeah. Hi, Steven. Do you need, you need that link to go see them, huh? I do. Okay. So I love it. So I'm gonna send it to the chat. Okay. And they know how to get back. Let's see. Let me, here it comes in the chat. Hold on. Got it. Everyone else is supposed to stay here though. And I'm sneaking into the judge's room. Woo, quite a debate, folks. I'm very impressed. You guys have done amazing work. It's always a pleasure. I got really feisty for as it went on. That was kind of nice. It's always nice to have a feisty debate. Minimum wage is a very hot topic these days. You should see the general body, econ club meetings. I was gonna say we ran like three or four of these debates. And they were, they were hot. They, they were very... What were your topics? I'm just curious what topics you've debated on this spring. No, we did one talk, one of our topics was making a public college tuition free. That was a particularly hot debate. Yeah, usually we end up having to get caught, cut off by the leadership team of the econ club because I guess they probably have some homework. And we have homework too. It's probably good to end up cutting us off in the end. I'm pretty sure that everyone could go till midnight without having this debate. Gee, imagine how much longer you could go if you were sitting around a pub with some beer and making having these debates, right? Next year. Next year. Until the next morning, probably. Yeah. I mean, if the Hamilton musical has taught us anything, that's where all the best revolutions start. Yep. Next year econ club meetings on Monday night, but like at stackers or something for that upperclassman. We're actually reserving the UPUB as our meeting location. Closes at seven and it opens for us at seven. There we go. Perfect. Well, if nothing else, you could talk about the economic policy of lowering the drinking age to 18. There's definitely an economic impact of that. So our insurance car rates. College students being the unbiased voice of reason. Yes. Of course. Any sign of our judges returning? I was going to say just for Prince. The two minutes has gone by. So if someone wants to get the judges. Yeah, I guess I'll go get the judges. Wait, are they here? I don't think so. Okay. I will go get the judges. So, yeah, it's right. It's here, but it says that Stephen is here, but. Yeah, it does say that Stephen is here. It is using more than one device. Oh, there's another. There's Stephen. You're back. You're back. Can you hear me or not? Yes. You can. Is it clear? Yes. Okay, good. Well, clear enough for Zoom. All right, good. I was not able to, I'm not sure, quite well, but I couldn't get the notes from there. Oh. So I'm not able to get the notes from there. Okay. Sorry about that. So you have, you're back, which is good. I'm going to go get the other two. Don't leave. I'll be back. How long do we have for this Q&A session? What did you ask? How long do we have for this session? You have 10 to 15 minutes for questioning. Okay, good. Thank you. Well, we have learned a lot about Zoom and Zoom seminars and Zoom webinars since last March, but I'm kind of feeling like we made the right decision last April, not to go ahead with the debate last year because we really didn't know what we were doing yet. So imagine how much worse we would have been a year ago trying to make this all work. One of my biggest regrets in life will always be not investing in Zoom the moment we started using it. Yeah, well, there's a whole catch-22. You have to have a lot of money to invest, to actually invest. It's a little, you know. Leverage, Val, you never heard of leverage. Yeah. Yeah. Well, there's always feeling, you know, that's always an option. What? It would have been an emosional hedge. If we were able to get off of Zoom and Zoom stock tank, I'd be so happy that we're back in person. If we're online, at least I'm making money off Zoom stock. So it could have been a win-win. A win-win, exactly. Okay, so we have Bill back, I'm looking for Samari. It turned out we have to re-log in. We went back and asked us for a net ID and stuff. Oh, no. Yeah. Well, one door opens, another door closes. What could he do? Anyway, that's what I had to do. I had to re-log in. It's no big deal. I'm here. I hope that doesn't interfere with- We lost you. Well, it wasn't for Samari's return. I'm a little bit anxious. Yeah, because then I was like in no man's land. I couldn't like go back and I couldn't go forward. So it was, you know, just odd. Are you able to get into that Zoom or not? I can't hear you, Stephen. Is that better? That's better. Okay, so were you able to get into the other Zoom? Yes. Were you with Samari? Yes. Okay. Yeah. So I jotted down a few questions, but since I couldn't get into the Zoom, if you want to take the lead, I can lob in a couple too from you or Samari. Yeah, I'm sensitive to time. I think, look, one question I have for the affirmative. Oh, let me know, wait. I'm going to spotlight you. Hold on. Okay. Sure. Here we go. And I just sent, oh, I'm having trouble joining back in. Oh, okay. Patrick, Samari is getting a UMass login prompt. You know why that, do you know what- That's what I got too. Why can't you just get straight to this meeting? Hold on one second. I think we can work this out. Okay. Zoom. It should be an open meeting, I think. Have them try a different browser. Like if you, like maybe try Firefox or Safari or Chrome, a different one than they were using before. Let's see. I think if she just logs into the code. Oh, back? Yeah. Oh, thank goodness. I'm so sorry. Okay, we're all back. Oh, okay. We got into some sort of weird firewall. All right. Thank you. All right. The judges are- So, Mike, my first question is for the affirmative. I was surprised there wasn't more details on anticipated savings on social welfare programs, such as housing, housing vouchers, SNAP and other food assistance programs. Could you talk about that a bit? Based on the $15 an hour proposal, shouldn't there be savings? There absolutely should be savings. Unfortunately, that was not a central part of my argument, like you said, so I don't have the exact figures. But I think the point to remember is that nobody wants to be on government assistance, right? You know, in order to help people get off it, we need to ensure that the working conditions are better. We need to ensure that they're making fair wages. Then we can get people off government assistance. We can't do it unless we have a $15 minimum wage. And I think this is a great starting point. Like you said, we'll result in savings anyway in many of these programs. And hopefully, maybe we can even scrap some of them. Samari or Stephen? Question? Samari, would you like to lob one in or? And I'm sorry, I wasn't able to connect with you in the other room. Yeah, yeah. Definitely a question. I guess my question would be, so I have a question. So if minimum wage was increased to $15 an hour, as time progressed and the educational levels increased so more people were getting college degrees, will this have a negative or positive effect on our economy? Will we see a balance out of the number of people who are still working minimum wage jobs? So this is for both parties to answer if you have any figures or statements on this. This would absolutely be positive. In fact, this would be better with a $15 minimum wage. If you have people getting college degrees, because it would decrease competition among people for that higher wage, which would result in less unemployment. So if people are getting more college degrees, it's gonna open up opportunities for people at the bottom even more, which is why it's so important to increase the wage. Thank you. Great answer. Thank you. And then I just wanted to ask, is the minimum wage a price ceiling or price floor? And why? Which group are we asking? I'm not. So can you please specify exactly what you mean by that? Yeah, of course. So, well, I'll just provide the answer, I guess. Well, okay, no. So is it like price ceiling or price floor? Price floors prevent price from falling below a certain level. Price ceiling allow prices to rise at a certain level. So I just wanna know what the effects or like implications are if we set the minimum wage at a certain level. I know you guys both gave sides, but what is the strongest point do you believe both parties? Sure, so is this also in regards to inflation as well? Yes. Okay, perfect. So there's a very large misconception that we're gonna see like a huge increase in prices if we increase the wage. Many of the studies citing this are assuming that we're going from 725, that we're in a state with 725, first of all, that's one hell of an assumption. Doubling to $15 overnight, not allowing for that five-year amount of time. And in addition to that, from 1948 to 1968, adjusted for inflation, the minimum wage went from 407 to 1056. That's more than double. We didn't see massive inflation at all. In fact, we saw much lower inflation than we did in the 1970s when wages were stagnant. And in addition to that, the assumption with inflation that is implicit with that is that firms are already paying the workers the most they can possibly pay them while still making a profit. And this is simply not the case. They don't have to raise prices to make a profit. If you look at the corporate profit margins for most major companies, there's plenty of room. And it's also not good incentive for them to raise it because let's say if McDonald's makes the price of a burger higher, then people are just gonna go to Burger King. So there's an element of competition as well which will automatically keep the prices down. I think that he raises an excellent point there of these large publicly traded companies such as Walmart and Target, of course, they're up for the higher minimum wage because it'll price out all of their local competition. And I think that's one of the biggest deterrents for small businesses of raising the wage. If the federal government raised the federal wage to 15, they'd certainly be choosing the winners and losers of various industries, blatantly favoring the established players. Can I respond to that or is this like a? We probably should go to a question from Steven. Okay, got it. All right, can you hear me okay? Yes, great. Okay, so I just have one question for both sides and that is in your research, have you uncovered any examples of how a similar minimum wage concept has been employed in other countries that might inform our policy thinking? And I don't, is there an order in which they should answer this? I'm not sure on that. Oh, it's just to whoever. Why don't we go with the negative side to start? I could speak on the behalf of the negative side. We chose not to look at data from other countries because a lot of times countries with higher minimum wages is not really applicable in the United States. You think of places like Scandinavia where there's not only is it a smaller country than say the United States, but there is less inequality in income across the board rather than in the United States because in Scandinavia, most people are making about the same whereas here there's a significant significant disparity. So it would not be as applicable on a federal level. Okay. I'd also like to add on that we did find, I mean, I personally just personally found a study and it basically showed the unemployment rates with EU countries with the minimum wage and countries that do not have a minimum wage. Now, technically these countries don't have a federal rebinding minimum wage, but it's not the government deciding what the minimum wage is. For example, in countries like let's say Sweden, the minimum wage is decided by the labor unions that exist in those countries. And so that's a way that is done via the free market. It's two people, two parties consenting to a consensual agreement. It's not the government overreaching and basically dictating what the minimum wage should be but generally speaking countries, I can pull up, I mean, I can show you the graphic share screen. Oh, I can't share the screen, but it was basically a graph showing countries that have high minimum wages and countries that don't have minimum wages in the EU. All right, just to respond to those points. So you stated that the comparison between Scandinavian and European countries and whatnot between the United States, I heard that there's no minimum wage, but you also have to keep taking into account that precisely like you said, labor unions are much more powerful. You look at the boards of these companies, there's much more labor representation. So it's a completely invalid comparison. In addition to that, I also heard that precisely because we have such a huge wealth disparity, for some reason we shouldn't increase the minimum wage, I think that's all the more reason to increase it in order to sort of mitigate that mass inequality we see in is for consumer spending and grow the economy in the process. And just going back to the question, I will link a study in the chat that does prove that on the aggregate developing countries when they implement a minimum wage policy or raise theirs, it does help contribute to reducing poverty. Fellow judges, any further questions? I do have one, but I don't know if we have time. We have five minutes. We do, okay. I'd like both teams to address the following. We have changed from a manufacturing economy to a services economy. I think we can all agree on that. Did either of you factor in the substitution of capital for labor as the wages might go up? And what I mean by that is automating jobs. At what point will jobs, because of the cost of labor, be eliminated because of automation? Robots, AI, all the rest. So I'd like both sides to address that. I'd like to respond first. Well, I can't exactly speak to what the future trends are. The current studies, which we have a lot of technology in the present that are already taking over for these jobs. Current studies have actually often found that automation actually doesn't pose as much of a threat to minimum wage workers as we might think. And in fact, it seems that it's able to work in unison without actually disbanding too many jobs. And following up on Gabriel's point, I think we've seen during the coronavirus pandemic who the essential workers really are. And that's the lower wage workers who are packing boxes or working at a cashier doing things like this, which are really invaluable. Okay, how about the negative? I would like to disagree with that. I mean, there are multiple studies that I could put in the chat right now that show that minimum wage workers, actually, I'm gonna reference that low skilled workers because there is a difference between low skilled workers and minimum wage workers. Low skilled workers tend to be easily replaced in terms of just fast food change and that sort of stuff. And there have been multiple studies that have shown this. And so, yeah, I do think that technology will replace jobs that can be done by robots that may have a higher upfront cost but lower long-term costs. And I think that's definitely a role that will play into the future. And I'll put the studies right. Okay. Additionally, I just wanted to push back on the point that they're invaluable. I think the whole reason that they're being automated is because they can be. And as you said, they are low skilled. For example, you cited cashiers and package packers, both of which are jobs likely to dwindle as a result of automation. Anybody, any other questions from Samari or Steven? If it's all right, I'd like to actually push back one more time. Okay. I just wanna add quickly that the price of someone actually interacting with you, even if they are a low skilled worker, is a lot different than interacting with a robot and receiving your services, your groceries, something like that from a robot. And so while, yes, they may pose a greater cost economically to employ low wage or low skilled workers, there actually is a larger benefit to the community and to these kinds of interactions, which I'm sure over the pandemic, we've been able to realize that in-person interaction is very valuable. And these daily interactions with low skilled workers is often a very important part of the business and part of the transactions. Thank you. I would also like to touch upon something that I forgot to mention when talking about the price floor and price ceilings. The side previously stated that employees are more likely to stay with their businesses earlier on the debate. And now they're talking about how more people are gonna go to college because wages are good for minimum wage jobs that really doesn't seem to play out. Like if people can already have a quote living wage, making minimum wage, then there's really no incentive to really pursue any higher skills because you're already doing fine. And I think that you might see a reduction in people going into colleges if the minimum wage was to get hiked. And as we compared other countries, the United States tends to have one the highest and higher than all the other European countries. So if you've got paid $15 an hour, would you choose not to go to college? Well, I'm saying like if I was still hypothetically, I mean, anyways, you're putting it to me, but I think each person is different in their own right. And I think that some people will say yes to that question because college is very expensive. And if you could make $15 an hour, maybe five years from then you'll be making $22 an hour and you can move up. And yeah, you could use that experience to make more money. I mean, people would do that. It's our nature to aspire to greater things. I mean, we're warriors, we are conquerors. I mean, even if we are getting a baseline level of a certain wage, we are certainly going to aspire for more. And more to that point, if somebody's in college or planning on going to college, we're having that wage will encourage them to go because they will actually have more money in their pocket and they'll be able to pay the loans. But that's not what you see when you compare the United States to other European countries. And I think that other countries, definitely, it's definitely a tell. I mean, if other countries are basically saying that less and less people are having tertiary education, then obviously it's definitely signaling something to us as economics majors. That's a signal that people are probably going to be less likely to do that. Well, one thing to also to think about is that a lot of these European countries employ a completely different educational and welfare structure than the United States. And in addition, when we're talking about increasing a minimum wage, often we're making it so that people who don't go to college are able to create a living for themselves and sustain their families if they choose to have a family. And so it's not necessarily all about diverting people from college. Some of it's just those who didn't have the choice to go to college or don't feel that college is the right choice for them that are able to still make a living and essentially provide for their family and their own needs. But again, we're talking about 1.5% of the population. So again, I don't- I think we're out of time, Yusuf. I was gonna say, we do unfortunately have to end the question portion, but we are now going to transition to the closing statements. So the affirmative will have two minutes to say their closing statement and they can start whenever they're ready. Sure, yeah, I can begin. So we've seen throughout history that raising the minimum wage results in higher productivity, less turnover, more consumer spending, without mass inflation. You know, I cited on the example of the years between 1948 and 1968 when the minimum wage more than double and inflation was stable. In addition to that, this measure would be especially wise because it is popular. 66% of Americans support this. Florida voted in 2020 to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour over the next five years. That's a red state and in Montana and in Kansas. All these places, you see the referendums and it's like 70%. Many of whom are Republicans. So I think that this is something that everybody could work on, everybody could have a part of and really something we should do to move forward. Is that anything or sometimes less is more? Well, if that's the end of the affirmative's closing statement, then we can now transfer to the negatives. You guys can start whenever you're ready. So when talking about the federal minimum wage, it is a policy tool that has been abandoned in the past 10 years. And while we recognize and understand the benefits that raising minimum wage has had in the past as the opposition has cited, we believe it is more efficient to leave it up to the states who have more accurate representations of their costs of living within those states and the needs of the people who live there. Raising the federal minimum wage, especially to such a drastic amount to a point of convergence in say five years. And I know the opposition was saying that it would be five years. Still the states who have lower subsistence levels whose wage is 725 an hour, the jump from 725 to 15 over five years is much greater than the jump from 10, 11, $12 to 15 over five years. And that could have a lot of negative implications to those economies on a state level. Oh, I would also like to stress the importance of protecting us small businesses, which have been particularly hard hit due to the pandemic. We do not want a systematic outsourcing of small business jobs to these larger corporations who are already established who can afford to take some short run losses or short run losses in profit due to increased labor costs. That's a lie. Okay, regardless, thank you, negative. We are now going to transition to the deliberation portion with the judges. I'm not entirely sure how we want to do this because the original plan was to do breakout rooms. That's not a thing anymore. And it seems like the link going to a different zoom was kind of a struggle. So I don't know if we want to try to do that again. Michael, if you have any suggestions of how we should do this, please. Yeah, thanks. So let me ask the judges. So I can take another stab at bringing a breakout room. Alternative would be you mute and you do a group telephone call that would, or chat. So if you send to me privately, or I don't know if, yeah, that's my best. Three of you can chat with each other privately, as long as you... Yeah, the other thing is, well, you can't... You can only two-way. Yeah, it's only two-way. I'm going to create a zoom. Well, I'll make it work. It will be okay. Hold on one second. So that's my... Yeah, give me a second. All right. So let's see. I think for the judges, I think what we'll do is we'll go to this room and then we log out and then log back in when we started. Right. And just not... Don't try to return. Just get out of zoom completely and reach back in. Okay, good. That sounds like a good plan. I'm going to send you a link for a new... A new Zoom room in one second. Let's see. Please use this. So this is... I'm sending this to everybody. It's only for the judges. We don't want spies. Yeah. So I'll see you in that room. Okay. Michael, I have a question. Yes. On the original template we made, it said that I was supposed to go with the judges just so I know... No, they'll come back and they'll report. I think it'll be easiest. Okay, yeah. I think that'll be easier. Great. All right, let's see if that works. All right, while I'm here, I thought I would just mention that I'm going to be sending all the panelists an email because historically, the people who've been on the debate have been able to get credit, academic credit. So I'm going to send... I'll be sending all eight of you an email saying, do you want the credit? Do you not want the credit? It gets added at the end so it doesn't affect credit overloads or all that kind of thing. So, you know, it's free credits. It's practicum credits. If you are thinking that you're going to do 18 credits of practice at some point in the future, that's the only reason I could think that you might not want to do it. Most people want to do it. So just let you know that that credit will be there. I'll send you an email with that, you know, with that option. So you just need to let me know, like, yes, here's my spire number. Please give me credit for all this work I did for this debate. Gotta love the free credits. Yeah. And sorry, it doesn't go for the moderator, Laila. It's just for the affirmative and the negative. It's okay, I'll survive, don't worry. Can I just get, like, extra credit in one of my classes or something? I can offer you that. Unless you're in my class, so, you know, UCF's in my class, so maybe, you know, that could be, he could negotiate with me to get extra credit instead of, you know, college credit. So most people aren't in my class. I can't offer that to anybody else. That doesn't seem fair. Hi, everyone. I'm having a hard time joining the panel breakout group. So I just don't have the link for it. Oh, now I do. Thank you. Is anyone else like wearing, I'm like wearing sweatpants under my dress shirt. Anyone else? Okay, good. Okay, okay. I am also wearing sweatpants as well under this sweater moment. So I relate with you. Yadida's track pants. I'm the track pants too. Hell yeah. I feel like I've gone to like four presentations or something where I've had to like wear like a suit or shirt and I'm always rocking the sweats or shorts. Yeah, it's what we look like in Zoom times, right? Yeah, I haven't worn pants that weren't leggings or stretchy and I don't know, many, many, many, many months, right? Someday, September 1st, that's my day. We'll start classes this fall on September 1st and we're all going to like have shoes on and pants. You know, it's going to be very exciting. Shoes are like my favorite thing and I've been wearing crocs for like a year, you know. The back and forth, this has like been the entire, my entire year packed into a 45 minute period, you know. Quad in the Zoom. You're doing great. Oh, stressful, high stress. Well, imagine how these debaters feel. They feel more stressed than you do. True enough, true enough. You guys have done a wonderful job. It's really, Laila, thank you so much for moderating and everyone's made great arguments while researched. So, all right, I hope our debate or hope our judges can make it back into, I'll keep an eye on my email in case I get one of those. I can't, I'm caught in the web. You'd better keep an eye on the participants in case they return, in case the return is unpromoted. Yeah, I've just confirmed with Michael Carvalho that it's two credits that you guys can get for this lovely work you did on the debate, so. That's more than I got in like two months as a note taker, so that's pretty good. Let's see, no sign of them in my email, no sign of them in the attendee, it might be attendees, I guess it's a tough deliberation. It's really a sound proof booth, right? You know, it used to be, you know, how far did the judges have to go away so that we didn't know what they were just talking about? We really have a sound proof booth these days. Benjamin, what's your email address? I know there's confusion on, we have more than one Benjamin Hall and I wanna make sure I get the email to you. It's BP Hall, you know. BP Hall, thanks. It does get very confusing when we have more than one person with the same name and the same major. Is there really another Ben Hall in the e-con? There is. And then there's no major, yes. Well. He's BM in your BP, so. Oh, let's see, oh. I think our judges are back. Are they coming back? Looks like it. We could run our drums and make a drum roll. Those are drummer. All right. So we are back and we have made our decision. Stephen, would you like to announce? Dor, is his bill rejoined yet or? I don't think he's on yet. There he is. Yes. There he is. There's Bill. So I have the floor, unless Bill, unless you want to make the. No, it's fine, Stephen. Okay. So this was, first of all, this was a nail biter cliffhanger. It was very close. We felt both teams did a thorough job of researching the topics. There was a lot of work done obviously on both sides. We saw a lot of data delivered in a clear, you know, compelling set of arguments, but in the end having to make a choice, we chose the affirmative side in a close one. So congratulations to affirmative, but also to negative for, you know, for really terrific work. And I think all of you have bright futures ahead. If you choose to pursue law or debate or anything where effective argument advocacy. Family Thanksgiving dinner, all of those things. Right. I want to say that you guys both had great good points on both sides. Like your arguments were incredible. Yeah, both just phenomenal. It was, it was a hard decision to make. But I think it was a great decision to make. It was phenomenal. It was, it was a hard decision to make. But yeah, both teams, you guys, you know, I love that you guys did research. You had your data provided statistics. And you also provided like relevant information of how it would affect us moving forward, getting out of the pandemic. So honestly, good job everyone. You guys are awesome. I'd like to say speaking as a teacher at UNH, I'd love to have all of you as my students. So you did a great job. Now, now, Bill, keep away from our students. Hey, I poached with regularity. Well, congratulations to all the participants. And congratulations to all the alumni judges as well. Thank you for taking your time out to judge today. A recording of today's debate will be posted on the website of the economics department. And with that, unless anyone has any, any like final comments, that would conclude our 2021 undergraduate economics club debate. Great job. Wow. Wow. That was awesome. Give yourselves a hand. That was so great. Thank you for the opportunity and thank you, George, for helping us reach this opportunity. Yeah, that was awesome. Great job, guys. And Michael and John, the leadership on their way out. I think Michael's in the other side, but Michael and John for leading us fearlessly as UEC club for the past few years. So thank you guys. UEC is super important. All right. All right, I'm going to, I'm going to bring the, I'm going to bring the attendees into the participant file. Let's take a quick picture. If you don't mind. Let's I'm going to put us on gallery view. Great. And I think we fit just perfectly. So I'm going to take a couple of pictures. Just to give a nice smile. And see everybody. Oh, thanks, Michael. That's great. A couple more. It's great. Okay. That was superb. Thank you. Thank you. Always fun. Thank you very much for your efforts. Good luck to the rest of the year. Yeah. And strong and strong. Strong. Thanks everyone. Good job, guys. Thank you. Thank you. Congratulations. Thank you everyone for putting this together. So I just brought up some of the audience. Who wanted to come up and say hi. And. Steven bill and. And Samaria. And if you're still here, thanks. That was just totally amazing. Thanks for, thanks for judging. Thank you very much. Sorry. I should have. Got up before. Thank you. Hi. I'm one of the governors. I was as an attendee. So I couldn't. Like unmute myself or anything, but I just wanted to say thank you so much for allowing us to do this. We had a lot of fun organizing it in the club. And we've had so much fun doing our mini debates throughout this semester. And I'm glad it seemed to have prepared them well. I think, I think they did pretty good. So. I'm really happy to see that. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. And I'm glad that we're able to do this. Thank you very much. And thank you for joining us. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you. Thank you very much.