Minimum wage focus of Coffeehouse Debate

Plans to raise the minimum wage in Michigan are controversial at best, with strong supporters on both sides of the issue. The debate has played out largely in the public eye, thanks in part to strikes from fast-food workers, and a direct tie to the recovering economy in the state. 

Grand Valley State University’s Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies will host a Coffeehouse Debate, “Should Michigan Raise the Minimum Wage,” from noon to 1 p.m. on Tuesday, January 14 in the Pere Marquette Room of the Kirkhof Center on Grand Valley’s Allendale Campus. 

The event will feature viewpoints from Yannet Lathrop from the Michigan League for Public Policy, and Jarrett Skorup from the Mackinac Center. These two experts will work through the complex arguments on each side in search of actionable common ground. Time will be left at the end of the debate for students and audience members to pose questions to the experts and engage in constructive conversation. 

This is the Hauenstein Center’s second Coffeehouse Debate, which are part of the center’s Common Ground Initiative. 

The Common Ground Initiative is unique in higher education today. No other public university in the U.S. is offering a balanced, comprehensive exploration (and redefinition) of what it means to be conservative and what it means to be progressive in the 21st century. The center’s talks, roundtables and debates investigate the first principles of these two traditions, and explore the possible common ground that they might share — historically, culturally, politically.

An RSVP is requested for the event at HauensteinCenter.org.