partnerships with the great people of his era, but it also alludes to his gift to the country of his talents and what he was able to do to help create the first self-sustaining constitutional republic. >> sunday night on c-span "q&a." >> here at c-span around this time, we talk to you about our student documentry competition. the goal with the annual competition is to challenge middle and high school students to think about issues that affect them and their community. the 2015 theme for student cam this year was the three branches and you. we asked students to tell us a story that demonstrated how a policy, law, or action has affected them or their community. and in addition to telling it through video, we asked them to use c-span programming in their video and explore alternative points of view. before we meet one of the grand

prize winners and watch a portion of their grand prize video, here's a little bit more background on the competition. there were five top themes among the many entry this is year. -- entires we received this uyea -- year. they were education, health, economy, equality and immigration. we received more than 2,200 entries from 45 states and the district of columbia. students were able to enter as a team of up to three or individually. and there were four categories in which they could enter, broken down by regions at the high school level, high school eastern states, high school central states and high school western states. middle schoolers competed separately. in the end, 150 student prizes were awarded totaling $100,000. now it's time to announce the grand prize winner, a team of eighth graders from lexington, kentucky, were named the grand prize winners in 2015 for their video on the minimum wage titled "the artificial wage."

their cable provider is time warner cable. here's a small clip from the winning piece by anna, katie and michael. >> sydney jones is a single mother with a 4-year-old child. she has to make tough choices every week since she has to make ends meet on a minimum wage job. $7.25 an hour. she said $15,080 a year isn't enough for her to get by. >> it is hard because sometimes i have to decide like, if my son needs underwear, i'm going to have to be late on the bill -- on a bill to buy underwear or i'm going to have to ask people to borrow money. so it is hard, sometimes. >> sydney is not alone. according to the bureau of labor statistics, 3.3 million americans make minimum wage or below. that's 2.6% of all u.s. workers. most minimum wage workers are employed in fields like food service, retail sales or personal care such as day care.

rosemarie gray makes minimum wage as a custodian. >> we want to be able to take care of ourselves, pay our bills and pay for housing and we can't do that on minimum wage. just can't. they have all these programs like food stamps, you know. they're going, why do you need food stamps? because you've got to eat. when you don't make enough to feed yourself and pay all your bills, you just don't. >> the push is on to raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to maybe $10.10 an hour, which would provide a little over $21,000 a year if the individual works 40 hours per week. it's been six years since the minimum wage was raised. some in congress say now is the time to raise it again. >> things are getting better. the problem is, they're only getting better for some.

we know that corporate profits have continued to break records while americans are working harder and getting paid less. >> but some, like kentucky congressman andy barr, say raising the minimum wage will cost jobs, citing a nonpartisan study by the congressional budget office. >> if we mandate a higher minimum wage in those entry level jobs, then we would lose 500,000 to a million jobs immediately, those low-income jobs. that's the last thing we want. we don't want to create more unemployment. we want higher employment. >> representative barr says more education and better worker training are the keys to improving the lives of minimum wage workers like sidney and rosemarie, not an artificial wage. >> now it's time for taos meet -- for us to meet one of the students that's on the grand

prize winning team, her name is anna gilligan and she's joining us from lexington, kentucky. hi, anna, congratulations to your team. anna: thank you so much. host: where were you when you heard the news you'd won? anna: i was in my principal's office with my team and a few teachers and i got the call and for the first time in my life i didn't have anything to say. host: isn't that terrific. were you surprised when you won? did you feel when you sent it in that it was a winner? anna: my team and i, when we were making it, we said, let's show so and so. we wanted to get the word out and let people know. we had no idea. there's always somebody better out there and we didn't know that this was a possibility. host: how did you choose the topic "the artificial wage" which deals with the minimum wage? anna: we were looking through the clips you had available and we're all passionate about human rights and i was like, oh, let's look at, minimum wage, you know, hey, for the people. give them more money, help them out.

and you know, right there, we're like, yeah, that's what we're going to do we want to help people. host: it's interesting, when people watch your video, and i hope they'll take time to find it on our website, off decided -- you have a decided point of view, the three of you, that you speak through. was it your opinion when you started out the piece? anna: no, our opinion changed. when we first started researching, we saw the top layer. if you give people more money, they'll be happier and they can buy more things. but you know, we started to dig a little deeper, found out the cost of inflation and people can just send work elsewhere and put people out of a job, so we decided no, it is not best for the workers and our community. host: how did you find the people you interviewed particularly those who were working on minimum wage, to interview for the piece? anna: my father had a job connection.

he found them through a job fair and we were able to coordinate those interviews through a program called jubilee jobs, so they were like, all right, we have three people, if you would like to interview them, they are happy to tell you their story. host: were you happen toy -- were you surprised they were willing to share their lives with you? anna: we had one interesting view, one of the gentlemen said, no, i don't think this is a good idea. and that just shocked us. so just everything about it, it was very interesting. absolutely. host: have you worked with video before or is this your first documentary project? anna: this is my first time. michael is very experienced and he helped out with the technical aspect of that. host: how did you put your three-member team together? anna: it was originally katie and i, because we've been friends since fourth grade and i was like, how are we going to put this together, who will help us make this a story and not just facts and i was like,

michael, hey, why don't you come help us out. he was like, great. host: closing question, how will you celebrate your win, both at school and what will you do with your prize-winning money. anna: starting out, we didn't think this would happen so i haven't made any plans. invest in the stock market, do something worthwhile and maybe learn a little bit. host: do you know how your school will celebrate? anna: we'll watch this on tv and -- >> we're going to have an assembly. anna: we're going to have an assembly and all sorts of fun stuff. host: i'm sure all the other students in your school will be happy to cheer you on. congratulations to you for your big win this year. we're very proud of you. anna: thank you so much. host: in addition to the grand

prize winners, there were first prize winners in each category. first prize in high school east went to a team. first prize central went to a senior who talked about natural resources. another cox communications company team won in high school west who focused on the individuals with disabilities act. and here's our first prize in middle school. it went to two young ladies from silver spring, maryland, with their cable service provided by comcast. they chose medical research funding for their video. finally, one more prize. mckinley lare, our first prize winner in the high school central region, also won our first ever fan favorite prize.

this was student cam's first time allowing the public to preview and cast votes for their favorite documentary. you should know that all 150 main prizes were decided independently of the public vote but during a week of voting with 325,000 votes cast, mckinleigh's documentary received 195,000 votes. she'll be recognized as the year's fan favorite and win an extra $500 cash prize. congratulations to all the student cam winners and all the state of the unions who entered -- students who entered this year. you can watch the winning entries on our website at studentcam.org. >> tomorrow morning, we will start with your calls looking at the state of race relations. later, we talked to tell -- trevor burrus of the cato institut