LSAT 151 – Section 2 – Question 24

LSAT 151 - Section 2 - Question 24

September 2018

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT151 S2 Q24
+LR
Strengthen +Streng
Conditional Reasoning +CondR
Causal Reasoning +CausR
Net Effect +NetEff
A
71%
162
B
4%
154
C
13%
157
D
6%
158
E
6%
157
141
152
162
 +Medium 147.144 +SubsectionMedium

Economist: If minimum wage levels are low, employers have a greater incentive to hire more workers than to buy productivity-enhancing new technology. As a result, productivity growth, which is necessary for higher average living standards, falls off. Conversely, high minimum wage levels result in higher productivity. Thus, raising our currently low minimum wage levels would improve the country’s overall economic health more than any hiring cutbacks triggered by the raise would harm it.

Summarize Argument
The economist concludes raising the minimum wage would provide a net benefit to the economy, despite possibly increasing unemployment. Why? Because it would result in higher productivity, and the current low minimum wage incentivizes businesses to hire more workers rather than invest in technology that would improve productivity and allow for higher living standards.

Notable Assumptions
The economist assumes raising the minimum wage would not cause large enough hiring cutbacks to outweigh the benefits of productivity growth. This means assuming the country’s overall economic health depends at least partly on productivity growth.

A
Productivity growth in a country usually leads to an eventual increase in job creation.
This implies the main downside to a minimum wage increase—job losses—will be only temporary, thus strengthening the economist’s case for a higher minimum wage.
B
The economist’s country has seen a slow but steady increase in its unemployment rate over the last decade.
This is irrelevant. It doesn’t imply the increase would still be slow if the minimum wage were raised.
C
A country’s unemployment rate is a key factor in determining its average living standards.
This weakens the economist’s argument. It suggests extra unemployment caused by a minimum wage increase could cancel out the benefit to average living standards caused by increased productivity.
D
The economist’s country currently lags behind other countries in the development of new technology.
This is irrelevant. It doesn’t say that a higher minimum wage would cause an especially large investment in new technology, nor that such technology would cause an especially large productivity increase.
E
Productivity-enhancing new technology tends to quickly become outdated.
If anything, this weakens the economist’s argument. It implies the primary benefit of raising the minimum wage—greater productivity because of more investment in technology—would be short-lived.

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LSAT PrepTest 151 Explanations

Section 1 - Reading Comprehension

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Logical Reasoning

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