Self-study
Economist: As should be obvious, Support raising the minimum wage significantly would make it more expensive for businesses to pay workers for minimum-wage jobs. ██████████ ██████████ █████ ███ ██████ ██ ████████ ██ ██████ ██ ████ ███████ ███ ████ █████ ██ ███████ ███ ███████ ████ █████████████ ████ █████ ██ ████████ ██ █████████████
Summarize Argument
The economist concludes that significantly raising the minimum wage will increase unemployment. This is because raising the minimum wage would make businesses unable to afford as many minimum-wage employees.
Notable Assumptions
The economist assumes that businesses will deal with the costs of the minimum wage raise by laying people off, rather than by increasing the price of their products and services. She also assumes that there isn't currently a high demand for employees to fill minimum wage jobs. If true, this would make impending layoffs seem less likely. Even if businesses needed to reduce the number of minimum wage positions, they could reduce some of the unfilled positions on offer, rather than laying off current employees and increasing unemployment.
6.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████ ███████ ███ ███████████ █████████
a
Businesses typically pass ███ ████ ██ █████████ █████ ██ ██ █████████ ███████ █████████ █████████ ████████
This weakens the argument. If businesses can make up for increased wages, and keep making a profit, by passing costs along to consumers, then the economist's assumption that raising the minimum wage will lead to layoffs seems less likely.
b
When the difference ███████ ███████ ████ ███ █ ███████ ████████ ████ ██ ██████ █ ███████ ██████████ ██ █ ██████████ █████████ ████ ██ ███████ ████████
Irrelevant. We have no idea if raising the minimum wage, even significantly, will make the difference between minimum workers' wages and those of skilled workers \"small\".
c
A modest increase ██ ████████████ ██ ██████████ ███████ ███ ███████ ███████ ████ ██ ███ █ ███████ █████
Irrelevant. We're not interested in whether an increase in unemployment is acceptable or not, just in whether increasing the minimum wage will increase unemployment.
d
Most workers are ███████ ████ ████ ███ ███████ ███████ █████
This doesn't weaken the argument. The economist never claimed minimum wage workers constitute the majority of workers.
Illusory inconsistency
Illusory inconsistency
Answer is attractive because it seems to (but doesn't actually) contradict the premises or conclusion.
e
The unemployment rate ███ ████ █████████ ████████ ██ ██████ ██████
This doesn't weaken the argument. Even if unemployment has been declining, a minimum wage raise may make it rise again for the reasons the author mentions.