Self-study
Economist: Conclusion The increase in the minimum wage in Country X will quickly lead to a decrease in Country X's rate of unemployment. ███████ ███ ███████ ████ ████ ████ ██ ████ ██████████ ██████ ███ █ █████ ███████ ██ ███ ███████ ███████████ ████ ██ ████ █████████ ██████ ████ ██ █████ ██ ████████ ██████ ██████ ████ ████████ ██ ██████ ███ ████████ █████ ████ ████ ██ ██ ████████ ██ ███ ██████ ██ ███████ ████ █████████ ██ ████ ███████████
Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis
An Economist argues that increasing the minimum wage in Country X will quickly lead to a decrease in the country’s unemployment rate. This is because raising the minimum wage will increase people’s disposable income, which people will spend on consumer goods. This increase in demand will then lead to an increase in factory jobs to meet the demand for new goods.
Notable Assumptions
The Economist assumes that the number of jobs created by increasing demand will outpace the number of jobs lost by raising the minimum wage and that the cost of goods will not increase due to increasing the minimum wage.
24.
Each of the following, if █████ █████ ██████ ███ ███████████ ████████ ███████
a
The cost of █ ████████████ ████████ ██ ███████ █ ████ ██ ██████ ██ ██ █████████ ██ ███ ████ ██ █████████████ ██████ ██████ ███ ████████ ██████
This weakens the author’s claim that the demand for goods will cause more factory workers to be hired. If prices rise, demand could potentially not increase to a level that would rapidly create more jobs to keep up with consumer demand.
b
Most of the ████████ █████ ████ ██ ███████ █ ███ ████████ ███████ ███ ████████
This weakens the argument because most of the factory jobs created to keep up with demand would not come from within the country. Thus, the country’s unemployment rate would not rapidly decrease to the extent that the Economist predicts.
c
In many factories ██ ███████ ██ ████ ███████ ███ ████ ████ ████ ████ ███ ███████ ███████ █████
This does not weaken the argument because it only addresses one industry in Country X. It is unclear how large this industry is. This does not weaken the author’s claim that raising the minimum wage would lead to more income for a large segment of the working population.
d
The cost to █████████ ██ ██ ████████ ██ ███ ███████ ████ ██ ███████ █ ████ ██ ████ ██ ██ ██████████ ██ ███ ██████████
This weakens the argument because it undermines one of the Economist’s key assumptions: that the increase in factory jobs will outpace the number of job losses around the country. If this were true, then it is not likely that the unemployment rate would drastically decrease.
e
Most factories that ███████ ████████ █████ ██ ███████ █ ████ █████ █████████ ██ █████ ██ █ ██████ ██ █████ ██ ███████████████
This weakens the argument because if the factories have large surpluses, then they will not need to hire more workers to keep up with the demand for consumer goods.