Columnist: Conclusion Raising the minimum wage to the level recently proposed will actually hurt, rather than help, workers with low incomes. ██ ███ ███████ ████ ██████████ ██████████ ████ ██████████ ███ ██████ ████ █████ ██ ██████████ ██████ ███ ███ █████ ███ ████████ ████ ██████████ ███████ ████ ███ ███ ███ ███████ ██████ ███████
Increasing the minimum wage would also lead to an increase in the cost of necessary goods and services. Therefore, increasing the minimum wage would do more harm than good to lower income workers.
The argument moves from a specific claim about some harms that an increase in minimum wage would cause to a broader claim that, on the whole, the increase would do more harm than good. There’s a missing assumption that the specific harms being discussed outweigh any potential benefits of increasing minimum wage.
Which one of the following ██ ██ ██████████ ██ █████ ███ ███████████ ████████ ████████
Workers who earn ████ ████ ███ ███████ ████ █████ ███ ████ ██ ████ ██ █████████ ██████ ███ █████ ███ █████████
The argument is focused on the effects on lower income workers - what happens to higher earning workers isn’t relevant to the conclusion.
Any increase to ███ ███████ ████ ███████ ████ ███ ███ ████████ █████ ███ █████████████ ██████ ██████ ██ █████ ███ █████████
The argument’s conclusion is that the specific proposed increase would be bad. That point can be made without the claim that another smaller increase wouldn’t be bad.
The proposed minimum-wage ████████ █████ ███ ██████ ██████████ ██████████ ███████ ███ ███ █████████ ████████ ██ ██████ ███ █████ ███ █████████
This explains why, on the whole, the proposed change would be bad for these workers. If this was false, and low-income workers would be wholly compensated for the increase, then there would be no reason to believe the proposed change would be bad for these workers.
If raising the ███████ ████ ██████ ██████████ ████████ ████ █████ ██ █ ████ ██████ ███ ███████ ███
This argument doesn’t take a stance on what reasons would be good to raise minimum wage - the focus is on whether it would help low-income workers, not why one should care about if it does.
Changes in the ███████ ████ ███ █████████ ███ ██ ██████████ ██ ███ ███████ ██ ██ ████████ █████████
While the argument does argue that a specific minimum wage increase wouldn’t be beneficial to the economy, that part of the argument is explicitly stated and there is no need for a more general statement that all changes in minimum wage tend not to be beneficial.
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