GMAT Essays (AWA)

Prompt:

"The inflow of immigrant workers into our community has put a downward pressure on wages. In fact, the average compensation of unskilled labor in our city has declined by nearly 10% over the past 5 years. Therefore, to protect our local economy, it is essential to impose a moratorium on further immigration."

Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. Point out flaws in the argument's logic and analyze the argument's underlying assumptions. In addition, evaluate how supporting evidence is used and what evidence might counter the argument's conclusion. You may also discuss what additional evidence could be used to strengthen the argument or what changes would make the argument more logically sound.

Essay:

The author states that the inflow of immigrant workers has led to reduction in labor wages. He also points out that the average compensation of unskilled labor in the city has declined by nearly 10% over the past five years. Hence, he concludes that to protect the local economy it is essential to impose a moratorium on further immigration. The argument is weak and shallow for many reasons which we will be examining in further detail.

The author does not provide any evidence whatsoever to attribute the decline in wages directly to the inflow of immigrants. We have had immigrant workers for well over five years. Why is it that the wages have declined only in the past five years and not before that ? The author considers just one side of the story here, there could well be other reasons for the downward trend in the wages. For instance, there could be an increase in supply of local labors and since the supply outweighs the demand there would obviously be a drop in the wages. The author could have provided some statistical data on how other comparable cities have performed, in terms of unskilled labor wages, over the past five years. This will help us narrow down, with some level of certainty, the cause of the decline in wages.

Instead of just blindly calling for a moratorium on further immigration, the author could suggest some positive measures to help the situation. We could get the existing unskilled labors skilled. This would in turn increase their value in the market and thereby draw them higher wages. The author would have been better off had he summarized the article by weighing the positives against the negatives of the inflow of immigrants. In this case, he has only pointed out to the negatives without giving any consideration to the positive aspects of immigrant inflow. Today's industry is a competitive one and when there is an increase in supply there is going to be more competition. This can in turn lead to labors improving their respective skills to stand out from the crowd, which will in turn improve the overall quality of their work and eventually trickle down to the economy as a whole. It should also be noted that labors from some geographical regions are more skilled than others. Therefore, an inflow of immigrant labors can be taken as a positive because the local unskilled labors can learn things that they were previously unaware of.

In conclusion, we can say that because the author has a single minded view of the whole situation the argument is weak and fails to convince. Furthermore, the lack of evidence in regards to the decline in labor wages is quite appalling. The argument would be better served if the author takes a more holistic approach and addresses some of the flaws that we have pointed out above.

Thanks Katherine. Will work on my conclusions.

Kaushik