Editorial

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Editorial

by jainrahul1985 » Sat Aug 28, 2010 6:27 am
Editorial:
In Ledland, unemployed adults receive government assistance. To reduce
unemployment, the government proposes to supplement the income of those who accept jobs that pay less than government assistance, thus enabling employers to hire workers cheaply. However, the supplement will not raise any worker's income above what government assistance would provide if he or she were not gainfully employed.
Therefore, unemployed people will have no financial incentive to accept jobs that wouldentitle them to the supplement.
Which of the following, if true about Ledland, most seriously weakens the argument ofthe editorial?
A. The government collects no taxes on assistance it provides to unemployed individuals and their families.
B. Neighboring countries with laws that mandate the minimum wage an employer must pay an employee have higher unemployment rates than Ledland currently has.
C. People who are employed and look for a new job tend to get higher-paying jobs than job seekers who are unemployed.
D. The yearly amount unemployed people receive from government assistance is less than the yearly income that the government defines as the poverty level.
E. People sometimes accept jobs that pay relatively little simply because they enjoy the work

[spoiler]Confused b/w C and D . Please suggest OA C[/spoiler]
Source: — Critical Reasoning |

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by ashish2104 » Sat Aug 28, 2010 7:11 am
Between C and D, D is clearly out of scope. Nowhere in the argument it is mentioned about poverty level.

C means that employed (read as :paid less than government assistance) tend to get higher paying jobs.
For eg: consider person A who is employed under new government scheme earns $10 now and government provided assistance is $15. Suppose after swtiching he earns $20.
Isnt this a finiancial gain for person A. This is the scenario presented in choice C.

Hope this helps.

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by Whitney Garner » Mon Oct 18, 2010 9:02 am
Received a PM asking me to respond. Don't see a source. Please cite the source (author) of the problem so I can respond!
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by David@VeritasPrep » Mon Oct 18, 2010 3:07 pm
There was a good discussion of this question a couple of months ago, Brian Galvin gave a good explanation of why C is the correct answer.

https://www.beatthegmat.com/weakening-ar ... 62745.html


I can also explain for you why "D" is not the correct answer. The stimulus states that "the supplement will not raise any worker's income above what government assistance would provide if he or she were not gainfully employed." So if it is true, in D, that government assistance is still below the poverty level, the same is true of the working plus the supplement. So this is not a financial incentive to work, since either way it leaves one in poverty.

Good Luck!
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