#6 - Economist: There have been large declines in employment

[Administrator]

Please post your questions below!

[LSATwhizkid00]

I was hoping if someone here could help me clarify my reasoning for this question.

I chose D through the process of elimination. If there has been a general decline in resources devoted to workplace safety, then it can be inferred that there would be more deaths and injuries. The conclusion states that the percentage and absolute number of deaths has decreased. Since the question is asking for an AC that resolves the issue in the stimulus, D fails to do so because it doesn't explain why there have been fewer deaths.

I'm not sure if this reason alone is enough to make D the right answer.

Thanks in advance.

[Ben DiFabbio]

I was hoping if someone here could help me clarify my reasoning for this question.

I chose D through the process of elimination. If there has been a general decline in resources devoted to workplace safety, then it can be inferred that there would be more deaths and injuries. The conclusion states that the percentage and absolute number of deaths has decreased. Since the question is asking for an AC that resolves the issue in the stimulus, D fails to do so because it doesn't explain why there have been fewer deaths.

I'm not sure if this reason alone is enough to make D the right answer.

Thanks in advance.

Hi there -

Just responding to confirm that your thinking on this question is spot on. This is a resolve EXCEPT question, so any answer choice that might contradict the information we're given (i.e. deaths might increase if workplace safety resources declined) cannot resolve the issue and would therefore be the correct answer in this case. The other four answer choices offer relatively weak circumstantial explanations, but that's perfectly acceptable when we have one answer choice that would work in the opposite direction.

Keep up the good work!

- Ben

[HarmonRabb]

I can see that D is a stronger answer, but I'm having trouble with C and why it's the wrong answer. The paradox is created because we would expect, all else held the same, the percentage of accidents to be constant despite the decline in the absolute number of workers. Doesn't C continue this paradox? Just because there are less people (absolute) performing the most dangerous jobs, why should it logically follow that their percentage of accidents fall? Thus, wouldn't C fail to explain the paradox?

[Dana D]

Hey Harmon,

For the most jobs, there is a certain percentage of accident rates each year. For some jobs, let's say Alaskan crab fisherman, there is a higher accident rate than a job like insurance salesman. If we're talking about the overall percentage of workplace accidents here, lowering the overall number of employees who are doing dangerous jobs like Alaskan crab fishing is not only going to lower the raw number of employees injured, it's also going to lower the percentage of people injured on the job, because the biggest contributors to that overall injury rate have lowered their contributions.

Keep in mind, this entire question is talking about all employment as a whole, so the injuries coming out of very dangerous sectors represent a bigger portion of the overall pie than safer jobs.

Does that make sense?