#16 - Economist: If the economy grows stronger, employment

[Adam Tyson]

Kelly, your reasoning for answer C is good!

Abutz, regarding the Negation Technique, it looks like you may be confusing it with making a Mistaken Negation when analyzing a conditional argument. These are two different things. For an Assumption question, we are looking for something that the author MUST believe is true, so if it is negated (made false) that should hurt the argument. Taking away something that is necessary always hurts! So this technique is a way of testing an Assumption answer. A Mistaken Negation is a logical error, where you incorrectly use a conditional statement to prove that in the absence of the sufficient condition, the necessary condition cannot occur. Check your Lesson 5 materials to learn more about the Assumption Negation Technique as it applies to this question type.

And your analysis of answer D looks correct - good work!

One more note, and that is that another way to negate answer C is to say that in a growing economy the number of daycare workers is NOT likely to decrease, which means that the number could remain stable. That doesn't hurt the argument because in that growing economy, with more parents needing to find daycare, a stable number of daycare workers would still lead to a harder time finding daycare. We would need the number of daycare workers to increase proportionally to keep pace with the growing needs of those working parents. Our author doesn't have to believe in a decreasing number of workers, but only in the number of workers not sufficiently keeping pace with the growing need.

[LeBronSAT]

So, I quickly chose C instead of B, because I thought B sounded a bit convoluted and wasn't entirely sure if new hires being "significantly greater" than the number of current day-care workers who switch to higher-paying jobs actually filled the void. My thinking went something like: If new hires exceed old hires, though not substanitially, then why would it be difficult? However, I realized C ignores the premise that a stronger economy engenders greater employment, so it does not make total sense that you would see a decrease in day-care workers, just because current day-care workers are moving to other jobs. So, I guess my question is the following: Is B correct because a strong economy leads to more jobs (which B addresses by saying there are replacements for staff that leave) and because more jobs tends to increase the number of kids in day-care, and, therefore, if the number of children is greater than before, while the new staff has not increased significantly in comparison to the old staff that left, that that is why B is correct?

[Adam Tyson]

Sounds to me like you've got it, LeBronSAT! The author has to believe that there will not be substantial growth in the number of daycare workers, because if there will be substantial growth, their concern about daycare would be unfounded.

The author does not have to believe the number of daycare workers will shrink, although that would strengthen their argument. Even if it stays the same, with more people needing daycare it will get harder to find (demand will increase faster than supply).