#13 - Essayist: One of the claims of laissez-faire economics

[tanushreebansal]

Hi! I'm not sure why B is the correct answer. I was stuck between B, D, and E, all of which I thought were good, and I couldn't find ways to rule any of them out, so I guessed E for the sake of time. But going back to the question now, I'm still having trouble understanding. Would you be able to explain why the answer is B and not D or E?

[Adam Tyson]

Remember that assumptions are things that the author did not say but MUST have believed, tanushreebansal. While they do bring up new information in the sense that they give us something the author did not say, and thus they are in the same family of questions as strengthen and justify the conclusion, they are also things that must be true if the argument is good. That's why the Assumption Negation TechniqueTM works so well - if the correct answer has to be true, then making it a false statement should do serious damage to the argument. Here's an example in action:

I asked Reese Witherspoon to join me for a romantic, candlelit dinner tonight, so tonight she and I will be dining together by candlelight.

What did I assume? Among other things, I assumed that she accepted my invitation. How do you know that I assumed that? Try negating it: Reese did not accept my invitation. What does that do to my claim that she and I will be dining together this evening? Ruins it! That's how you know that I assumed she said yes.

What happens when you negate a wrong answer? Let's say another answer choice to my fantasy dinner scenario was "Reese finds me attractive". When we negate that, we get "Reese does not find me attractive". Hard to imagine such a thing - surely she will fall in love with me on sight - but what if that was so? Might she still go to dinner with me tonight? Sure! Maybe out of pity, or curiosity, or because my wit and charm were so overpowering despite how hideous she may find me to be. Maybe she wants a role in my next feature film. Maybe she lost a bet. Not finding me attractive does nothing to weaken the conclusion that she will join me for dinner, and so that statement - she finds me attractive - is NOT an assumption of the argument.

Now, try that approach on each of your contenders. Let's look at E, the one you ended up selecting, and negate it (which means make it into a false statement): "The national unemployment rate did increase following the increase in the minimum wage." Does that destroy the argument about minimum wage jobs? Not at all! The overall unemployment rate could increase even while minimum wage jobs hold steady or even increase. This negation of answer E doesn't hurt the argument, so it is not the correct answer.

Negate D this way: "The fast-food restaurants included in the study increased the average wage paid to employees." Does this wreck the argument? If anything, it helps it! If the minimum wage went up, and fast-food restaurants increased their employees' pay, and they kept all or most folks on the payroll, that would help the argument that the economists are wrong. This negation has the opposite effect of what we were looking for, and so it is not the correct answer. The negation needs to wreck the argument, not help it or be neutral.

Finally, negate answer B, like so: "Minimum-wage job availability at fast-food restaurants included in the study was not representative of minimum-wage job availability in general." This means that our author's only evidence that the economists are wrong is bad evidence - not being representative means these jobs are the exception rather than the rule. That means that the economists could be right after all, and perhaps minimum wage jobs in all other environments (other than those fast-food places) may have been cut back drastically. The argument is ruined! That's what we want to see when we try this technique on the correct answer to an Assumption question.

Give that a try on the next handful of Assumption questions you encounter and see how it goes. It's a great technique, very powerful and virtually foolproof once you get used to it. Good luck, keep up the good work!

p.s. If you know Reese, would you tell her I am free for dinner tonight? Or whenever she wants? Thanks.

[tanushreebansal]

Thank you, that was helpful!

PS: Reese says she would love to, but she doesn't know how her husband would feel about that.

Remember that assumptions are things that the author did not say but MUST have believed, tanushreebansal. While they do bring up new information in the sense that they give us something the author did not say, and thus they are in the same family of questions as strengthen and justify the conclusion, they are also things that must be true if the argument is good. That's why the Assumption Negation TechniqueTM works so well - if the correct answer has to be true, then making it a false statement should do serious damage to the argument. Here's an example in action:

I asked Reese Witherspoon to join me for a romantic, candlelit dinner tonight, so tonight she and I will be dining together by candlelight.

What did I assume? Among other things, I assumed that she accepted my invitation. How do you know that I assumed that? Try negating it: Reese did not accept my invitation. What does that do to my claim that she and I will be dining together this evening? Ruins it! That's how you know that I assumed she said yes.

What happens when you negate a wrong answer? Let's say another answer choice to my fantasy dinner scenario was "Reese finds me attractive". When we negate that, we get "Reese does not find me attractive". Hard to imagine such a thing - surely she will fall in love with me on sight - but what if that was so? Might she still go to dinner with me tonight? Sure! Maybe out of pity, or curiosity, or because my wit and charm were so overpowering despite how hideous she may find me to be. Maybe she wants a role in my next feature film. Maybe she lost a bet. Not finding me attractive does nothing to weaken the conclusion that she will join me for dinner, and so that statement - she finds me attractive - is NOT an assumption of the argument.

Now, try that approach on each of your contenders. Let's look at E, the one you ended up selecting, and negate it (which means make it into a false statement): "The national unemployment rate did increase following the increase in the minimum wage." Does that destroy the argument about minimum wage jobs? Not at all! The overall unemployment rate could increase even while minimum wage jobs hold steady or even increase. This negation of answer E doesn't hurt the argument, so it is not the correct answer.

Negate D this way: "The fast-food restaurants included in the study increased the average wage paid to employees." Does this wreck the argument? If anything, it helps it! If the minimum wage went up, and fast-food restaurants increased their employees' pay, and they kept all or most folks on the payroll, that would help the argument that the economists are wrong. This negation has the opposite effect of what we were looking for, and so it is not the correct answer. The negation needs to wreck the argument, not help it or be neutral.

Finally, negate answer B, like so: "Minimum-wage job availability at fast-food restaurants included in the study was not representative of minimum-wage job availability in general." This means that our author's only evidence that the economists are wrong is bad evidence - not being representative means these jobs are the exception rather than the rule. That means that the economists could be right after all, and perhaps minimum wage jobs in all other environments (other than those fast-food places) may have been cut back drastically. The argument is ruined! That's what we want to see when we try this technique on the correct answer to an Assumption question.

Give that a try on the next handful of Assumption questions you encounter and see how it goes. It's a great technique, very powerful and virtually foolproof once you get used to it. Good luck, keep up the good work!

p.s. If you know Reese, would you tell her I am free for dinner tonight? Or whenever she wants? Thanks.

[jmramon]

After using the negation technique, I’m still stuck between B and C. I'll try to walk you through my logic, so hopefully someone can explain why B is necessary and not C.

The conclusion of the argument is laissez-fair economics isn’t 100% accurate that increasing minimum wages causes a decrease in minimum wage jobs overall. The Essayist bases this conclusion on a study of fast food restaurants that shows no change in these jobs’ availability after raising the minimum wage.

B appears to call into question whether the sample of the study (the premise) is representative, and if it’s not, that certainly casts doubt on the conclusion drawn by the author on the basis of this study. My issue with this answer is I thought weakening or disproving a premise doesn’t mean the conclusion is invalid.

C also casts doubt on the premise by weakening or disproving the study aforementioned. If a study has found a business cut minimum wage jobs after increasing the minimum wage, then this might counter the results of the stimulus, resulting in a weakening of the conclusion. The only issue I have with this answer is just because minimum wage jobs decrease at one business doesn’t mean overall minimum wage jobs decreased from raising the minimum wage (part-to-whole fallacy).

[Adam Tyson]

When negating answers in assumption question, jmramon, you should not be looking to DISPROVE the conclusion (although doing so would be a winner). Instead, you are looking to ruin the logic or the argument. In other words, the conclusion could still be true, but the argument would no longer offer any support for it. Answer B does the latter here - all the evidence is about fast food places, so if they are not representative of the whole, then the author has no evidence to support his conclusion. It still could be true, but not because this argument helped it any.

Negating answer C tells us that there is at least one study out there that showed that at least one business has, at some point, reduced the number of employees after an increase in the minimum wage. Does that undermine our argument? Consider that the author concluded that laissez-faire economics is "not entirely accurate". This is not the same as saying that it is completely and always incorrect. Does a study finding that some business, somewhere, sometime, reduced the number of minimum wage jobs ruin this argument? No. It may weaken it a little, but our goal when we negate is to ruin it, either by directly contradicting the conclusion or by removing all the evidence that supported it. Because B does a much better job of stripping away all the support the author had offered, it is the better answer and must be selected over C.

Your analysis of C was good - you saw that the negation could be an exception to the rule, and wasn't very damaging to the argument. Your analysis of B was a little off, perhaps because you were focused on disproving the conclusion rather than invalidating the logic of the argument.

Try this on for size: I know that the Panthers will win the Super Bowl next year because I had a dream that they would. What did I assume? That my dreams are reliably predictive of reality. If we negate that, we say that they are not reliable indicators of what will come to pass. Now, might the Panthers still win the big game? Of course! But I have no evidence for that claim, and so my argument has been destroyed.

I hope that clears up the task at hand when negating assumption answers. Good luck, keep at it!

[jmramon]

Thanks again for your help, Adam! I will now approach assumption questions with the "ruin" concept on mind rather than just trying to disprove the conclusion. Your analogy was very useful too:)