- PowerScore Staff
- Posts: 651
- Joined: Oct 19, 2022
- Wed Nov 06, 2024 12:47 pm
#110445
Hi attorneyatpaw,
Unfortunately, your reasoning is actually backwards.
When one is making a decision between two options, it's important to weigh the costs and the benefits of each option.
In this case, the employers would want to weigh the pros and cons of hiring more workers (if minimum wages are low) versus hiring fewer workers and buying productivity-enhancing new technology instead (if minimum wages are high). Each of these options presumably has pros and cons.
Anything that would be a con or drawback to an option makes that option less favorable. For example, an answer that states that the new technology is prohibitively expensive, or unreliable, or vulnerable to cyberattacks, or becomes quickly outdated (i.e. Answer E), or anything negative regarding the technology would make that option less appealing and make the other option relatively more appealing by contrast. If Answer E were true, employers may decide that hiring more workers is the safer, more affordable choice.
You wrote:
My reasoning for this was that, if "productivity-enhancing new technology" tends to become outdated regularly, it would make it even more imperative for employers to spend money on updating it rather than hiring new workers
Now if employers absolutely had to increase productivity and this technology was the only way to do so, then the employers may have no choice but to pay whatever is necessary to make that happen. Fortunately, however, that is not the actual situation. The employers here have more than one option.
The problem is that the conclusion states that raising the minimum wage levels would improve the country's overall economic health. In order to strengthen this, we'd want to show that the productivity-enhancing new technologies do a good job of increasing productivity (relative to their cost). In other words, employers who invest in this technology get the most "bang for their buck." An answer that shows problems/drawbacks with the technology (like E) actually makes it less likely that the technology will increase productivity (per dollar spent), which weakens the argument.
Here's an exaggerated example.
Imagine that you're an employer.
Someone shows you a product that is reliable, affordable, and will triple your productivity. That would be a no brainer to buy it.
On the other hand, if someone shows you a product that is expensive, unreliable, will need to be replaced in a few years, and only increases your productivity slightly, that would be a product to skip.
Unfortunately, your reasoning is actually backwards.
When one is making a decision between two options, it's important to weigh the costs and the benefits of each option.
In this case, the employers would want to weigh the pros and cons of hiring more workers (if minimum wages are low) versus hiring fewer workers and buying productivity-enhancing new technology instead (if minimum wages are high). Each of these options presumably has pros and cons.
Anything that would be a con or drawback to an option makes that option less favorable. For example, an answer that states that the new technology is prohibitively expensive, or unreliable, or vulnerable to cyberattacks, or becomes quickly outdated (i.e. Answer E), or anything negative regarding the technology would make that option less appealing and make the other option relatively more appealing by contrast. If Answer E were true, employers may decide that hiring more workers is the safer, more affordable choice.
You wrote:
My reasoning for this was that, if "productivity-enhancing new technology" tends to become outdated regularly, it would make it even more imperative for employers to spend money on updating it rather than hiring new workers
Now if employers absolutely had to increase productivity and this technology was the only way to do so, then the employers may have no choice but to pay whatever is necessary to make that happen. Fortunately, however, that is not the actual situation. The employers here have more than one option.
The problem is that the conclusion states that raising the minimum wage levels would improve the country's overall economic health. In order to strengthen this, we'd want to show that the productivity-enhancing new technologies do a good job of increasing productivity (relative to their cost). In other words, employers who invest in this technology get the most "bang for their buck." An answer that shows problems/drawbacks with the technology (like E) actually makes it less likely that the technology will increase productivity (per dollar spent), which weakens the argument.
Here's an exaggerated example.
Imagine that you're an employer.
Someone shows you a product that is reliable, affordable, and will triple your productivity. That would be a no brainer to buy it.
On the other hand, if someone shows you a product that is expensive, unreliable, will need to be replaced in a few years, and only increases your productivity slightly, that would be a product to skip.