#19 - Economist: The wages of many of the lowest-paid

[mikewazowski]

Hi,

I had a lot of trouble with this one. I easily crossed off (E) because it seemed to be identical to the first sentence of the passage (which is the conclusion?). I thought, 'we need an assumption and this isn't an assumption.' The first sentence says that the wages of many of the lowest-level employees would be protected from cuts with the max wage law. (E) states that if the law was enacted, one or more executives would not cut the pay.

First sentence: max wage law -> many protection from cuts
(E): max wage law -> one or more not cut

Much of you will be protected from rain with an umbrella = if you use an umbrella, some of you will not be rained on

Please let me know where I went wrong.

[Adam Tyson]

It sometimes feels like an Assumption answer or a Must Be True answer is just repeating information from the stimulus, Mike, when in reality those answers are actually just providing links between two ideas that the author didn't completely link. It can help in cases like this to simplify the argument with a paraphrase. In this argument, the premise is the last sentence, and could be paraphrased as "this kind of law will give executives a reason to maintain worker pay." The conclusion in the first sentence can be paraphrased as "such a law will protect worker pay." What's the missing link? That executives will act based on that incentive! It may seem obvious, but the author never actually connected the two ideas. Instead of stating that executive would behave in this way, the author merely assumed that they would.

To use your analogy, this would be like an argument that said "Going out in the rain with an umbrella will keep you from getting rained on, because an open umbrella over your head keeps the rain off of you." The assumption is that if you go out in the rain with an umbrella you will hold it open over your head! Seems obvious, but it was never clearly stated.

[JPConstantine]

Is answer A a shell game answer? It seems like, as stated before, one assumption is that CEOs make 50 times more than there lowest paid employees. If this is not true they could still cut pay for employees and raise their salaries within that ball park. That is why I am reviewing question A and thinking that at the very end is a shell game with the wording?

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

That word "all" in answer choice (A) poses a problem for you, JP. Remember that correct assumption answer choices are required for the argument. It's hard to prove language like "all" or "none." If the answer choice says "all" you negate it by stating changing the all to a not all. Here's the thing with this argument: we don't need it to be true for ALL of the lowest-paid employees to be working where executives make more than 50X the salary of the lowest-paid worker. Our stimulus only says that "many" would be protected. That doesn't require that "all" be protected. Therefore, answer choice (A) is not required. It doesn't matter if not all workers would fall into the category in the stimulus. We just need to know that many would.

Hope that helps!

[sqmusgrave]

Can someone please explain to me how AC E isn't a restatement of the authors argument? I chose E by elimination but struggled with it because it just seemed like exactly what the argument was saying, and I thought we were supposed to choose AC's that are restatements of Premises or Conclusions. It's just saying "if we enact this law then the lowest paid corporate employees won't have their wages cut". This is what the argument is saying. I see in the response that an assumption is that they won't break the law, but I wouldn't have ever thought of this as an assumption! To me this kind of assumption is the type of baby-assumption that is prevalent in LR Q's, but these are ones that are so obvious, or so much of a given, that we don't really have to take them into account. Like if there was an argument that Child labor laws will prevent children from working overtime by making it illegal to do so, then it seems like a stretch to have to think "ah but what if no one obeys this law, so child labor laws must not really work".
Thanks!

[Luke Haqq]

Hi sqmusgrave!

This stimulus suggests that a maximum wage law would remove an incentive for executives to cut the wages of their lowest-paid employees, and thus reasons that the wages of the lowest paid corporate employees will be protected from cuts if such a law were enacted.

However, there's nothing in the stimulus that directly connecting the law to what executives choose to do. For example, it's possible that, even if a maximum wage law were enacted in the given country, some executives might still choose to cut the pay and benefits of the lowest paid corporate employees. If this were true, the argument that the lowest paid would be protected from cuts would fall apart.

That explanation is effectively applying the Assumption Negation technique to answer choice (E). Negated, the answer choice would be, "If such a maximum wage law were enacted in the economist’s country, one or more corporate executives would ... cut the pay and benefits of their corporations’ lowest-paid employees in the economist’s country."

[jcohen106]

What confuses me about 19 is the conclusion when it says it would remove "this incentive" with E that removes every one... is that because its NA and not SA? I didn't like A but ended up picking it
A. SA Answer?
B. Weakens
C. ?
D. Never changes is strong
E. Originally thought but when I reread I saw it say cut with no mention of this specific incentive

[Jeff Wren]

Hi jcohen,

First, it looks like you may have misidentified the conclusion of the argument in the stimulus. The conclusion is the first sentence, not the last sentence. This one can be tricky to identify as the argument doesn't provide any conclusion indicator words (like thus, therefore, etc.). However the first sentence is the claim that all of the other sentences, including the last sentence, are supporting.

The argument basically goes:

Premise: Some executives cut the pay of employees in order to increase the company's profits, which then results in the executives getting higher salaries.

Premise: By directly tying the executives' salaries to salaries of the lowest-paid employees, this would remove the incentive for the executives to cut the salaries of their lowest-paid employees (because that would result in their own salaries being lowered).

Conclusion: Enacting a maximum wage law (that links the executives' salaries to salaries of the lowest-paid employees,) would protect many of the lowest-paid employees.

It's important to note that the figure of 50 times what the lowest-paid employee makes is simply an example, what the exact figure would need to be is left open by the argument. Any answer specifically addressing the 50 times figure (such as A and B) is irrelevant/unnecessary, and therefore incorrect.

The assumption in the argument is that the removal of the incentive (specifically the incentive of the executives getting higher salaries) would be enough to cause the executives to not lower the salaries of the lowest-paid employees, which is what Answer E addresses.

Of course, this may not be true. For example, the executives ultimately answer to the Board and the shareholders, and if they don't make enough profits for the corporation, they could be fired. In other words, it is possible that the executives could still cut the salaries of the lowest-paid employees, even if that meant cutting their own salaries, because they felt like they had no other choice. Answer E basically says that at least some executives will be motivated by this law to not cut the salaries of the lowest-paid employees.

Notice that the conclusion only says "many" of the lowest-paid employees would be protected, not all.