medium · LSAT Logical Reasoning
Economist: My opponent claims that raising the minimum wage always reduces total employment. But the last three times our state raised its minimum wage, total employment rose in the following year. So my opponent's claim is false. Of course, this does not show that raising the minimum wage caused employment to rise.
The economist's argument proceeds by
- offering counterexamples to refute a universal generalization while explicitly declining to assert a causal claim of its own
- purporting to demonstrate that raising the minimum wage reliably and directly causes total employment to increase thereafter
- attacking the personal character of the opponent rather than engaging with the actual substance of that opponent's stated claim
- establishing that the opponent's claim happens to be true in most observed cases yet false in a handful of exceptional ones
- appealing to the published testimony of recognized economic authorities who, on the record, reject the opponent's position
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More LSAT Logical Reasoning practice
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