Dear Forum members,
Will appreciate if you can provide your feedback and rating for my 4th AWA. This was the topic published in the GMAT prep test. My previous AWA can be seen at -
please-rate-my-first-awa-165915.html
please-rate-my-2nd-awa-167236.html#p1329320
please-rate-my-awa-169085.html
please-rate-my-awa-my-gmat-is-in-2-weeks-times-169791.html#p1353202Argument - The following appeared in the editorial section of a local newspaper:
“The inflow of immigrant workers into our community has put a downward pressure on wages. In fact, the average compensation of unskilled labor in our city has declined by nearly 10% over the past 5 years. Therefore, to protect our local economy, it is essential to impose a moratorium on further immigration.”
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The editorial section of the local newspaper makes the conclusion that in order to protect local economy, it is essential to impose a moratorium on further immigration. While concluding so, it makes the claim that the inflow of immigrant workers into the community has put a downward pressure on wages. The conclusion and the supporting claims made in the argument are flawed and are based on isolated facts.
Firstly, the argument claims that due to migrant workforce there has been drop in wages and this in turn is impacting the local economy. The argument assumes that there are no other factors that could be impacting the local economy. It could be possible that increase in migrant workforce may be actually helping to improve the local economy and not impact it adversely. Increase in migrant workforce, could lead to increase in number of consumers and better flow of cash within the economy. Also due to rise of immigrant workforce, it is likely that cost of good and services produced is cheaper than earlier and this is helping the economy to become more competitive and robust.
Secondly, the argument draws the conclusion based on the claim that reduction in wages is directly related to health of the economy and provides evidence of reduction in wages of unskilled workers to support this claim. The evidence provided does not help to infer that wage reduction is a phenomenon that is prevalent across all wage classes. It might be possible that there is reduction in wages of unskilled worker because the overall demand for unskilled worker has reduced in the economy. At the same time, it could be possible that due to immigrant workforce, the economy has become more competitive and is able to be technologically advanced, reducing the need of unskilled workforce but increasing the need of skilled workforce. And skilled workforce could be getting higher wages and hence improving the overall economy.
In order to strengthen the argument it would have been useful if the article provided information on the wages of all the wage classes. At the same time, it would be important to know the demand supply of workforce in the economy. If there was evidence that the economy is saturated and there is no demand for additional workforce and that addition of migrant workforce is further impacting the health of economy then conclusion provided could be true.
In summary, the argument provides two facts about the immigrant workforce and reduction in wages of unskilled workforce to conclude that stopping immigration is only way to protect the local economy. These isolated facts weaken the argument and does not provide sufficient information to infer the conclusion mentioned in the argument.