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Essay Question:
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.”
Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. Point out flaws in the argument's logic and analyze the argument's underlying assumptions. In addition, evaluate how supporting evidence is used and what evidence might counter the argument's conclusion. You may also discuss what additional evidence could be used to strengthen the argument or what changes would make the argument more logically sound.
Answer:
The local newspaper claims that the inflow of immigrant workers into the community has caused the wages to decline by 10% over the last 5 years. Basing their judgement on that, it has come to the conclusion that there must be a stop on further immigration to prevent further decline. However, the argument of the editors of the newspaper is flawed due to the presence of the following gaps.
Firstly, to address the main point, there are several reasons that could engender a decline in the compensation of unskilled labourers' wages. The most obvious example is that the whole economy might have been undergoing a recession over the past 5 years, which would naturally cause a decline in compensation. This negates the fact that migrant workers are the reason for this decrease. Also, it could be articulated that the influx of migrants could have prevented a more severe decline because of their low compensation, which would relieve the economy of a further decline, since migrant workers tend to provide cheap labour.
Moreover, the authors made use of the average compensation of unskilled labour as a tool to gauge wages. It could be argued that there are other statistics or data that more exhaustively represent wages since unskilled labour wage is only one portion of overall wages (maybe it is even the case that in this economy unskilled labour is a very small portion of the wages, making it completely unreliable as a gauge of wages). Additionally, it is the "average" compensation that is quoted; in other words, the average might not be an accurate gauge because it could be the case that one group has really low compensation as opposed to another that has very high compensation, skewing the average.
Furthermore, assuming the fact that migrant workers might be the cause of the decline, imposing a moratorium on immigration might not be the best way to prevent further migrants from entering the local economy. in many cases, imposing the law and regulations to prevent additional migrant workers from coming in ends up backfiring: although this would reduce the number of legal migrants, it might end up in increasing the number of immigrant workers who were looking to enter this local economy in any way. Or it could be that the number of migrants entering the economy has been decreasing over the years or completely stopped, which raises the question whether the migrants are the cause of the decline in compensation.
In conclusion, the argument made by the local newspaper does not stand because it has failed to consider that the relation between immigrants entering the local economy and average wage compensation might not be causative, because the use of average compensation as a tool to measure its effects on the economy might not be the best one, and because imposing a moratorium might not be the best way to stop immigration. To further bolster their claim, evidence of causation must be provided and any other factors that might affect the decline in unskilled labour compensation must be eliminated.
Essay Question:
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.”
Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. Point out flaws in the argument's logic and analyze the argument's underlying assumptions. In addition, evaluate how supporting evidence is used and what evidence might counter the argument's conclusion. You may also discuss what additional evidence could be used to strengthen the argument or what changes would make the argument more logically sound.
Answer:
The local newspaper claims that the inflow of immigrant workers into the community has caused the wages to decline by 10% over the last 5 years. Basing their judgement on that, it has come to the conclusion that there must be a stop on further immigration to prevent further decline. However, the argument of the editors of the newspaper is flawed due to the presence of the following gaps.
Firstly, to address the main point, there are several reasons that could engender a decline in the compensation of unskilled labourers' wages. The most obvious example is that the whole economy might have been undergoing a recession over the past 5 years, which would naturally cause a decline in compensation. This negates the fact that migrant workers are the reason for this decrease. Also, it could be articulated that the influx of migrants could have prevented a more severe decline because of their low compensation, which would relieve the economy of a further decline, since migrant workers tend to provide cheap labour.
Moreover, the authors made use of the average compensation of unskilled labour as a tool to gauge wages. It could be argued that there are other statistics or data that more exhaustively represent wages since unskilled labour wage is only one portion of overall wages (maybe it is even the case that in this economy unskilled labour is a very small portion of the wages, making it completely unreliable as a gauge of wages). Additionally, it is the "average" compensation that is quoted; in other words, the average might not be an accurate gauge because it could be the case that one group has really low compensation as opposed to another that has very high compensation, skewing the average.
Furthermore, assuming the fact that migrant workers might be the cause of the decline, imposing a moratorium on immigration might not be the best way to prevent further migrants from entering the local economy. in many cases, imposing the law and regulations to prevent additional migrant workers from coming in ends up backfiring: although this would reduce the number of legal migrants, it might end up in increasing the number of immigrant workers who were looking to enter this local economy in any way. Or it could be that the number of migrants entering the economy has been decreasing over the years or completely stopped, which raises the question whether the migrants are the cause of the decline in compensation.
In conclusion, the argument made by the local newspaper does not stand because it has failed to consider that the relation between immigrants entering the local economy and average wage compensation might not be causative, because the use of average compensation as a tool to measure its effects on the economy might not be the best one, and because imposing a moratorium might not be the best way to stop immigration. To further bolster their claim, evidence of causation must be provided and any other factors that might affect the decline in unskilled labour compensation must be eliminated.
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