Q1 - Editorial: Clearly, during the past two years, the unem

[ShehryarB30]

Could you pls explain how C is a better option than B

[ohthatpatrick]

QUESTION TYPE: Flaw

STIMULUS BREAKDOWN:
conclusion - Unemployment situation is improving over past two years
evidence - Studies show the number of unemployed people who are actively looking for jobs has steadily decreased over past two years

TIME TO MAKE AN OBJECTION:
given that
[number of unemployed ppl actively looking for jobs has gone down]

how could we still say
[unemployment situation is same or worse than before]?

The author interprets this statistic to mean that
fewer people actively looking = more people got jobs

How else could we interpret this statistic, so that it sounds bad or neutral in relation to unemployment?
maybe, fewer people looking = fewer people in our city (population declined)
maybe, fewer people looking = more people died
maybe, fewer people looking ... but population grew, so % of unemployed is same
maybe, fewer people looking = more people gave up looking but are still jobless

(A) the author never mentions why unemployment might be improving, so we can't accuse her of assuming the govt had some hand in it

(B) the author relies on data about the last two years to make an inference about the last two years. There's no mismatch between the time period of the evidence and the time period of the conclusion.

(C) YES! This brings up a possible objection that makes "fewer people looking for jobs" sound BAD for unemployment, not GOOD, as the author assumed.

(D) The conclusion is only about unemployment, not something broader like "the health of the economy", which could bring in other potential objections like "Maybe people are getting more jobs, but the jobs are terrible"

(E) The conclusion is only about unemployment, not something broader like "the health of the economy", which could bring in other potential objections like "Maybe people are getting more jobs, but other aspects of the economy, like trade deficit, are doing worse."