Q8 - Larew: People in the lowest

[demetri.blaisdell]

Vocab first: quintile means a section that is 1/5 of the data. For this identify the disagreement question, we want to be thinking in narrow terms about where the two authors are committed to disagreement.

Larew (on behalf of the 1%): Higher percentage increase for bottom 1/5 than for top 1/5 ---> Bottom 1/5's economic prosperity increased relative to top 1/5.

Mendota (on behalf of the 99%): No way! Top 1/5's increase in actual dollars was way more.

The point of disagreement is over Larew's conclusion. They don't disagree about the data but Mendota thinks the economic prosperity (not defined by either of them) of the bottom 1/5 didn't increase.

You get that in (A). Larew thinks the percentage change accurately describes a change in "economic prosperity" while Mendota thinks you should look at the absolute amount of change (i.e. how much more money does each group have).

Wrong answers:

(B) is not the approach that either of them take. Both Larew and Mendota compare the bottom and top quintiles. They just compare different statistics.

(C) is similar to (B). Both authors are comparing average income between the quintiles so neither thinks we should never do that.

(D) is close. Larew for sure thinks there have been improvements. But Mendota doesn't quite say that there has been no improvement at all. He only says the improvement is not in the economic prosperity relative the top quintile.

(E) is something they both agree about. Mendota's problem is that the absolute income hasn't increased as much. He doesn't disagree with Larew's premise that the percentages have increased.

I hope this helps. If you still have questions after reading this, post away!

Demetri

[kumsayuya]

Hello, I'm writing out answers to questions I got wrong, so you should probably listen to the guys explanation above me instead of mine. With that out of the way, lets go into the question.

Larew:
• People in the lowest income quintile had a higher percentage increase of average income than the highest quintile
• Therefore, economic prosperity increased relative to the highest
Mendota:
• Yes, average income increased by a greater percentage, but absolute amount was higher for the highest quintile

Essentially, the discrepancy in this case between the two speakers arises when discussing whether or not the income of the lowest quintile has increased relative to the highest income. Larew essentially says, yeah, they increased by a higher percentage so relatively, they gained more while Mendota basically is like yeah - your premise is right, but your conclusion is wrong – they didn’t increase relative to the highest , because the highness’s absolute amount of increase in average income was higher !
What can be tricky about this question is the way Mendota does disagree with the conclusion of Larew, but not in an outright fashion. He simply draws a different conclusion yet agrees with the premise that larew used, but takes something else into account that Larew did not.
(A) Initially I left this because I thought it looked good, and it is the correct answer. It is a bit tricky worded, so I’ll try to break it down a bit. If we look back to Larew, we can see if we boil the argument down, its basically this : increased by a greater percentage relative to the richest, and therefore, their economic prosperity increased relative to the highest quintile. So takes this premise about the percentage increase, and draws his conclusion. Mendota takes issue with this, saying the premise is right about the percentage, but draws an opposing conclusion – and implicitly this means that the evidence used to come to the conclusion is actually insufficient. So, we can fairly say, these two disagreed over this.

(B) Nobody suggests that its more accurate to only compare the poor to the poor and not the rich, and therefore this could not be an issue that they both disagree about. It actually was not brought up.

(C) Should EVER be compared? This issue in this conversation would not whether or not they should ever be compared, as a matter of fact, Mendota shows NO issue with this at all! He accepts that they have been compared, but draws a different conclusion.

(D) Actually, they explicitly agree about this. Larew’s argument is based upon this, and Mendota’s second sentence shows that he agrees there was indeed an improvement of the economic situation of those in the lowest income

(E) Nope, just like (D) they agree with this. Reference the same things I mentioned in (D) to see that this is incorrect

[HannahM495]

So I came to the same conclusion as the folks above, but I have different interpretations of the answer choices that seemed significant enough that I wanted to get them out here — maybe they’ll be helpful to someone in themselves or as an exercise in correcting me anyway:

A) This is the correct answer choice. This AC is describing Larew’s methodology precisely. She compared the lowest income bracket’s PERCENTAGE growth of wealth to the highest bracket’s. Mendota questions the validity of this method, asserting that the absolute dollar amounts retained & gained by these respective groups is a better indicator of “economic prosperity.”
B) I tend to disagree with the above interpretations of this AC. B is positing that economic prosperity can be more accurately measured when comparing the lowest bracket’s income to the highest — it’s a similar sentiment to that in AC A, though it’s not referencing the percentage component and it has a comparative element (more accurately than merely assessing economic prosperity WITHIN the brackets themselves). This appears to be the trick answer to me — we don’t know what Larew would argue is the BETTER methodology, only that she assumes her methodology was effective enough to reach her conclusion. We could assume Mendota would agree with this, but it’d be kind of a logical leap since it doesn’t address the percent v. absolute flaw that she takes issue with in the first place.
C) This answer is pretty extreme (“should EVER be compared), and Mendota doesn’t seem to have any opinions about what we “should(nt)” do.
D) Larew specifically says that the low bracket’s economic prosperity increased — she’d probably agree with this. Mendota grants Larew’s point, that their income increased by a greater percentage, so yes, their econonmic situation improved, even if it was to the excessive degree Larew claims initially.
E) They both explicitly agree with this in the stimulus.

Here’s a table of how I see their points at issue:
..... L | M
A. + - Disagree!
B. ? ?
C. + ?
D. + +
E. + +

[obobob]

Just a quick question-- When saying someone's economic prosperity increased relative to the other's, does that just plainly mean something like: compared to the other, that someone's economic prosperity (absolute amount in $) increased more?

I am kind of confused with Larew's last sentence.

[ohthatpatrick]

Say that a poor person (in the lowest income quintile) was making $20k a decade ago,
and now they're making $25k.

In absolute terms, they're making $5 thousand more.
In relative terms, their income went up 25% (it went up by $5k, which was 1/4 of $20k)

Say that a wealthy person was making $10 million a decade ago,
and now they're making $11 million.

In absolute terms, they're making $1 million more.
In relative terms, their income went up 10% (it went up $1 million, which was 1/10 of $10 million)

=========

Larew is saying, "Poor people's income went up 25%, while rich people's income only went up 10%. So the last decade better helped the economic prosperity of the poor people."

Mendota is saying, "Nah. Poor people's income went up by $5 thousand over the last decade, while rich people's income went up by $1 million."

Hope this helps.