Logical Reasoning

PT110 · S3 · Q18 A person is more likely

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A person is more likely to become disabled as that person ages.

Curious Fact

Given that one is more likely to be disabled as one ages, why is it that 4% of people aged 55-64 receive disability benefit payments, 2% of 65-74 year olds receive it, and only 1% of people 75 and up receive it?

In essence, given that you're more likely to be disabled, the older you are, why is there a smaller % of super old people getting disability benefits than there are of younger old people?

Explanation

Not as many jobs offered such a disability benefit until recent years.

Evaluate

We should sit with this explanation a second if it doesn't immediately seem clear how it's explaining the data.

The author is suggesting that if all jobs offered disability benefits, then the older a segment of the population is, the higher a percent of them would be receiving disability benefits.

But since most jobs weren't offering disability benefits until recently, the people 75 and up (who presumably retired 10 years ago) might be disabled but they wouldn't receive disability benefits from their former employer because back when they were working, employers didn't offer disability benefits.

Ultimately, though, we really don't need to fixate too much on this explanation, since the question stem is seeking some additional explanation. In order for us to show that this explanation is at best incomplete, we can show that something else is also having an effect on why a smaller % of the oldest demographic gets disability benefits.

Goal

The correct answer may surprise us and provide a reason to think that the author's explanation cannot plausibly account for all of this 4% / 2% / 1% gradient.

But since the question stem asks us to show that this explanation is incomplete, it seems to be leading us to the idea that .

So we need something else, besides the idea that more jobs these days offer disability benefits, that could explain why a smaller % of 75 year olds receive benefits than do 65 year olds, and why a smaller % of 65 year olds do than 55 year olds.

(Maybe something like, )

18.

Which one of the following, if true about East Wendell, shows that the explanation above is at best incomplete?

The treatment of newly incurred
No Impact
This applies to all age groups uniformly. Whether you're 55, 65, or 75 years old, if you have a newly incurred disability, you'll be somewhat back to normal sooner than before. That doesn't give us a way to explain why a higher % of 55 year olds get disability benefits than do 75 year olds.
7% picked this
Some people receive disability benefit
No Distinction / Too Weak
This is super weak and super vague. It says, "at least one person gets disability payment from their employer and at least one person gets a disability payment from their government." This tells us nothing about the relative ages of these people and so it gives us no way to distinguish among the age groups and posit an alternate explanation for why a bigger share of 55 year olds get disability payments than do 75 year olds.
11% picked this
Medical advances have prolonged the
No Distinction
This applies to all age groups uniformly. Whether you're 55, 65, or 75 years old, medical advances are going to help you live longer than you used to be able to. That doesn't give us a way to explain why a higher % of 55 year olds get disability benefits than do 75 year olds.
3% picked this
For persons receiving disability benefit
No Distinction
This applies to all age groups uniformly. Whether you're 55, 65, or 75 years old, if you receive disability payments, they don't pay out as much (as a proportion of your earning potential) as they used to. That doesn't give us a way to explain why a higher % of 55 year olds get disability benefits than do 75 year olds.
7% picked this
Correct
Under most employers’ plans, disability
Why this is right
This gives us an additional way to explain why a higher % of 55 year olds get disability benefits than do 75 year olds. A 55 year old wouldn't usually be retired. A 75 year old usually would. Disability payments stop once you hit age 65, so the disabled 55 year old would still be collecting payments whereas the disabled 75 year old would not any longer be receiving payments. Thus, this gives us a way to partially explain why only 1% of 75 year olds get disability payments, while 4% of 55 year olds do. There might be a higher percent of 75 year olds who are actually disabled, but since most employer plans cut out the payments once you turn 65, they are disabled but not receiving disability payments. (If people were worried about how this answer doesn't seem to perfectly explain the 55 vs. 65 vs. 75 gradient, it doesn't need to. If it even partially explains the gradient, then it succeeds in showing that the author's explanation was incomplete. As long as we think this answer has any effect on the 4% / 2% / 1% breakdown between 55/65/75 year olds, then it's part of the explanation).
Skill tested: Weaken · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
71% picked this

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