Logical Reasoning

PT21 · S3 · Q3 During 1991 the number of people

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During 1991 the number of people in the town of Bayburg who received municipal food assistance doubled, even though the number of people in Bayburg whose incomes were low enough to qualify for such assistance remained unchanged.

Background

The number of people who qualify for food assistance (i.e. food stamps) remained unchanged throughout 1991.

Surprising Claim

The number of people who received food assistance doubled.

Evaluate

So, we're looking at this tension ... Given That same # of people qualify How Can It Be That bigger # of people received food assistance?

- maybe delivery improved? - maybe the food options improved? - maybe in previous years, the bureaucracy of disbursing this assistance was too much for people to deal with, but they made it simpler.

Goal

Find a story that makes sense of how more people are receiving food assistance, even though the number of eligible people hasn't changed.

Which one of the following, if true, most helps to resolve the apparent discrepancy in the information above?

In 1990 the Bayburg Town
No Change, No Impact
This answer doesn't give us a storyline to explain why # of people receiving food assistance has changed, because this answer doesn't provide any change.
1% picked this
In 1990 the Bayburg social
No Impact / Tries to Cheat
It's still not clear from this answer that anything changed. But the only thing it's even hinting at changing would be a story like, "Maybe they estimated a bigger number of people might be eligible, so that's why more people are getting food assistance." But we can't tell that story, since we know that the number of eligible people didn't change.
5% picked this
During 1991 many residents of
Tries to Cheat
This offers a potential storyline of, "Unemployment in a nearby city led to a lot of needy people moving into Bayburg. More people needed food assistance and so more people got it." But, again, this storyline is trying to add eligible people in order to explain why more people received assistance. That's cheating the paradox. We have to work around the constraint that the same number of people are eligible.
21% picked this
During 1991 the number of
No Impact / No Change
We need a difference in order to explain this change! This presents us with another sameness. Also, it seems to only be addressing the number of people who would be eligible. Again, that variable isn't moving. The same number of people are eligible. We need to figure out why number of people actually receiving assistance went up.
2% picked this
Correct
During 1991 Bayburg’s program of
Why this is right
This offers a potential storyline for how more people could receive assistance, even though the number of eligible people didn't change. Not everyone who is eligible for food assistance automatically receives it. You probably have to fill out some paperwork and enroll yourself in the system. So by advertising widely to low-income tenants about rent assistance, and then informing all applicants about other assistance programs (just as food assistance), we can see how we may have gotten some new people to receive food assistance. Their low incomes have made them eligible for this assistance for years, potentially, but if they didn't know it was a program that was offered, they might not have been capitalizing on it. This is definitely a strange correct answer, in terms of how specific a tangential storyline it gives to get us there, but the other answers didn't discuss any change that would relate to how "previously eligible, but not receiving assistance" people could turn into "still eligible, but now are receiving assistance" people.
Skill tested: Paradox · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
70% picked this

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