Critical Reasoning

Of the people who moved from one state to another when they retired, the proportion who retired to SunState has decreased by 10 percent over the past five years. Since many local businesses in SunState cater to retirees, this decline is likely to have a noticeably negative economic effect on these businesses.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument?

A: SunState attracts more people who move from one state to another when they retire than does any other state.

B:There are far more local businesses in SunState that cater to tourists than there are local businesses that cater to retirees.

C: The number of retirees who have moved out of SunState to accept re-employment in other states has increased over the past five years.

D: SunState has lower property taxes than any other state, making the state a magnet for retirees.

E: The total number of people who retired and moved to another state for their retirement has increased significantly over the past five years.

I'll post the OA soon, can someone please explain this to me?

Source: MGMAT CAT.

The premise here is that over the last 5 years the proportion of people who moved to Sunstate after retirement has decreased by 10%.
The argument is that, this will have a negative impact on the local businesses that cater to retirees.

I think the answer is E

A) The number of people who moved to Sunstate may be more compared to those who moved to other states; still the overall number that moved to Sunstate might have come down over the last five years. This is only supporting the premise. For eg, Sunstate might have earlier attracted 60% of the people, but now dropped to 54% (10% drop). And this number is still more than the number of people migrating to any other state.

B) This is a diversion from the original argument and hence irrelevant.

C) This supports the argument, more people moving out of Sunstate is not good for businesses.

D) Irrelevant.

E) This statement, if true, can weaken the argument. The premise only talks about declining proportion & percent. However, if the retiree population who moved to other states increased significantly then a 10% drop in those migrating to Sunstate might still not lower the overall number.

asamaverick wrote:
E) This statement, if true, can weaken the argument. The premise only talks about declining proportion & percent. However, if the retiree population who moved to other states increased significantly then a 10% drop in those migrating to Sunstate might still not lower the overall number.

The argument talks about Businesses in Sunstate suffering due to the decrease in those migrating to sunstate. How does the fact that more people moved to another state help the businesses is Sunstate? I don't get it.

The ratio of retirees who retire to sunstate to the retirees in overall is expected to decrease by 10%. But what if the overall number of retirees increase significantly? the 10% decrease in ratio will not result in an actual decrease in the number of retirees who retire to sunstate. Hence businesses wont be affected.

hope this helps.

concept wrote:The ratio of retirees who retire to sunstate to the retirees in overall is expected to decrease by 10%. But what if the overall number of retirees increase significantly? the 10% decrease in ratio will not result in an actual decrease in the number of retirees who retire to sunstate. Hence businesses wont be affected.

hope this helps.

Oh damn, Now i Get it. Thanks.