The conclusion: unemployed people will have no financial incentive to accept jobs that entitle them to the government supplement.gocoder wrote:I was stuck between A and D on the test.
Can someone explain why A is not a weakener, please.
In Ledland, unemployed adults receive government assistance. To reduce unemployment, the government proposes to supplement the income of those who accept jobs that pay less than government assistance, thus enabling employers to hire workers cheaply. However, the supplement will not raise any worker's income above what government assistance would provide if he or she were not gainfully employed. Therefore, unemployed people will have no financial incentive to accept jobs that would entitle them to the supplement.
Which of the following, if true about Ledland, most seriously weakens the argument of
the editorial?
A. The government collects no taxes on assistance it provides to unemployed individuals and their families.
B. Neighboring countries with laws that mandate the minimum wage an employer must pay an employee have higher unemployment rates than Ledland currently has.
C. People who are employed and look for a new job tend to get higher-paying jobs than job seekers who are unemployed.
D. The yearly amount unemployed people receive from government assistance is less than the yearly income that the government defines as the poverty level.
E. People sometimes accept jobs that pay relatively little simply because they enjoy the work.
The premise: $ received from unemployment benefits = $ received from job + supplement
We're trying to weaken the conclusion that unemployed people won't bother to accept jobs, so we want to show that there is an incentive for them to work, despite the fact that they won't be receiving any more money than they would if they remained unemployed. So that's what we're searching for: a benefit from employment that we haven't considered. This is what C provides. They may not make more money at first, but if their job positions them to make more money when they're looking for their next employment opportunity, in the long run, they'll be better off employed.
A, If anything, is a strengthener. We're looking for an answer choice that would provide an unemployed person with an incentive to work. If government assistance isn't taxed, but their income for working might be (we're not told), that's hardly a reason to take a job!
