The widespread staff reductions

Answer choices

1. A

   Correct57% picked this

   If people in the region who continue to be employed have debts, they are not now paying them

   Why this is right

   Whenever we're doing Necessary Assumption and an answer choice is ruling out something using wording like "no / not", we want to slow down and take a look, because many correct answers on NA have that form. If we negate it (remove the "not"), does it weaken? Yes! The author was assuming that if people with jobs were really spending less and saving more, that extra money would show up in their savings accounts. But we can attack that assumption by saying, "they are spending less / saving more, but they are using that extra saved money to pay down their debts more aggressively." This objection gives us a way to reconcile "spending less" with "no increase in savings account", by pointing to a different thing we could do with our extra money if we decide to spend less.

   Skill tested: Necessary Assumption · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

   57%
2. B

   Weakens13% picked this

   People in the region who continue to be employed and who have relatives who have lost their jobs

   This would be an Alternate Possibility for where people who are spending less could be funneling their extra money. We could say, "Yo, author -- people with jobs are spending less. You're not seeing a spike in their savings accounts because they're sending that extra money to their struggling relatives." This would have been a correct answer if it said, "People who continue to be employed are not sending the extra money they're saving to their struggling relatives."

   13%
3. C

   Out of Scope3% picked this

   If people in the region who have lost jobs get new jobs, the new jobs generally pay less well

   Out of Scope: new job pays less The fact that this answer is dealing with people who have lost their jobs immediately tells you it's irrelevant, since conclusion is only about people who do still have their jobs. Our author certainly hasn't committed to any position on whether an unemployed person's next job will pay less / similar / better than their current job does.

   3%
4. D

   Out of Scope16% picked this

   People in the region who continue to be employed are pessimistic about their prospects for

   Out of Scope: increasing incomes Opposite, if anything We're only talking about whether the employed people are feeling like they're economically worse than before. This answer is talking about whether they think in the future they'll be better than they are now. And since our author is countering the view of people who say, "the employed are feeling economic pessimism", our author is more on the side of, "Employed people aren't feeling economic pessimism -- their spending is undiminished."

   16%
5. E

   Too Strong: no stats11% picked this

   There exist no statistics about sales of goods in the region

   The author certainly hasn't committed to an extreme idea that there are no statistics about sales of goods in the entire region. If we negated this and said, "There are statistics about sales of goods in the region as a whole", would that hurt the argument? No, not unless we knew what those sales figures revealed (which this does not). If an answer said, "Statistics about sales of goods in the region as a whole do not show a big increase in spending" we could consider that as a viable answer.

   11%