Home ownership is a sign of

Answer choices

1. A

   Correct85% picked this

   Home ownership makes it more difficult to move to a place where jobs

   Why this is right

   A lot of times on Paradox questions, to break out of the paradox's confusion and into the enlightenment of the answer, we have to do a gestalt shift (think about it a very different way). Our paradox was: If there's a high level of unemployment, then people don't have jobs, so they don't have money, so they shouldn't be able to afford a house. How is it that these communities have high levels of home ownership? But that's because we're thinking 1st came the unemployed 2nd came buying the house If we reverse that chronology, then this answer can help us make sense of things. 1st came buying the house (the people in town had jobs at that point). Let's say we're in West Virginia during the glory days of coal mining. People had jobs, so they had money, so they bought homes, so there is a really high rate of home ownership. But then .... coal mines get shut down. Most of the good local jobs disappear. The town is not an economic wasteland. The people who rent month-to-month have the freedom to pack up and say, "I'm moving to a different area with better job opportunities". The people who are stuck in 30 year mortgages can't just uproot like that. They have to stay and stick it out in an economically depressed area. So high levels of home ownership go hand-in-hand with high levels of unemployment because, "the only reason you'd stay in an area with high levels of unemployment is if you were stuck living there because you bought a home and planted your roots".

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

   85%
2. B

   Deepens Paradox2% picked this

   Over the last few decades jobs have been moving from centralized areas to locations that

   This goes in the opposite direction from what we want. This describes jobs heading towards homeowners. We need a story where there are homeowners and there aren't jobs, because we're trying to reconcile home ownership with high levels of local unemployment.

   2%
3. C

   Reiterates Paradox4% picked this

   The correspondence between high levels of home ownership and high levels of unemployment holds across countries with

   This just adds heft to the underlying correlation: "I'm telling you, these two things that are confusingly associated with each other are really associated with each other across lots of different countries and social systems." "This counterintuitive pattern happens in tons of places!" Okay, but we're no closer to explaining why this counterintuitive happens. This is just reiterating that it happens.

   4%
4. D

   Deepens Paradox2% picked this

   People who own homes are more likely than those who rent to form support networks that help them

   This goes in the opposite direction from what we want. This homeowners having an advantage when it comes to learning about local jobs. We need a story where there are homeowners and there aren't jobs, because we're trying to reconcile home ownership with high levels of local unemployment.

   2%
5. E

   Explains Background7% picked this

   People are more likely to buy homes when they are feeling

   This doesn't have anything to do with explaining the surprise (the association between home ownership and unemployment). This just seems to help explain the background fact, that home ownership is associated with economic prosperity.

   7%