Politician: Homelessness is a serious

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Stimulus

Politician: Homelessness is a serious social problem, but further government spending to provide low-income housing is not the cure for homelessness. The most cursory glance at the real-estate section of any major newspaper is enough to show that there is no lack of housing units available to homeless because of a lack of available housing is wrong.

What this question is testing

Role

Conclusion

The politician's point is narrow: more government money for low-income housing won't solve homelessness, because there's already no shortage of housing units to rent.

Evidence

The real estate section shows lots of rental units available — so people aren't homeless because there is no housing.

Evaluate

For Role questions, ask: what work does this sentence do in the argument? Is it the conclusion? A premise? A concession? A rebuttal?

Here, "homelessness is a serious social problem" is a concession — the politician acknowledges homelessness matters before pivoting to the actual claim (that housing spending isn't the answer). It does not support the conclusion, and it does not contradict it. Someone could fully agree homelessness is serious and still accept the politician's view, or fully agree and reject it. The seriousness of homelessness is a separate question from what cures it.

Watch for trap answers that treat this concession as the main claim, the issue being addressed, or load-bearing evidence — none of which it actually is.

Goal

Pick the answer that says the sentence is compatible with either accepting or denying the conclusion — i.e., it does no logical work either way.

Reading along? Open the full official question in LawHub — we show a fragment here and keep the reasoning in our own words.

The question

20.

That homelessness is a serious social problem figures in the argument in which one of

Answer choices

Wrong Role2% picked this
It suggests an alternative perspective to the one adopted in
"Suggests an alternative perspective" implies the line presents a different viewpoint that the argument is engaging with or contrasting against. But "homelessness is serious" is not a perspective the politician is countering — it's the politician's own concession. The actual alternative perspective the politician is engaging with is the claim that lack of housing causes homelessness, not the seriousness claim.
2%
Wrong Role22% picked this
It sets out a problem the argument is designed
The argument is not about how to solve homelessness — it's about whether one specific approach (more low-income-housing spending) is the right approach. The argument is "designed to" reject that approach, not to resolve homelessness as a whole. The seriousness line is not the problem the argument is trying to solve.
22%
Correct60% picked this
It is compatible either with accepting the conclusion or with
Why this is right
This nails the role. The conclusion is about whether more housing spending cures homelessness — a question independent of how serious homelessness is. Someone could fully agree that homelessness is serious and still accept the politician's conclusion, or agree and reject it. The seriousness claim doesn't support, contradict, or otherwise affect the conclusion. It's a concession the politician makes that's logically compatible either way.
Skill tested: Role · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
60%
Wrong Role8% picked this
It summarizes a position the argument as a whole is directed
The argument isn't out to discredit the claim that homelessness is serious — the politician explicitly endorses it. What the argument is directed at discrediting is the lack-of-housing theory, not the seriousness claim. This answer reverses the politician's own stance.
8%
Wrong Role8% picked this
It is required in order to establish
The politician's conclusion (that housing spending isn't the cure) doesn't require homelessness to be serious. The argument would still go through if homelessness were a minor problem: the lack-of-housing theory would still be wrong (because there's no housing shortage), so housing spending still wouldn't be the right cure. The seriousness claim isn't needed to establish the conclusion.
8%

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