Economist: As should be obvious, raising the minimum wage significantly would make it more expensive for businesses ...

Mehran September 24, 2018

@joryjes the conclusion here is, "So raising the minimum wage significantly will cause an increase in unemployment."

How do we know this? Because "raising the minimum wage significantly would make it more expensive for businesses to pay workers for minimum-wage jobs" and this means that "businesses could not afford to continue to employ as many workers for such jobs."

This is a cause (significantly increasing minimum wage) and effect (increase in unemployment) argument.

This is a Weaken question so we are looking for the answer choice that would weaken this argument.

Let's take a look at (A), "Businesses typically pass the cost of increased wages on to consumers without adversely affecting profits." This weakens by showing cause without effect. Increasing the minimum wage will result in higher prices goods/services as opposed to an increase in unemployment.

Now let's take a look at (D), "Most workers are earning more than the current minimum wage." This is completely irrelevant to this argument. What if 49% of workers earn the minimum wage? Increasing the minimum wage would still make it more expensive for businesses to pay workers for minimum-wage jobs. So (D) would be incorrect.

Hope that helps! Please let us know if you have any other questions.