In order to save $500,000 in this year’s budget, the city council voted to freeze the salaries of its school building inspectors. This shortsighted decision is yet another example of the council’s being penny wise and pound foolish. The cursory inspections that will result from this action will cause many structural defects to go undetected, resulting in millions more dollars being spent on repairs in the future.

In order for his argument to be logically correct, the author of the above argument used which of the following statements as an unstated underlying assumption?

Correct answer marked below

City inspectors are already overpaid and so the wage freeze is warranted.

The city council cares less about the safety of the school children than it does about saving money.

If they do not receive an increase in their wages, school inspectors will become lax in performing their jobs.

Correct

The council does not feel that cursory inspections will necessarily result in defects going undetected.

The council will not authorize repairs in the future, so it will never have to incur the extra costs.

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What this question tests

Whether you can identify the unstated assumption a critical-reasoning argument depends on.

Picking an option that strengthens the argument or is merely relevant instead of one that is required.