Editorial: The citys police department is facing a budget shortfall.

Official Explanation:

Editorial: The city’s police department is facing a budget shortfall. The largest portion of the budget is employee retirement benefits, which are exceedingly generous and extend to even short-term employees or employees who quit before retirement age. Unless the budget shortfall is resolved, the police department budget will be cut, and many police department staff will lose their jobs. The union should approve cuts to retirement benefits.

Which of the following is an assumption that the editorial’s argument requires?

A. The police union should not accept cuts in retirement benefits if it does not benefit its employees.
B. The only reasonable way for the department to resolve the budget deficit is to cut funding and jobs.
C. It is in the police department employees’ interest to have great retirement benefits.
D. Cutting retirement benefits would resolve the budget deficit.
E. The police department union will not accept retirement cuts if the cuts do not impact union jobs.

Question Type: Assumption
Boil It Down: The police department needs to cut some of its budget, or it will have to cut jobs. Retirement benefits make up the biggest chunk of their current budget, so the union is being asked to cut some of their retirement benefits to save jobs.
Goal: What assumption do we have to make for this argument to work?

Analysis:

In any logical argument, it is important to identify any factors that are necessary (or sufficient) for an outcome. For this question, we need to determine which assumption MUST be true for the argument to actually work.

Argument: The union needs to cut retirement benefits to save jobs.
Evidence 1: The city’s police department’s budget needs to be cut.
Evidence 2: Retirement benefits make up the largest portion of the police budget.

A. The police union should not accept cuts in retirement benefits if it does not benefit its employees.
A is incorrect because the cuts do not benefit employees and they should realistically not accept them as it harms current employees in favor of saving jobs.

B. The only reasonable way for the department to resolve the budget deficit is to cut funding and jobs.
B is incorrect because it assumes that the only source of budget-saving cuts is the retirement budget.

C. It is in the police department employees’ interest to have great retirement benefits.
C is incorrect because, while likely true, this has no bearing on the budget.

D. Cutting retirement benefits would resolve the budget deficit.
D is correct because it indicates that cuts to the retirement budget would resolve the shortfall and assumes that is the problem.

E. The police department union will not accept retirement cuts if the cuts do not impact union jobs.
E is incorrect because, like A, this is not a choice the union would rationally make.

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