The average salary of the legally employed population in the country

Following Nightblade354 advise to push my CR skills beyond the limits, I'll post an extensive analysis of this questions, explaining the initial thoughts on the stimulus and the reasons why I reject four options and choose one as the winner . I beieve this is one of the best ways to improve in CR. Don't just do questions, but try to extract as much as possible from each of them. I think doing blind review help a lot in doing so (more about blind review here: https://gmatclub.com/forum/mod-nightbla ... 95316.html)

Here is the stimulus:

The average salary of the legally employed population in the country has gone up from USD 30,000 per annum to USD 43,000 per annum in the last five years. Even after accounting for inflation over these years, this rise is substantial. This increase is, at least in part, because of the manufacturing industry which employs an increasing share of the employable population.

Initial thoughts: Apparently, there has been an increase in the average salary of legally employed population
because it is beating inflation (so real wages are up!). Then the argument mentions that is (in part) thanks to the manufacturing industry. So with this sentence, I know that the manufacturing industry has increased the real wages in the country, and that there are also other industries that have contributed to the increase (because it says: at least in part)

Let's jump into the answers:

A. The manufacturing industry is the biggest employer in the country

Good to know, but this does not have any influence in the average salary of legally employed people in the country. OUT

B. The legally employable population has increased in the last five years

Ok. Population may have also increased and that's the reason because of the increase in legally employable population. This does not have any impact in salaries. OUT

C. Industries other than manufacturing have not increased their employees salaries in the last five years

We can't infer this from the passage as it is exactly the opposite as explained in my initial thoughts (other industries also contributed to the increase). OUT

D. The average salary rise in industries other than manufacturing is lower than that in manufacturing

KEEP! This option says that other industries contributed to the rise, but less than the manufacturing industry (and that is the reason why it is specifically mentioning it in the argument, because it is the one that has contributed more). However I see there is a problem. It says the rise, but this rise could be below inflation, so I am not to convinced with this option

E. If it were not for the growth in the salaries in the manufacturing industry, the average salary would have been less than 43,000 per annum today.

This option implies that the increase in the manufacturing industry was more than the overall, which is definitely said by the argument. KEEP and SELECT this one

OPTION E