This weakens the author’s claim that the demand for goods will cause more factory workers to be hired. If prices rise, demand could potentially not increase to a level that would rapidly create more jobs to keep up with consumer demand.

This weakens the argument because most of the factory jobs created to keep up with demand would not come from within the country. Thus, the country’s unemployment rate would not rapidly decrease to the extent that the Economist predicts.

This does not weaken the argument because it only addresses one industry in Country X. It is unclear how large this industry is. This does not weaken the author’s claim that raising the minimum wage would lead to more income for a large segment of the working population.

This weakens the argument because it undermines one of the Economist’s key assumptions: that the increase in factory jobs will outpace the number of job losses around the country. If this were true, then it is not likely that the unemployment rate would drastically decrease.

This weakens the argument because if the factories have large surpluses, then they will not need to hire more workers to keep up with the demand for consumer goods.