PARAGRAPH COMPLETION:- By calling for exempting unionized businesses from the…
2025
PARAGRAPH COMPLETION:-
By calling for exempting unionized businesses from the minimum wage, unions are creating more incentives for employers to favor unionized workers over the non-unionized sort. Such exemptions strengthen their power. This is useful because for all the effort unions throw at raising the minimum wage, laws for better pay have an awkward habit of undermining union clout.
- A.
High rates of unionization make minimum-wage rules unnecessary as collaborative wage setting achieves the flexibility goals of a low minimum wage and the fairness goals of a high one.
- B.
Workers who have no real alternative to employment in the unregulated shadows of the labor market are even more vulnerable to exploitation and abuse than workers with the legal right to take low wages.
- C.
The labor ethos of worker solidarity seems hollow if non-union workers are underpriced by union workers and left unemployed or scrambling for unauthorized work.
- D.
Once employers are obliged to pay the same minimum wage to both unionized and non-unionized labor, workers often see less reason to pay the dues to join a union.
Attempted by 4 students.
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Correct answer: D
Correct completion: Once employers are obliged to pay the same minimum wage to both unionized and non-unionized labor, workers often see less reason to pay the dues to join a union.
Why this completes the paragraph:
The paragraph argues that unions, by seeking exemptions from the minimum wage, try to strengthen their position, and that minimum-wage laws can paradoxically weaken union clout.
The chosen sentence explains the mechanism: if the minimum wage equalizes pay for union and non-union workers, joining a union offers less economic benefit, so membership and union power can decline.
Why the other sentences do not complete the paragraph:
The sentence claiming that high rates of unionization make minimum-wage rules unnecessary talks about how unions affect wage-setting. That reverses the focus and does not continue the passage’s point about how wage laws affect unions’ clout.
The sentence about workers vulnerable in the unregulated labor market introduces a new issue of exploitation that is not connected to the passage’s argument about unions losing influence because of minimum-wage laws.
The sentence about the labor ethos and solidarity highlights unfair under-pricing by union workers. Although related thematically, it emphasizes solidarity and fairness rather than directly explaining how minimum-wage protections reduce unions’ incentives and thereby their clout.
Conclusion: The sentence about equal minimum-wage obligations best continues the argument by showing the specific way in which minimum-wage laws can undermine union membership and power.