I dont understand why D is more relevant than others.
can you explain why the percentage of non=minority working families who owned their own home is relevant to the situation of evaluating the minority working familieis that own their own home??

Minorities that own their own home / (minorities that own their own + nonminorities that own their home) = the percentages listed as premises.

why would the PERCENTAGE (and not the #) of nonminorities that own their home be relevant?

This argument concludes that the proportion of minorities who own their own home out of the total number of families that own their own home has not changed. As evidence we see in the premises that the home ownership among minority working families (as a percentage) is virtually unchanged. So this could lead to the assumption that the rate of home ownership among minority working families is unchanged.

However, this is not enough information. What if the percentage of non-minority working families that own homes has gone way up or way down. This would be important to know if we are trying to say that things have remained steady for the past 25 years. So that is choice D.

The actual number of non-minority working families who owned their own homes would not be very helpful unless we also knew the number of non-minority working families in the country so that a percentage could be obtained. So D actually gives us more information because it is a percentage since we do not then need to look for a second piece of info.

I will say that answer choice D does not guarantee that the conclusion will be true. It does not tell us if minorities have become a greater part of the population (they have) and so if the percentage of minority working families who own their own homes is the same, but their are more minority working families in general then this would be a greater chunk of total home ownership. But remember, an answer choice only needs to be "useful to know" for this question - and does not need to guarantee the conclusion.

So D is not perfect but is the most helpful.

"What if the percentage of non-minority working families that own homes has gone way up or way down."
I am still unclear.

For example, the question asks: the proportion of minorities Among families that own their own home.
dosent this mean :
Minorities / Total Families that own their own home

so if in 1978 there were 1000 families that owned homes, 448 families were minorities who owned homes and obviously the other 552 were non-minorities who owned homes (correct?). 55.2% were non minorities who owned their own home.

And if in 2003 there were 10,000 families that owned homes, 4460 families were minorities that owned homes and obviously the remainder were non-minorities that owned homes. (correct?) 55.4% were non minorities who owned thier own home.

The point I am trying to make is choice D gives you no new info you didn't already know.

why is D relevant in evaluating the argument, since the above percentages for non-minority who owned their homes will always stay constant IF the number of minorities who owned their home stays constant. (% must equal 100!)

I dont understand the comment "What if the percentage of non-minority working families that own homes has gone way up or way down." I dont think it is possible as the total must equal 100% and the argument states non-minorities home owners % stayed constant.

Please let me know what i am missing..

The key to this problem is to remember that the conclusion is that the proportion of minorities among families that own their own homes has not changed.

So we are considering:
(minority families that own their own homes)/(total families that own their own homes)

the denominator consists of:
non minority families that own their own homes + minority families that own their own homes

The stimulus only discusses the percentage of minority families that own their own homes. Basically this:
(minority families that own homes)/(total minority families)

The conclusion would be true if, comparatively,

(non minority families that own homes)/(total non minority families) stayed the same between 1978 and 2003. If it went down, then the proportion of minorities among families that own their own homes would have increased. If it went up, then the proportion of minorities among families that own their own homes would have decreased.

-- Veritas Help