Howmanyreallysufferasaresultoflabormarketproblems?Th...

问题详情：

    How many really suffer as a result of labor market problems? This is one of the most critical yet debatable social policy questions.

    In many ways, our social statistics exaggerate the degree of hardship. Unemployment does not have the same horrible consequences today as it did in the 1930's when most of the unemployed were primary breadwinners, when income and earnings were usually much closer to the margin of survival, and when there were fewer effective social programs for those failing in the labor market. Increasing wealth, the rise of families with more than one wage earner, the growing dominance of secondary earners Among the unemployed and improved social welfare protection have unquestionably relieved the consequences of joblessness. Earnings and income data also overestimate the scale of hardship. Among the millions with hourly earnings at or below the minimum wage level, the majority are from multiple-earner, relatively well-off families. Most of those counted by the poverty statistics are elderly or handicapped or have family responsibilities which keep them out of the labor force, so the poverty statistics are by no means an accurate indicator of labor market pathologies.

Yet there are also many ways our social statistics underestimate the degree of labor-market- related hardship. The unemployment counts exclude the millions of fully employed workers whose wages are so low that their families remain in poverty. Low wages and repeated or long-time unemployment frequently interact to weaken the capacity for self-support. Since the number experiencing joblessness at some time during the year is several times that unemployed in any month, those who suffer as a result of forced idleness can equal or exceed average annual unemployment, even though only a minority of the jobless in any month really suffer. For every person counted in the monthly unemployment totals, there is another working part-time because of the inability to find full-time work, or else outside the labor force but wanting a job. Finally, income transfers in our country have always focused on the elderly, disabled, and dependent, neglecting the needs of the working poor, so that the dramatic expansion of cash and non-cash transfers does not necessarily mean that those failing in the labor market are adequately protected.

As a result of such contradictory evidence, it is uncertain whether those suffering seriously as a result of labor market problems number in the hundreds of thousands or the tens of millions, and, hence, whether high levels of joblessness can be tolerated or must be countered(抵消) by job creation and economic stimulus. There is only one area of agreement in this debate--that the existing poverty, employment, and earnings statistics are inadequate for one of their primary applications, measuring the consequences of labor market problems.

58. In Paragraph 2, the author contrasts the 1930’s with the present in order to show that _________.

   A. more people were unemployed in the 1930’s

   B. unemployment is more intolerable today

   C. social programs are more in need now

   D. income level has increased since the 1930’s

59. Which of the following is true according to the passage?

   A. A majority of low-wage workers receive earnings from more than one job

   B. Repetition of short-term unemployment mainly contributes to people’s loss of working capacity

   C. Many unemployed people are from families where other members are working

   D. Labor market hardship is understated because fewer individuals are jobless than counted

60. It can be inferred from the passage that the effect of income transfers is often not felt by __________.

   A. those doing a low-paid, part-time job

   B. children in single-earner families

   C. workers who have just retired

   D. full-time workers who become unemployed

61. Which of the following is the principal topic of the passage?

   A. What causes labor market problems that result in suffering

   B. Why income statistics are imprecise in measuring degrees of poverty

   C. When poverty, employment, and earnings figures agree with each other.

   D. How statistics give an unclear picture of the labor-market-related suffering

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DCAC

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