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

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

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问题     How many really suffer as a result of labor market problems? This is one of the most critical yet contentious social policy questions. In many ways,our so- cial statistics exaggerate the degree of hardship. Unemployment does not have the same dire 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 subsistence, and when there were no countervailing social programs for those failing in the labor market. Increasing afflu- ence, the rise of families with more than one wage earner, the growing predominance of secondary earners among the unemployed, and improved social welfare protection have unquestionably mit- igated the consequences of joblessness. Earnings and income data also overstate the dimensions of hardship. Among the millions with hourly earnings at or below the minimum wage level, the over- whelming majority are from multiple-earner, relatively affluent 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 re- main in poverty. Low wages and repeated or prolonged unemployment frequently interact to undermine the capacity for self-support. Since the number experiencing joblessness at some time during the year is several times the number 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 tallies, 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 in-kind 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 thousands or the tens of millions, and, hence, whether high levels of joblessness can be tolerated or must be coun- tered 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.
According to the passage, one factor that causes unemployment and earnings figures to over-predict the amount of economic hardship is the
选项 A、recurrence of periods of unemployment for a group of low-wage workers.
B、possibility that earnings may be received from more than one job per worker.
C、fact that unemployment counts do not include those who work for low wages and remain poor.
D、establishment of a system of recordkeeping that makes it possible to compile poverty statistics.
E、prevalence, among low-wage workers and the unemployed, of members of families in which others are employed.
答案E
解析 失业和收人数字过高估计了经济困难的一个原因是：A．低收人工人经常性失业。这会引起低估，而不是高估。B．有可能一个工人会有一份以上工资。原文L16—18仅提到失业工人有额外收入，未提到一个工人会有几份工资，注意区别。C．失业统计没包括那些低收入的有工作的人。第二段内容，低估的原因。D．此选项所说在原文根本未提。E．大部分低收入者和失业者的家庭中有其他有工作的人。正确。原文L24—26的叙述。
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