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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 social statistics exaggerate the degree of hardship. Unemployment does not have the same dire consequences today as it did in the 1930s 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 affluence, 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 mitigated 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 overwhelming 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 remain 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 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 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 their primary applications, measuring the consequences of labor market problems.
The author states that the mitigating effect of social programs involving income transfers on the income level of low-income people is often not felt by______.
选项 A、the employed poor
B、dependent children in single-earner families
C、workers who become disabled
D、retired workers
答案A
解析 本题是推理题。从关键词income transfer可找到第二段的对应句“Finally，income transfers in our country have always focused on the elderly，disabled，…that those failing in the labor market are adequately protected．”，我国的收入转移总是集中在老年人、残疾人或者无业的人身上，却忽略了那些有工作的贫困者的需要。因此，现金和实物转移的急剧增加未必意味着在劳务市场上失败的人能够得到充分的保护。此句包含了B、C、D三项所提到的群体，唯独A没有提及，因此是正确选项。
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