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  3. America has long been resistant to adequate poverty policies because of its strong strain of thinking that the poor are responsi

America has long been resistant to adequate poverty policies because of its strong strain of thinking that the poor are responsi

admin2022-11-16  151
问题     America has long been resistant to adequate poverty policies because of its strong strain of thinking that the poor are responsible for their own situations, no matter their suffering, but child poverty is too harmful to ignore. A growing number of academics believe there is a solution: the government should give monthly cash allowances, without conditions, to every family with kids.
    Today the official poverty line for a family of four in the U.S. is about $26,200, but a 2013 Gallup survey found that people think a family of four must earn $58,000 on average just to get by. In fact, the ideal definition of a useful poverty measure would be this: the level below which we know that short-and long-term damage is being done to children.
    A mountain of evidence now shows that poverty can lead to cognitive and emotional damage in children. Despite policies that have expanded access to insurance, poor kids are still less healthy than the rest of the young population. They also drop out of school at higher rates, earn less money over time and are jailed far more often than their better-off peers. That should be enough for us to recognize that child poverty is actually a moral tragedy. When Michael Harrington’s classic book, The Other America, called attention to America’s general poverty rate of about 25％ in 1962, Washington developed social programs that brought the rate down sharply, but they are not enough: 1 in 3 children does not receive the full benefits of these programs.
    Poor children have many needs, but research shows that money may matter most. Researchers found that poorer children have worse cognitive, social-behaviour and health outcomes which is seldom correlated with other household and parental characteristics. A family with two children receiving $300 to $400 a month per child could improve their standard of living immediately. It can also help reduce family stress and help parents provide a psychologically nourishing environment in which learning and social development can germinate. Yet both the left and the right dismiss direct cash aid as a waste and an inducement to laziness and abuse, which is just as the historian Michael Katz correctly notes, "One of the odd aspects of the history of writing about poverty is the avoidance of the simple view that people are poor because they lack money."
    Maybe it is time to implement some practical and efficient policy for a nation too willing to neglect its poor.
Children growing up in poverty may________.
选项 A、gain no access to unemployment insurance
B、face more challenges than their better-off peers
C、have difficulty in making quick and big money
D、fall behind their peers in education and income
答案D
解析 根据题干信息定位至第三段。本段首句“大量证据表明，贫困会给儿童带来认知和情感方面的伤害(…lead to cognitive and emotional damage in children)”，但选项中并没有“认知和情感伤害”的对应信息，故需要在原文继续寻找信息。第二句和第三句同绕首句展开：尽管各种政策拓宽了获得保险的途径，但贫困儿童的健康状况仍然不如其他普通家庭的孩童。他们的辍学率也更高(drop out of school at higher rates)，随着时间的推移，他们赚的钱更少，入狱的次数也远多于富裕的同龄人(earn less money over time and are jailed far more often than their better-off peers)。由此可知，选项D为正确答案，选项中income是原文中less money的同义替换词，education是原文中drop out of school at higher rates的同义替换。选项A“没有途径获得失业保险”与原文中policies that have expanded access to insurance(各种政策拓宽了获得保险的途径)不符，同时原文中并未提及unemployment，故排除。选项B“与富裕的同龄人相比面临更多的挑战”太过宽泛，而且原文强调的是受到的伤害，而不是面临的挑战，故排除。选项C“他们在快速赚大钱方面有困难”原文中并未提及，可排除。
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