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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.
The conclusion stated in lines 43 — 51 about the number of people who suffer as a result of forced idleness depends primarily on the point that
选项 A、in times of high unemployment, there are some people who do not remain unemployed for long.
B、the capacity for self-support depends on receiving moderate-to-high wages.
C、those in forced idleness include, besides the unemployed, both underemployed part-time workers and those not actively seeking work.
D、at different times during the year, different people are unemployed.
E、many of those who are affected by unemployment are dependents of unemployed workers.
答案D
解析 L43—51的结论中，关于受失业影响而受苦的人数的估计，主要建立在哪一个设想上?assumption类型的逻辑题。见前难点解释。作者的推理过程：由于有部分时段失业的人存在，因此全年困苦的人和全年失业平均人数相比有可能还要多。但这其中作者假设了各个时段的失业人数彼此不相重叠，否则部分时段失业者总数将大为下降，相应一年之内因失业而困苦的人也就可能会比年失业平均人数少。∴作者所设想是D，一年不同时期，总是不同人失业。A、B、C、E不涉及推理过程。无。
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