先放文章：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 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 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.
自己错在第7、8题
7. According to the passage, one factor that causes unemployment and earnings figures to overpredict the amount of economic hardship is the
(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 record-keeping that makes it possible to compile poverty statistics（E）
(E) prevalence, among low-wage workers and the unemployed, of members of families in which others are employed
OA: E E这个句子没怎么读懂
8. The conclusion stated in lines 33-39 about the number of people who suffer as a result of forced idleness depends primarily on the point that
(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（D）
(E) many of those who are affected by unemployment are dependents of unemployed workers
OA 自己选的C 没明白C为什么错了 ==+
有NN 愿意解答下么。。。。。作者: liulu007 时间: 2012-4-7 06:28
7：E选项是说在这些低收入或失业人群中，有很多来自这样的家庭；这些家庭中的其他成员都是正上着班挣着钱的。所以这些失业工人有家里人养活，过得并不穷。应该是改写的原文这句：Among the millions with hourly earnings at or below the minimum wage level, the overwhelming majority are from multiple-earner, relatively affluent families
8：我也选错了。。我没选C是因为我觉得这句话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说的是有part-time工作的和想找工作的非labor force类人群已经列入月度失业人数统计口径里了，而我们需要说明的是年平均失业人数比forced idle的人数低，所以不能选这个吧，而且也没看到哪里提到 those not actively seeking work
这类人。我感觉这一部分都是在强调月度、年度这种平均统计口径低估了在某些时刻或某一类别的实际失业人数。。。还是没太想明白，望大家解答阿~~~作者: coloryao 时间: 2012-4-9 06:34
8.先定位关键词forced idleness，在原文找到这句话：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. 这句话的意思是因为一年中经历失业的人数是任何一个月失业人数的好几倍，所以那些被迫懒散而失业的人大于等于年平均失业人数，而这其中很少人是每个月都失业的（even though only a minority of the jobless in any month really suffer），所以第八题选了D
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自己选的C 没明白C为什么错了 ==+