working people can support their families. It’s a myth that has become so divorc

游客2023-09-16  26

问题 working people can support their families. It’s a myth that has become so divorced from reality that it might as well begin with the words "Once upon a time." Today 1.6 million New Yorkers suffer from "food insecurity," which is a fancy way of saying they don’t have enough to eat. Some are the people who come in at night and clean the skyscrapers that glitter along the river. Some pour coffee and take care of the aged parents of the people who live in those buildings. The American Dream for the well-to-do grows from the bowed backs of the working poor, who too often have to choose between groceries and rent.
    In a new book called "The Betrayal of Work", Beth Shulman says that even in the booming 1990s one out of every four American workers made less than $8.70 an hour, an income equal to the government’s poverty level for a family of four. Many, if not most, of these workers had no health care, sick pay or retirement provisions.
    We ease our consciences, Shulman writes, by describing these people as "low skilled," as though they’re not important or intelligent enough to deserve more. But low-skilled workers today are better educated than ever before, and they constitute the linchpin(关键)of American industry. When politicians crow(得意洋洋地说) happy days are here again because jobs are on the rise, it’s these jobs they’re really talking about. Five of the 10 occupations expected to grow big in the next decade are in the lowest-paying job groups. And before we sit back and decide that’s just the way it is, it’s instructive to consider the rest of the world. While the bottom 10 percent of American workers earn just 37 percent of our average wage, their counterparts in other industrialized countries earn upwards of 60 percent. And those are countries that provide health care and child care, which eases the economic pinch considerably.
    Almost 40 years ago, when Lyndo Johnson declared war on poverty, a family with a car and a house in the Suburbs felt prosperous. Today that same family may well feel poor, become the backbone of American life. When the middle class feel poor, the poor have little chance for change, or even recognition.

选项

答案 divorced from reality/unrealistic

解析 文章第一句提到美国人一直怀有这样一种想法:工作可以提供报酬并足以养活全家。紧接着作者则提到 It’s a myth that has become so divorced from reality that it might as well begin with the words" Once upon a time"。这表明作者认为这种想法是脱离现实的(divorced from reality),即使是放在过去(begin with the words “Once upon a time”)也是一样,更进一步说明了作者认为the American myth是divorced from reality或 unrealistic的观点。
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