America is a country that now sits atop the cherished myth
that work provides rewards, that 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)that 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 Lyndon 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, overwhelmed by credit-card debt, a
second mortgage and the cost of the stuff that has become the backbone of
American life. When the middle class feels poor, the poor have little chance for
change, or even recognition. We learn from the passage that the difference in pay between the lowest paid and the average worker in America is ______ than that in other industrialized countries.