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  3. (1)Americans may have been distracted by two reports reminding them of a widening gap between the rich and poor. (2)The Cent

(1)Americans may have been distracted by two reports reminding them of a widening gap between the rich and poor. (2)The Cent

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问题     (1)Americans may have been distracted by two reports reminding them of a widening gap between the rich and poor.
    (2)The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the Economic Policy Institute, two liberal research groups, put out a state-by-state breakdown of Census Bureau data, which found nine states(led by New York)in which the richest 20 percent of households now earn at least 11 times the income of the poorest 20 percent. This indicated a much sharper disparity between the top and bottom than existed two decades ago.
    (3)Then the Federal Reserve Bank released its latest survey of consumer finances. It showed that the average net worth of families earning less than $10,000 a year had fallen by $6,600 over the past three years, while households earning more than $100,000 a year had seen their wealth jump by more than $300,000.
    (4)Our response is: So what?
    (5)Few of us should be surprised—or threatened—by statistics on inequality. Some Americans believe the more equality the better, but the fact is that the distribution of income and wealth isn’t arbitrary. It emerges from broad trends in the economy and is a byproduct of a decade that created 17 million jobs and added 20 percent to median household net worth.
    (6)The unstated implication of the state-by-state report was that the states where income disparities are lower are somehow "fairer" than the states with high disparities. But the truth is that among communities, states and regions, income and wealth will vary for many reasons, several of them unavoidable and laudable.
    (7)Consider, for example, that income varies with education. According to census data, high school dropouts in the work force earn an average of $26,207, while workers with a professional degree average $127,499. Census figures show that many of the states with the widest income gaps have greater diversity in education levels than states with smaller income gaps. Twenty-six percent of those over the age of 24 in New York—the state with the greatest income disparity—have at least a bachelor’s degree, whereas in Indiana, which was among the seven states with the lowest income disparity, only 16 percent do. Should we be lamenting that so many New Yorkers went to college?
    (8)Another non-nefarious cause of increasing income disparity may be our ever-higher immigration rates. Immigrants tend to cluster in low- and high-income groups. Thus it is no surprise that in the seven most unequal states—New York, Arizona, New Mexico, Louisiana, California, Rhode Island and Texas—about 13 percent of the population is foreign-born(in California, it’s 25 percent). Among the seven states with the smallest income disparities, the immigrant population is only 3.8 percent.
    (9)The shift away from manufacturing is also a factor. Service workers span the gamut from hotel maids to brain surgeons, while the pay range is generally narrower in the manufacturing sector. States that are industrial tend to have more equal distributions of income. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that about 10 percent of workers in Arizona, Louisiana and New York have manufacturing jobs, whereas in more equal states like Indiana and Wisconsin the figure is 23 percent.
    (10)Also, in the seven states with the greatest income inequality, more than 80 percent of the population lives in or near metropolitan areas. In states with the most equality, only about half does. If we were to turn back the clock 100 years and again become a largely rural nation, we might not see such large income disparities, but that’s because America’s cities are our engines of wealth and offer greater prospects for those who succeed.
    (11)Inequality is not inequity. Artificial efforts to try to curb wealth gaps invariably do more harm than good. Heavier taxation might narrow the division between rich and poor, but it would be a hollow triumph if it stifled the economy. What Americans ought to care most about is maintaining our growth, not the red herring of gaps in income and wealth.
Which of the following does NOT contribute to the higher income disparities?
选项 A、The varied education levels of workers.
B、The ever-higher immigration rates.
C、The shift away from manufacturing.
D、The level of industrialization of cities.
答案D
解析 第9段第2、3句提到，工业州的收入分配更趋于平均化，D与之不符，选D。第6段末句表明接下来要分析的是贫富差距的几个因素，而第7、8、9段首句就是这些因素，它们也是各自段落的概括句，A、B、C分别是对这3句的同义改写，符合文意，故均不能选。
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