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  3. America has long been resistant to adequate poverty policies because of its strong strain of thinking that the poor are responsi

America has long been resistant to adequate poverty policies because of its strong strain of thinking that the poor are responsi

admin2022-11-16  92
问题     America has long been resistant to adequate poverty policies because of its strong strain of thinking that the poor are responsible for their own situations, no matter their suffering, but child poverty is too harmful to ignore. A growing number of academics believe there is a solution: the government should give monthly cash allowances, without conditions, to every family with kids.
    Today the official poverty line for a family of four in the U.S. is about $26,200, but a 2013 Gallup survey found that people think a family of four must earn $58,000 on average just to get by. In fact, the ideal definition of a useful poverty measure would be this: the level below which we know that short-and long-term damage is being done to children.
    A mountain of evidence now shows that poverty can lead to cognitive and emotional damage in children. Despite policies that have expanded access to insurance, poor kids are still less healthy than the rest of the young population. They also drop out of school at higher rates, earn less money over time and are jailed far more often than their better-off peers. That should be enough for us to recognize that child poverty is actually a moral tragedy. When Michael Harrington’s classic book, The Other America, called attention to America’s general poverty rate of about 25％ in 1962, Washington developed social programs that brought the rate down sharply, but they are not enough: 1 in 3 children does not receive the full benefits of these programs.
    Poor children have many needs, but research shows that money may matter most. Researchers found that poorer children have worse cognitive, social-behaviour and health outcomes which is seldom correlated with other household and parental characteristics. A family with two children receiving $300 to $400 a month per child could improve their standard of living immediately. It can also help reduce family stress and help parents provide a psychologically nourishing environment in which learning and social development can germinate. Yet both the left and the right dismiss direct cash aid as a waste and an inducement to laziness and abuse, which is just as the historian Michael Katz correctly notes, "One of the odd aspects of the history of writing about poverty is the avoidance of the simple view that people are poor because they lack money."
    Maybe it is time to implement some practical and efficient policy for a nation too willing to neglect its poor.
The official poverty line________.
选项 A、used to be set by the family income
B、has taken damages to children into account
C、has satisfied a family’s basic need
D、should prevent children from harm
答案D
解析 根据关键词official poverty。line定位至第二段首句：如今，美国官方公布的四口之家的贫困线是26200美元左右，但2013年盖洛普的一项调查发现，人们认为四口之家平均年收入必须达到58000美元才能勉强度日。接着，作者说明对于一个切实有用的贫困衡量标准的理想定义应该是这样的：低于这个标准，我们就知道正在给儿童造成短期和长期损害(…short-and long-term damage is being done to children)。由此可知，官方的贫困标准应该是把贫困儿童可能受到的伤害也考虑在内。选项D是对本段第二句的转述，其中harm是文中short-and long-term damage(短期和长期的伤害)的同义替换，故为正确答案。原文中只提及现在的贫困线按家庭收入划分，未提及过去的情况，故排除选项A。选项B“已把对孩子的伤害考虑在内”与原文不符。选项C“贫困线已满足一个家庭的基本需要”，与原文中的举例信息(贫困线为26200美元，但平均年收入必须达到58000美元才能勉强度日)不符。
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