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       2020考研英语同源外刊精选文章，其目的是为提升2020考研学子们的阅读能力而总结的资料。以下是北京文都考研网挑出的考研英语同源外刊8月:经济的问题并非工资上涨，供考生参考。

2020考研英语同源外刊8月:经济的问题并非工资上涨

In recent weeks media outlets in the US have been fretting over what would ordinarily be considered good news - the roaring American economy, which has brought low unemployment and, in some places, a labour shortage. Owners and managers have complained about their problems in finding people to fill low-wage positions. “Nobody wants to do manual labour any more,” as one trade association grandee said, and so the manual labour simply goes undone.

近几周，美国媒体一直在为一件通常被看作的事情忧心忡忡——美国经济的迅猛发展，它带来了低失业率，(但)在一些地方，却造成了劳动力短缺。雇主和管理人员已经在抱怨找不到人填补低薪职位空缺。正如一位贸易协会要人所言“再也没有人愿意从事体力劳动了”，体力劳动就这样被搁置。

Company bosses talk about the things they have done to fix the situation: the ads they’ve published; the guest-worker visas for which they’ve applied; how they are going into schools to encourage kids to learn construction skills or to drive trucks.But nothing seems to work. Blame for the labour shortage is sprayed all over the US map: opioids are said to be the problem. And welfare, and inadequate parking spaces, and a falling birthrate, and mass incarceration, and–above all - the Trump administration’s immigration policies. But no one really knows for sure.

公司老板们谈起他们为解决问题所做的事情：发广告;申请外籍劳工签证;去学校里鼓励孩子们学习建筑和驾驶卡车的技能。但似乎都没有什么效果。对劳动力短缺的不满遍及美国各地：类鸦片药物被认为是问题所在。此外还有福利、停车位不足、出生率下降、大规模监禁等问题，以及最重要的——特朗普政府的移民政策。但没有人真正知道确切答案。

The textbook solution to the labour shortage problem - paying workers more - rarely merits more than a line or two, if it’s mentioned at all. So unwilling are business leaders to talk about or consider this obvious answer that Neel Kashkari, the president of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank, scolded them last year: “If you’re not raising wages, then it just sounds like whining.”

而解决劳动力短缺问题的教科书式方案——支付工人更多工资，即使被提到也只是一两句话带过。商界领袖们是如此不愿谈论或考虑这个显而易见的答案，去年明尼阿波利斯联邦储备银行行长尼尔·卡什卡里斥责他们：“如果你们不工资，那听起来就是在无病呻吟。”

If you study the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ numbers on wages for nonsupervisory workers over the past few decades, you will notice that wage growth has been strangely slow to pick up. Hot economies usually drive wages up pretty promptly; this recovery has been running since 2009 and it has barely moved the needle.

如果你研究一下劳工统计局过去几十年来关于非监管人员工资的数据，你会发现工资的增长速度出奇地缓慢。良好的经济形势通常会很快推动工资上涨;而这次的经济复苏从2009年就开始了，但指针却几乎没有移动过。

How could such a thing happen in this modern and enlightened age? Well, for starters, think of all that whining we’re hearing from the US’s management, who will apparently blame anyone and do anything to avoid paying workers more. Every labour-management innovation seems to have been designed with this amazing goal in mind. Every great bipartisan political initiative, from free trade to welfare reform, points the same way.

为什么在这样一个现代、文明的时代会发生这样的事情呢?那么，首先来想想我们从美国管理层那里听到的所有抱怨吧，他们显然会把问题归咎于别人，并竭尽所能避免给工人更多的报酬。每一次的劳动管理革新似乎都是带着这样一个惊人的目标而设计的。从自由贸易到福利改革，每一次重大的两党政治提案都指向同一个方向。

According to Josh Bivens, of Washington’s Economic Policy Institute, you can trace the slow decline of US workers’ bargaining power in the historical statistics. As the years go by, it requires ever lower levels of unemployment to ignite the wage growth that was once the hallmark of good times. “The decades-long campaign by employers to kick away any sources of economic leverage enjoyed by typical workers seems to have worked,” he says. “These workers now get real wage increases only during white-hot labour markets.”

据华盛顿经济政策研究所的乔什·比文斯称，从历史数据中可以看出美国工人议价能力的缓慢下降。随着时间的流逝，曾经是经济繁荣时期标志的工资增长需要比以往更低的失业率来刺激。“雇主们为了消除普通工人享有的经济杠杆来源而发起了长达数十年的运动，现在它似乎已经奏效了，”乔什·比文斯说。“这些工人现在只有在白热化的劳动力市场中才能获得真正的工资增长。”

This is the central story of the last four decades, the vast social engineering project to which all our recent presidents and both parties have contributed. But there’s a bright side: if the US economy continues to roar as it has been doing, there is no question that wages will eventually go up.

这是过去四十年所发生的核心情节，我们近期的每一位总统以及两个政党都为这个庞大的社会工程项目作出了贡献。但也有好的一面：如果美国经济继续以现有的速度发展，最终工资一定会上涨。

 

【重点词汇】

1. media outlet媒体机构

2. fret over为…烦恼

3. roaring /'rɔːrɪŋ/ adj. 兴胜的

4. manual labour体力劳动

5. grandee /græn'diː/ n. 要人，显贵

6. undone /ʌn'dʌn/ adj. 未完成的

7. guest worker 外籍劳工

8. spray /spreɪ/ v. 散发，散布

9. opioid /'əʊpɪɒɪd/ n. 类鸦片

10. mass incarceration大规模监禁

11. merit /'merɪt/ v. 值得，应受

12. scold /skəʊld/ v. 责骂，叱责

13. whine /waɪn/ v. 发牢骚，哭诉

14. nonsupervisory /nɒn'sju:pə'vaɪzərɪ/ adj. 非监管的

15. pick up 增加

16. promptly /'prɒm(p)tlɪ/ adv. 迅速地

17. enlightened /ɪn'laɪt(ə)nd/ adj. 文明的，进步的

18. bipartisan /,baɪpɑːtɪ'zæn/ adj. 两党的

19. bargaining power议价能力

       考研英语想要阅读提升快，不仅需要看考研英语同源外刊，还需单词和语法有一定的持续温习。上述是给出的“2020考研英语同源外刊8月:经济的问题并非工资上涨”，希望对2020考研者，在复习英语科目上有所帮助!

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