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http://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/07/29/opinion/sunday/whycant-we-end-poverty-in-america.html
RONALD REAGAN famously said,“We fought a war on poverty and poverty won.”With 46 million Americans—15 percent of the population—now counted as poor, it's tempting to think he may have been right.
Look a little deeper and the temptation grows. The lowest percentage in poverty since we started counting was 11.1 percent in 1973. The rate climbed as high as 15.2 percent in 1983. In 2000, after a spurt of prosperity, it went back down to 11.3 percent, and yet 15 million more people are poor today.
At the same time, we have done a lot that works. From Social Security to food stamps to the earned-income tax credit and on and on, we have enacted programs that now keep 40 million people out of poverty. Poverty would be nearly double what it is now without these measures, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. To say that“poverty won”is like saying the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts failed because there is still pollution.
With all of that, why have we not achieved more? Four reasons: An astonishing number of people work at low-wage jobs. Plus, many more households are headed now by a single parent, making it difficult for them to earn a living income from the jobs that are typically available. The near disappearance of cash assistance for low-income mothers and children—i. e., welfare—in much of the country plays a contributing role, too. And persistent issues of race and gender mean higher poverty among minorities and families headed by single mothers.
The first thing needed if we're to get people out of poverty is more jobs that pay decent wages. There aren't enough of these in our current economy. The need for good jobs extends far beyond the current crisis; we'll need a full-employment policy and a bigger investment in 21st-century education and skill development strategies if we're to have any hope of breaking out of the current economic malaise.
A surefire politics of change would necessarily involve getting people in the middle—from the 30th to the 70th percentile—to see their own economic self-interest. If they vote in their own self-interest, they'll elect people who are likely to be more aligned with people with lower incomes as well as with them. As long as people in the middle identify more with people on the top than with those on the bottom, we are doomed. The obscene amount of money flowing into the electoral process makes things harder yet.
But history shows that people power wins sometimes. That's what happened in the Progressive Era a century ago and in the Great Depression as well. The gross inequality of those times produced an amalgam of popular unrest, organization, muckraking journalism and political leadership that attacked the big—and worsening—structural problem of economic inequality. The civil rights movement changed the course of history and spread into the women's movement, the environmental movement and, later, the gay rights movement. Could we have said on the day before the dawn of each that it would happen, let alone succeed? Did Rosa Parks know?
We have the ingredients. For one thing, the demographics of the electorate are changing. The consequences of that are hardly automatic, but they create an opportunity. The new generation of young people—unusually distrustful of encrusted power in all institutions and, as a consequence, tending toward libertarianism—is ripe for a new politics of honesty. Lower-income people will participate if there are candidates who speak to their situations. The change has to come from the bottom up and from synergistic leadership that draws it out. When people decide they have had enough and there are candidates who stand for what they want, they will vote accordingly.
I have seen days of promise and days of darkness, and I've seen them more than once. All history is like that. The people have the power if they will use it, but they have to see that it is in their interest to do so.
续表
1. What programs can we enact in poverty now?
2. What causes the inefficiency in poverty-reducing?
3. What is the first step for poverty-elimination?
4. According to the passage, what can create more job opportunities?
5. What are the changes in terms of the demographics of voters?
1. 自本文统计开始，贫困率最低的百分比是1973年的11.1%。这个比率在1983年攀升高达15.2%。
2. 从社会保障法、食物券到劳动收入所得税抵免，我们已经继续不停地颁发了各种社会项目，让四千万人脱离了贫困。
3. 无法解决的种族和性别问题意味着少数民族和单身母亲家庭更贫困。
4. 如果中层阶级的人总是只认同高层阶级的人，而不认同底层阶级的人的话，那我们注定是要失败的。
5. 民权运动改变了历史的进程，拓展成女权运动、环境保护运动以及后来的同性恋权利运动。
A. create an opportunity
B. keep…out of
C. on the bottom
D. speak to
E. draws…out
F. flowing into
G. let alone
H. pay…wages
I. have the power
J. aligned with
1. From Social Security to food stamps to the earned-income tax credit and on and on, we have enacted programs that now__________40 million people__________poverty.
2. The first thing needed if we're to get people out of poverty is more jobs that__________decent_________.
3. If they vote in their own self-interest, they'll elect people who are likely to be more__________people with lower incomes as well as with them.
4. As long as people in the middle identify more with people on the top than with those_________, we are doomed.
5. The obscene amount of money___________the electoral process makes things harder yet.
6. Could we have said on the day before the dawn of each that it would happen, __________succeed?
7. The change has to come from the bottom up and from synergistic leadership that__________it_________.
8. The consequences of that are hardly automatic, but they__________.
9. Lower-income people will participate if there are candidates who_________their situations.
10. The people__________. if they will use it, but they have to see that it is in their interest to do so.