六级考试阅读考前练习（2）

　　2 You Call This a Good Economy

　　这能称之为上佳经验

　　1 You have to have lived in the 1950s and 1960s to have experienced a good economy. In the period between 1950 and 1970 it was the rule rather than the exception that an ordinary family, without higher education, could sustain itself decently on the income of a single breadwinner(养家糊口的人). In 1955, when I was 19 and living in Brooklyn, N. Y., my father, who had a sixth-grade education, maintained our family of five on a wage of $82 a week as a bookbinder. My mother taught us fairness and compassion; my father, discipline and enterprise.

　　2 The U. S. economy in those years was good. Then where did this good economy go? It was inflated away. The price of gold, which I take as proxy for the prices of all goods, was $35 an ounce in those years. It is at roughly ten times that price today.

　　3 There is another answer, though: inflation caused the entire work force to be moved into higher tax groups, thus reducing after-tax purchasing power. That is, my father s bindery job in1954 paid $82 a week, with $80 after deductions; today, at $ 820 per week the net would be $662.

　　4 To ordinary people, the economy doesn t look very good at all. After-tax incomes continue to decrease in purchasing power. The jobs offered in the employment ads pay only a little more than the minimum wage, maybe $5 an hour, which, after payroll deductions, yields $4 an hour. Compare that with minimum-wage jobs of the early 1950s, when 75 cents was worth today s $7.50 before and after taxes.

　　Notes

　　1 Brooklyn: a district of New York city

　　2 inflate:通货膨胀

　　3 proxy: the authority to act for another

　　4 payroll: a list of employees and the wages due to each