Практикум по культуре речевого общения (английский язык как второй иностранный) Учебное пособие
Ex. 3. Imagine, your friend doesn’t know the notions given below. Explain them in your own words
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- Ex. 4. Read and translate the text. SOCIAL SECURITY AND POVERTY
| Ex. 3. Imagine, your friend doesn’t know the notions given below. Explain them in your own words:
быть неплатежеспособным; кормилец; дедовщина в армии; бюджетник; биржа труда; неблагополучный район; социальные льготы; дом престарелых; «чернобыльцы»; малоимущие; репрессированные; отсрочка от армии; декретный отпуск; работа на полставки; сдельная оплата труда; стаж. Ex. 4. Read and translate the text. SOCIAL SECURITY AND POVERTY Governmental provision for social security was slow to develop in the United States, though there are now some elements of a comprehensive system, with some serious gaps, as well as variations between the states. Traditionally society preferred private action, with individuals making prudent provision for their own needs, and with the more fortunate helping others. When it became obvious that private measures needed to be supplemented by governmental action, federal, state and local governments were involved, so the quality of welfare services varies from place to place. For both old age and illness, provision is now partly private, partly public. Most Americans when at work make some provision for their retirement, through savings, investment and insurance policies, company or union pension funds. Federal government social security provides pensions for retired people, and also unemployment benefit for six months, based on compulsory contributions by people at work. The rate of the pension gives an income above the official poverty line, and sufficient for minimal comfort, but about a quarter of median earnings from employment. It is not related to a person's income from private pensions or other sources. Social security also provides benefits for people who are handicapped, and for victims of industrial accidents or of illnesses caused by working conditions. But if a person is incapacitated through the error of another person or corporation, as defined by a court of law, the damages awarded may be very high. Such awards of damages, mostly arising from transport accidents, mean that the victims do not need to ask for social security benefits. Unemployment benefits, payable for six months, are small in relation to average earnings, and there is little security against sudden loss of work. In 1981 — 6 about ten million people lost their jobs as a result of plant closures or other reductions in the numbers employed, and moat of these were dismissed without warning or real compensation. One in three of these people still had no jobs in 1987, and many of the others had found new jobs only by accepting lower wages than before. Some had to move their homes. Nearly half of the ten million had held their jobs for three years or more. In California some of these claimed compensation in the courts for wrongful dismissal, and those who were successful were awarded sums as great as half a million dollars. But these were very few in comparison with the majority throughout the nation who received only a few weeks' Several types of federal and state payments are made to people who, without such payments, would not have the means to live according to a minimum level considered appropriate to American conditions. Every year the Federal Social Security Administration recalculates the level of income below which a household is classed as 'poor', depending on the number of people in the household. Their poverty-line income, equal in principle to three times the cost of a nutritionally adequate diet, is used as a guide for determining eligibility for receipt of benefits. In the mid-1980s it was around $5,000 for a single-person household, rising to $ 15,000 for a household of six people. Over the past twenty years about one-seventh of all Americans have been below the poverty-line on the basis of this calculation. The numbers fell in the 1970s and since then have fluctuated «little, but not very much, and each year some households rise above the line while some fall below it. In general about one in ten of all white people and one in three of all black people are below this line. The biggest single programme giving help to these people is Aid to Families with Dependent Children (A.F.D.C.). The United States has no automatic child allowance (except for income-tax reductions). Governmental payments for children ere made only on the basis of proved need and the poverty line is used as a guide. Some states supplement the federal funds. In recent years about four million families have received A.F.D.C. payments, at an average rate approaching 54,000 a year but with enormous variations between the states. In general the southern states have paid at lower rates than the others. The annual cost has been around thirteen billion dollars, rising a little faster than inflation. The largest element among recipients has been single parent families, mainly mothers who ate divorced, unmarried or (more rarely) widows. As there are ten million women living alone and looking after children, and as half of this year's marriages are likely to end in divorce (if present trends continue), the number of A.F.D.C. families is smaller than might have been expected. The figures suggest that many single mothers manage without resort to welfare funds. In some areas they are helped to go out to work, with local provision for looking after small children, and many of them earn enough to support their families. Some children for whom grants are paid, and some of the much larger numbers (over twenty million) who get free school lunch, are in families with incomes above the official poverty line. When the first nationwide survey of nutrition was undertaken in the 1960s, it produced an estimate that about one-twentieth of a! Americans could not afford to buy the food they needed. A programme of food subsidies was developed, based on food stamps which people who proved their need could use to get food at about one-third of its normal price. In 1970 — 80 the number of people making use of this programme rose from six to over twenty million. Since then the numbers have fallen slightly, but the cost to the federal government has remained at a little over ten billion dollars a year. In a country which produces more food than it can use or usefully export, a programme of this kind seems reasonable, but it is time-consuming to administer. Apart from food stamps and some subsidised public housing, people who are unemployed for long periods and do not qualify for family assistance get little or no help from the government. жүктеу/скачать 0,99 Mb. Достарыңызбен бөлісу:
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