英语沙龙：Salaries

Salaries

Economists¹ and experts on wages have long tried to discover

what factors were influencing people’s salaries.

Most of the factors they listed one or two centuries ago

are still important today.

One of those is education: college graduates have earned

and are still earning more than workers

who have only finished high school,

and high-school graduates earn more than workers

who didn’t complete their studies there.

The difficulty and length of preparation for a profession

also plays a part in the size of the salary.

Danger and responsibility make a difference too —

the man or woman in charge of a project,

the person performing a difficult or dangerous task,

the airplane pilot responsible for many human lives,

usually get a proper compensation for their pains.

And yet there are exceptions to those rules.

Due to the needs of modern industry,

technicians with no college education are now commanding high salaries,

much closer to the college graduates'salaries

than they used to be in the past.

And there are many jobs in which danger

doesn’t bring much compensation.

Why doesn’t a fireman earn more than a postal² clerk, for example?

And what about the policeman and the coal miner,

who risk their lives for a modest salary?

The answer is simple.

Actually, salaries are governed by a combination of factors,

the most important being one known as the law of supply and demand,

which says that the value of goods and services

is determined³ by the quantity available

compared with the number of possible buyers.

If there are more chickens on the market than people wishing to buy them,

the price of poultry⁴ goes down.

If the number of specialized⁵ engineers

is much larger than the number of positions open to them,

the salaries drop even for the most impressive applicants⁶.

1 economists   

n.经济学家，经济专家( economist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The sudden rise in share prices has confounded economists. 股价的突然上涨使经济学家大惑不解。
• Foreign bankers and economists cautiously welcomed the minister's initiative. 外国银行家和经济学家对部长的倡议反应谨慎。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 postal   

adj.邮政的，邮局的

参考例句：

• A postal network now covers the whole country.邮路遍及全国。
• Remember to use postal code.勿忘使用邮政编码。

3 determined   

adj.坚定的；有决心的

参考例句：

• I have determined on going to Tibet after graduation.我已决定毕业后去西藏。
• He determined to view the rooms behind the office.他决定查看一下办公室后面的房间。

4 poultry   

n.家禽，禽肉

参考例句：

• There is not much poultry in the shops. 商店里禽肉不太多。
• What do you feed the poultry on? 你们用什么饲料喂养家禽?

5 specialized   

adj.专门的，专业化的

参考例句：

• There are many specialized agencies in the United Nations.联合国有许多专门机构。
• These tools are very specialized.这些是专用工具。

6 applicants   

申请人，求职人( applicant的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• There were over 500 applicants for the job. 有500多人申请这份工作。
• He was impressed by the high calibre of applicants for the job. 求职人员出色的能力给他留下了深刻印象。