VWCC Econ Ch 17-18

If an increase in the hourly wage rate from $5 to $6 causes a worker to work 5 hours rather than 4, the worker's elasticity of labor supply is equal to:

1.25

A labor supply elasticity of 1.4 means that a wage increase of:

10% will increase the quantity of labor supplied by 14%

The U.S. official poverty threshold is:

3 times the U.S. Department of Agriculture's minimum food budget

The U.S. income tax is a:

progressive tax

Other things held constant in a competitive labor market, if workers negotiate a contract in which the employer agrees to pay an hourly wage rate of $17.85 while the market equilibrium hourly wage rate is $16.50, the:

quantity of workers supplied will exceed the quantity of workers demanded

The current concern about the stability of Social Security is based primarily on projections that there will be many more retirees per worker when the baby boomers begin to retire. then, if we want to maintain a pay-as-you-go system, we can:

reduce benefits to compensate for the increase in the dependency ratio

All of the following are possible explanations for the fact that on average women earn lower waged than men in the U.S. except:

women are more productive than men on average

On the Lorenz curve, a perfectly equal distribution of income would be represented by:

a line with a slope of 1

How wages are determined is best described by:

economic factors, with strong influences by political and social forces

An important element that is excluded from U.S poverty figures is:

in-kind transfers such as food stamps and housing assistance

A reduction in the supply of labor will cause wages to:

increase

The demand for labor is a derived demand because:

the demand for labor comes from the demand for output

The elasticity of labor demand is higher when:

there are many substitutes for labor in the production process

For U.S workers in tradable sectors such as manufacturing, the effect of globalization has been:

to push wages down or leave them unemployed

Which of the following Gini coefficients represents the income distribution closest to being equal?

0.02

Which of the following is most likely to reduce the supply of labor?

An increase in the value placed on leisure by workers

Income inequality increased in the U.S. from 1929 to 1970 and decreased thereafter.

False

The United States has the least income inequality of all the nations in the world

False

The recession that began with a housing market crash in 2007 had the effect of reducing income inequality

False

The official poverty income threshold in the U.S is:

adjusted for inflation

Researchers have found that the income of obese women is about 17% lower than that of women who are of the recommended weight. This result implies that:

obese women earn less either because they are less productive or because employers discriminate against them

When most people talk about believing in equality of income, they mean they believe in equality of:

opportunity for comparably endowed individuals

Unemployment compensation is available to:

people who are out of work through no fault of their own and have worked in a covered occupation for a substantial number of weeks in the period just before they became unemployed