Question

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question id: 1067673
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read paragraph 9 from the passage.
what is the author’s main idea in this excerpt?
lack of education leads to unemployment, which in turn leads to poverty.
the unemployment rate is the highest that it has been in a decade.
a new underclass of citizens is defined as a group of people who are living just above or below the poverty line.
finishing high school is extremely difficult for people who are from low - income families.
reading passage

1. as stated in the beginning, poverty is not only a cause of a lack of education; it is also a primary effect of a lack of education. people who have received inadequate education or who did not finish high school find it difficult to find steady employment. according to a 2016 report by the u.s. bureau of labor statistics, people who do not have a high school diploma experienced an unemployment rate of 7.4 percent. compare this with a 5.2 percent rate of those who do have a high school diploma and a 2.7 percent rate for those who have a bachelor’s degree in college (employment projections). unemployment, especially due to lack of education, is a major cause of poverty. compare the 31 percent poverty rate of young adults without a high school diploma to a 24 percent poverty rate of young adults with a high school diploma (aud et al. 7). timothy smeeding, director of the institute for research on poverty at the university of wisconsin, madison said in a new york times interview, “we’re risking a new underclass. young, less - educated adults, mainly men, can’t support their children and form stable families because they are jobless” (tavernise). many members of the “new underclass” that smeeding speaks of are men and women who did not receive a quality primary education as children and were unable to finish high school as teens. ensuring that all young people have access to and complete their education is crucial to preventing unemployment.
2. conversely, some people believe that the collapse of marriage, not a lack of education is the main cause of child poverty robert rector senior research fellow

Explanation:

The excerpt's main idea is about how lack of education causes unemployment, and unemployment (especially from lack of education) causes poverty. The first option states "Lack of education leads to unemployment, which in turn leads to poverty", matching this relationship. The second option is about the unemployment rate's decade - high status, not the main idea. The third defines a new underclass, which is a detail, not the main idea. The fourth focuses on finishing high school difficulty for low - income families, not the education - unemployment - poverty link.

Answer:

A. Lack of education leads to unemployment, which in turn leads to poverty.