Cartoon : Overtime and a Higher Tax Bracket

 by Bill Schorr published on 1 November 2010

Quitting time is when you can finally clock out and go home from work. In the cartoon the porcupine is thinking about putting in a little overtime. Another way of saying to work overtime is to put in overtime.

His coworker, the bear, tells him “suit yourself.” You say this expression to someone to mean “do whatever you want and what you think is best for you, but I don’t agree.”

The bear then warns the porcupine that if he works more hours to earn extra money, he’ll lose money because he’ll be bumped into higher tax bracket. If you get bumped into a higher tax bracket, you move into another range of income that is taxed at a higher rate.

Taken from : http://comics.com/

Featured Podcast : Half of US Jobs Now Held by Women (VOA News)

This is the VOA Special English Economics Report. (19 Nov 2009) - http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/2009-11-19-voa3.cfm

To download the MP3 audio file to the report, right click with your mouse HERE

 

Women are on their way to holding more than half of all American jobs. The latest government report shows that their share of nonfarm jobs nearly reached fifty percent in September. Not only have more and more women entered the labor market over the years, but the recession has been harder on men. In October the unemployment rate for men was almost eleven percent, compared to eight percent for women.

Industries that traditionally use lots of men have suffered deep cuts. For example, manufacturing and building lost more jobs last month. But health care and temporary employment services have had job growth. Both of those industries employ high percentages of women.

Thirty years ago, women earned sixty-two cents for every dollar that men earned. Now, for those who usually work full time, women earn about eighty percent of what men earn. And women hold fifty-one percent of good-paying management and professional jobs.

Yet a study released Thursday said men still hold about nine out of every ten top positions at the four hundred largest companies in California. The results have remained largely unchanged in five years of studies from the University of California, Davis.

Also, a new research paper in the journal Sex Roles looks at the experiences of women who are the main earners in their family. Rebecca Meisenbach at the University of Missouri in Columbia interviewed fifteen women. She found they all valued their independence and many enjoyed having the power of control, though not all wanted it.

But they also felt pressure, worry and guilt. Partly that was because of cultural expectations that working women will still take care of the children. Also, men who are not the main earners may feel threatened.

The job market continues to suffer the effects of last year's financial crash. Now, a judgment has been reached in the first case involving charges of criminal wrongdoing on Wall Street.

Last week, the government lost its case against two managers at Bear Stearns, the first investment bank to fail last year. A jury found Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin not guilty of lying to investors.

The hedge funds they supervised lost their value in two thousand seven. But jurors said there was no clear evidence that they meant to mislead investors.

The Justice Department continues to investigate other companies.

And that's the VOA Special English Economics Report, written by Mario Ritter. I'm Steve Ember.

Cartoon : Happy Labor Day! – Words to Talk About Work

See Cartoons by Cartoon by Jimmy Margulies - Courtesy of Politicalcartoons.com

Today is Labor Day in the United States, a federal holiday and the first long weekend of the school year. I thought I’d take this opportunity to talk about some vocabulary and expressions for work!

In the cartoon, you see an interesting noun: toil. This word comes from Norman French. In French you still have the noun toiler. It is used to describe to work continuously and with a lot of effort. It is also a verb. To toil, like the noun, means to work with great difficulty to the point of exhaustion. Someone who toils is a toiler.

Labor (US) or labour (UK) is an uncountable noun and synonym for work. It is also is used to describe all the workers in a particular country, industry or a company. You might hear the term unskilled labor (la main-d’oeuvre non qualifiée) or skilled labor (la main-d’oeuvre qualifiée). Casual Labor (la main-d’oeuvre occasionnelle) is used to describe workers who provides a variety of services and is hired only a temporary or part-time basis. If workers band together into a group such as in a union, we describe this as organized labor (un mouvement syndical). Someone who is rewarded or profits from their work, we say that they enjoy or reap the fruits of their labor.

To describe work or a job that you find to be boring and very unpleasant, you would say it is a drudgery (une besogne)! If the job is tedious and requires you to collect a lot of information, to research or to move around a lot, you would say that your job requires a lot of legwork. Another way to describe very difficult and boring work which isn't very important is described as grunt work in American English and donkeywork in British English. If the boring job is done by someone of low social status, we say that it is a joe job, in other words, anyone can do it.

Another interesting work in the English language for work is travail! As you can guess it comes from the French but is pronounced a bit differently: \trə-ˈvāl, ˈtra-ˌvāl\. In English however, it is used to describe a laborious and difficult job that is painful, full of agony. For some of you, learning English is a travail! You even have the verb: to travail (s’exténuer).

Now look up for yourselves the words work and job at http://www.macmillandictionary.com/ to expand your vocabulary. At the site, you’ll find lots of usages and expressions that use both words. I’m not going to do all the work for you! LOL!