How many really suffer as a result of labor market problems? This is one of the most critical yet debatable social policy questions.  In many ways, our social statistics overstate the degree of hardship. Unemployment does not have the same horrible consequences today as it did in the 1930's when most of the unemployed were primary breadwinners, when income and earnings were usually much closer to the margin of survival, and when there were fewer effective social programs for those failing in the labor market. Increasing wealth, the rise of families with more than one wage earner, the growing dominance of secondary earners among the unemployed and improved social welfare protection have unquestionably relieved the consequences of joblessness. Earnings and income data also overestimate the scale of hardship. Among the millions with hourly earnings at or below the minimum wage level, the majority are from multiple-earner,  ly well-off families. Most of those counted by the poverty statistics are elderly or handicapped or have family responsibilities which keep them out of the labor force, so the poverty statistics are by no means an accurate indicator of labor market problems. Yet there are also many ways our social statistics underestimate the degree of labor-market-related hardship. The unemployment counts exclude the millions of fully employed workers whose wages are so low that their families remain in poverty. Low wages and repeated or long-time unemployment frequently interact to weaken the capacity for self-support. Since the number experiencing joblessness at some time during the year is several times that unemployed in any month, those who suffer as a result of forced idleness can equal or exceed average annual unemployment, even though only a minority of the jobless in any month really suffer. For every person counted in the monthly unemployment totals, there is another working part-time because of the inability to find full-time work, or else outside the labor force but wanting a job. Finally, income transfers in our country have always focused on the elderly, disabled, and dependent, neglecting the needs of the working poor, so that the dramatic expansion of cash and non-cash transfers does not necessarily mean that those failing in the labor market are adequately protected. As a result of such conflicting evidence, it is uncertain whether those suffering seriously as a result of labor market problems number in the hundreds of thousands or the tens of millions, and, hence, whether high levels of joblessness can be tolerated or must be counteracted  by job creation and economic stimulation. There is only one area of agreement in this debate--that the existing poverty, employment, and earnings statistics are inadequate for one of their primary applications, measuring the consequences of labor market problems. Which of the following is the principal topic of the passage?
What causes labor market problems that result in suffering. Why income statistics are imprecise in measuring degrees of poverty. When poverty, employment, and earnings figures agree with each other. How statistics give an unclear picture of the labor-market-related suffering.