Within the last two years a series of articles has been published dealing with the existence of surplus labor in the United Arab Republic. The most recent, an article in this Review by Bent Hansen, used the results of a rural employmnent survey conducted by the International Labor Organization and the United Arab Republic government (Employment Problems in Rural Areas, henceforth EPRA) to settle the issue of surplus labor rather definitely against the surplus labor hypothesis in that country (Hansen, p. 298). In the present author's view neither Hansen's article nor the EPRA survey itself provide the evidence for such an unqualified rejection of the surplus labortraditional wage hypothesis; nor do they suggest unqualified acceptance of a marginal productivity theory of distribution. Instead, it will be argued that the evidence is broadly consistent with more sophisticated hypotheses about rural wage determination. This latter view holds that with correct policy, labor might be drawn out of the agricultural sector for work on development projects or in regional industry, at relatively constant wages.