Unequal protection

不平等的保护

American inequality meets covid-19

当美国的（社会）不平等碰上covid-19

Some already yawning gaps are being pushed farther apart by the virus

一些本已巨大的差距正被病毒进一步拉开

Apr 18th 2020 | WASHINGTON, DC

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THE COVID-19 epidemic in America is two-pronged—a contagious sickness first, followed by an economic malaise. Despite a big stimulus programme from Congress, including the temporary introduction of something like a universal basic income that ought to benefit the poorest disproportionately, it is the least advantaged who are suffering most.

COVID-19在美国的传染分为两种，一种是传染性疾病，另一种是经济问题。尽管国会出台了一项庞大的刺激计划，包括临时引入一种像全民基本收入这样的东西，它本应不成比例地惠及最贫困的人群，但最弱势的人群却承受了最大的痛苦。

词汇

two-pronged/双管齐下的

contagious/感染性的；会蔓延的

disproportionately/不成比例地

The country is now in the unenviable position of having more covid-19 cases—638,000 confirmed—and deaths (31,000) than any other in the world. At least 17m people, or more than one-tenth of the civilian workforce, have filed for unemployment benefits in the past three weeks. The official tabulations on what is happening will arrive weeks and months from now. But the best available evidence shows that the already yawning divides in American society are widening.

这个国家现在正处因为有大量的covid-19患者而处在一个不值得羡慕的位置上，已有63.8万确证病例——死亡人数(3.1万)比世界上任何一个国家都要多。过去三周，至少有1700万人，即逾十分之一的普通民工，申请了失业救济金。从现在起的几周或几个月后，官方将会公布具体情况。但现有的最靠谱证据表明，美国社会已经存在的巨大鸿沟正在扩大。

词汇

Tabulation/表格；作表

 

Roughly one in three deaths in America thus far has been in New York City. The brunt of the disease has not fallen evenly there. Data released by the city’s health department on April 6th show that black and Hispanic residents are twice as likely to die of the disease as white city dwellers. That trend has not been confined to America’s largest city. In the few states and cities that have released similar breakdowns of fatalities, an uncomfortable pattern emerges from Milwaukee to New Orleans. Black Chicagoans are five times as likely to die of covid-19 than white ones.

到目前为止，大约三分之一的美国人死于纽约市。在那里，疾病带来的冲击并不均衡。纽约市卫生局4月6日公布的数据显示，黑人和西班牙裔居民死于该病的可能性是白人居民的两倍。这种趋势并不局限于美国最大的城市。从密尔沃基到新奥尔良，在少数几个公布了类似状况死亡人数的州和城市，出现了一种令人不安的模式。芝加哥黑人死于covid-19的可能性是白人的5倍

词汇

Brunt/冲击；主要冲力

Dweller/居民

Fatality/死亡，宿命

Exactly why this is happening is still an open question. There are elevated rates among African-Americans of chronic conditions such as high blood pressure and diabetes, which are thought to increase the chance of death. Poverty, and its attendant consequences, may also be at play: blacks (and especially Hispanics) are less likely to have health insurance, and may thus avoid seeking testing and treatment. Despite the large differences in mortality, The Economist’s analysis of zip-code level data in New York City shows that neighbourhoods with large black and Hispanic populations only have marginally more testing. Without space to self-isolate, a private car and a job that can be performed remotely, the chances of infection necessarily increase.

究竟为什么会发生这种情况仍是一个悬而未决的问题。非裔美国人患高血压和糖尿病等慢性疾病的比例较高，这些疾病被认为会增加死亡的几率。贫困及其随之而来的后果可能也在起作用:黑人(尤其是西班牙裔)不太可能有医疗保险，因此可能会避免寻求检测和治疗。尽管死亡率存在巨大差异，《经济学人》对纽约市邮编数据的分析显示，拥有大量黑人和西班牙裔人口的社区只比其他社区接受了略微多一点的测试（这里应该指相对普通白人社区，黑人社区人口更为密集）。如果没有可以自我隔离的空间、一辆私家车和一份可以远程执行的工作，感染的机会必然会增加。

词汇

zip-code/邮政编码

A team of biostatistics researchers at Harvard have pointed out that there is an alarming correlation between long-term exposure to fine particulate matter—which damages lungs—and county-level death rates from covid-19, a respiratory illness. An increase of merely one microgram per cubic metre is associated with a 15% increase in covid-19 fatalities. In America, black residents are disproportionately exposed to fine particulate matter. Even after accounting for population density, air pollution and pre-existing health factors like smoking rates and obesity levels, the same analysis shows that race is tied to covid-19 deaths nationwide. For every one standard-deviation increase in the share of Hispanic and black residents, county death rates increase by 16% and 52%, respectively.

哈佛大学的一组生物统计学研究人员指出，长期暴露在可损害肺部的细颗粒物中，与呼吸道疾病covid-19的县级的死亡率之间存在惊人的相关性。每立方米增加1微克就会增加15%的致命致死率。在美国，黑人居民不成比例地暴露在细颗粒物中。即使在考虑了人口密度、空气污染和已有的健康因素(如吸烟率和肥胖水平)之后，同样的分析也显示，种族与全国范围内的covid-19 致死事件有关。西班牙裔和黑人居民的比例每增加一个标准偏差，该县的死亡率就分别增加16%和52%。

词汇

fine particulate matter/细颗粒物

respiratory illness/呼吸系统疾病

It is also uncertain whether this racial disparity would dissipate if the virus spread beyond big cities and into rural parts of the country. If poverty, pollution, pre-existing conditions, and patchy health and social safety nets are leading to excess deaths among minority residents in American cities, then they will apply with no less force to poor whites outside them.

同样不确定的是，如果病毒从大城市扩散到农村地区，这种种族差异是否会消失。如果贫困、污染、既存状况、不完善的健康和社会保障体系导致美国城市少数族裔居民的过度死亡，那么这些因素将毫不减弱地适用于他们之外的贫困白人。

 

Adherence to social-distancing guidance also seems to differ by income and party affiliation. A recent study by a team of researchers armed with cell-phone-location data found that compliance with the new behavioural guidelines was substantially lower in counties with lower incomes, greater exposure to recent trade wars and higher rates of support for Mr Trump. The few governors who have not recommended shelter-in-place orders as of April 14th are of all Republican-led, largely rural states like Arkansas and South Dakota (where over 500 workers in a pork processing plant recently tested positive for the virus).

坚持社会距离指导（政策）似乎也因收入和党派关系而有所不同。一组研究人员最近利用手机定位数据进行的一项研究发现，在收入较低、更容易受到最近MYZ影响、TLP支持率较高的国家，遵守新行为准则的情况要低得多。截止到4月14日，少数几个州的州长还没有建议实施避难命令，这些州都是由共和党人领导的，大部分是农村地区，比如阿肯色州和南达科他州(那里一家猪肉加工厂的500多名工人最近被检测出病毒阳性)。

词汇

Adherence/坚持；依附；忠诚

Affiliation/  友好关系；联盟

Although the uneven health effects of the pandemic are still being worked out, there is little doubt already about where the economic effects have been most severe. Official unemployment numbers are tabulated every month and have not yet incorporated the worst weeks of the economic downturn. When they catch up, the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a think-tank, reckons that they will show an unemployment rate of 20% by early summer—a number not seen since the Great Depression. A survey of 4,000 American workers conducted by a team of European economists found that 16.4% had already lost their job because of the viral shock. For the 20% of American workers least able to work from home, nearly 40% have lost their jobs, according to the survey results. Workers who are younger, poorer or lack a university education have disproportionately lost their source of income (see chart). For some, that has also meant losing their employer-sponsored health insurance in the middle of an epidemic.

尽管这场传染病对健康造成的不均衡影响仍在研究中，但几乎可以肯定的是，哪些地方的经济影响最为严重。官方的失业数据每个月都有统计，但还没有包括经济衰退最严重的几周。智库彼得森国际经济研究所(Peterson Institute for International Economics)估计，当他们赶上（数据统计进度）时，到初夏，失业率将达到20%——这是大萧条以来未见过的数字。一组欧洲经济学家对4000名美国工人进行的调查发现，16.4%的美国人已经因为病毒式的冲击而失去了工作。调查结果显示，美国有20%的劳动者最不能在家工作，其中近40%的人已经失去了工作。较年轻、较贫穷或缺乏大学教育的工人失去了不成比例的收入来源(见图表)。对一些人来说，这也意味着在传染病肆虐期间失去雇主资助的医疗保险。

 

The negative effect of these job losses on low-income and precariously employed Americans ripples through their families. Elizabeth Ananat, an economist at Barnard College, and Anna Gassman-Pines, a professor of public policy at Duke University, spent months recruiting hourly service-sector workers with young children in a big American city to study the effect of a new law limiting short-notice schedule changes. In the middle of their survey, the coronavirus hit—ruining their intended study, but providing valuable detailed information about how relatively low-paid workers in hotels and restaurants are dealing with the crisis. Of their sample, 43% had lost their jobs (half of them permanently). Of those, 23% also lost their health insurance. Measures of parental and child mental distress also shot up.

失业对低收入和不稳定就业的美国人的负面影响波及他们的家庭。巴纳德学院(Barnard College)经济学家Elizabeth Ananat和杜克大学(Duke University)公共政策教授Anna Gassman-Pines花了数月时间，在美国一个大城市招募面向要抚养年幼子女人群的服务行业小工，研究一项限制临时通知日程变动的新法律的效果。在调查进行到一半时，冠状病毒破坏了他们原本打算进行的研究，但提供了有价值的详细信息，让我们了解到酒店和餐馆里相对低收入的员工是如何应对危机的。在他们的样本中，43%的人失去了工作(其中一半是永久性的)。其中，23%的人失去了医疗保险。父母和孩子的精神痛苦程度也急剧上升。

词汇

Precariously/不安全地；不牢靠地

In theory, the safety net should cushion these effects. Compared with those of other rich countries, America’s is less generous, for fear of discouraging work. But now that swathes of the economy are closed off for the good of public health, these worries look less important. In its recent $2.2trn spending bill, Congress temporarily reinforced the safety net—including a $600 weekly top-up on unemployment benefits, a $1,200 cheque for most American adults and a $350bn bail-out fund for small businesses on the brink of closing.

从理论上讲，社会保障体系应该能够缓冲这些影响。与其他富裕国家相比，美国人因为担心打击工作积极性而不那么慷慨（指相对于欧洲某些国家的福利体系）。但现在，由于经济领域为了公众健康而被封锁，这些担忧似乎不那么重要了。在最近的2.2万亿美元支出法案中，国会暂时加强了安全网——包括每周600美元的失业补贴、1200美元的大部分美国成年人支票，以及3500亿美元的濒临倒闭小企业纾困基金。

词汇

Cushion/垫子；起缓解作用之物

swathes of /大块的；大片的

 

Two nations

（两类人群【黑白，高低学历】），两种国度

Sensible as this seems, the time before firms and families actually benefit may be quite long. State unemployment offices are contending with extreme levels of claims and antiquated technology. The governor of New Jersey put out a call to programmers fluent in COBOL, a programming language created in 1959, to help fix its office’s back-end software. Of the unemployed service workers in Ms Ananat’s and Ms Gassman-Pines’s sample, only 46% had successfully applied for benefits. Only 4% have actually received them. And while the IRS is expected to start depositing cheques soon, those without a previous tax filing or a bank account (who presumably need the cash most) will have to wait longer.

尽管这似乎是明智的，但企业和家庭真正受益可能需要相当长的时间。州失业办公室正与极端水平的索赔和过时的技术作斗争。新泽西州州长向熟练使用COBOL(一种创建于1959年的编程语言)的程序员发出了一个电话，请他们帮忙修复其办公室的后端软件。在Ananat女士和gassman - pine女士的样本中，只有46%的失业服务人员成功申请了福利。而这其中，只有4%的人真正收到了。虽然预计美国国税局将很快开始存入支票，但那些没有以前的税务申报或银行账户的人(可能是最需要现金的人)将不得不等待更长的时间。

 

The roll-out of the small-business bail-out scheme has been bumpy, too, with owners reporting unclear guidance and considerable paperwork. A nationwide survey of small businesses, conducted by a team of economists, found that 43% of companies had closed temporarily, shedding 40% of their employees.

小企业救助计划的推出也是磕磕绊绊，企业主报告说指导不明确，文书工作繁重。一组经济学家对全美小企业进行的调查发现，43%的企业已经暂时关闭，裁减了40%的员工。

Assessing the long-run effect of the last economic downturn on children, some of America’s leading scholars on poverty concluded: “The near immunity of college-educated families and the large negative consequences for less-educated families mean that the Great Recession increased the already large divide between families at the top and bottom of the income distribution.” There is little reason to doubt that the same dynamic will reappear this time.

评估过去的经济低迷对儿童的长期影响,一些领先的美国学者对贫困总结说:“因受益于高等教育而在此次疫情中豁免（可以远程办公而没有丢工作）的家庭和吃了没文化的亏而受到重大负面影响家庭的对比意味着经济大衰退已经增加了高收入和低收入家庭之间的收入差距。几乎没有理由怀疑，同样的情况将再次出现在这一次。

词汇

Immunity/豁免权

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