经济学人2019.5.18/Better at the bottom

Working

工作

better at the bottom

让底层人民更好一点

MADISON AND MERRILLVILLE

 

Life is improving for the lowest-paid

低收入者的生活正在改善

BRAND HOOPER quit his previous job at a grocery in Madison because his boss was “a little crazy”. The manager threatened to sack him and other cashiers for refusing orders to work longer than their agreed hours. Not long ago, Mr Hooper’s decision to walk out might have looked foolhardy. A long-haired navy veteran, he suffers from recurrent ill-health, including insomnia. He has no education beyond high school. Early this decade he was jobless for a year and recalls how back then, there were “a thousand people applying for every McDonald’s job”.

布拉德·胡珀(Brad hooper)辞去了他在麦迪逊一家杂货店的前一份工作，因为他的老板“有点疯狂”。经理威胁说要解雇他和其他收银员，因为他们拒绝加班。不久前，胡珀先生决定辞职可能看起来有些鲁莽。作为一名留着长发的海军老兵，他的健康状况不断恶化，其中包括失眠。他所接受的教育止步于高中。在本世纪初，他失业了一年，回忆起当时，“每一个麦当劳的职位都有1000人申请”。

词汇

Sack/解雇；把……装入袋；劫掠

Foolhardy/有勇无谋的；蛮干的

Veteran/老兵；老手

Recurrent/复发的；周期性的，经常发生的

Insomnia/失眠症，失眠

This time he struck lucky, finding much better work. Today he sells tobacco and cigarettes in a chain store for 32 hours a week. That leaves plenty of time for his passion, reading science fiction. And after years of low earnings he collects $13.90 an hour, almost double the state’s minimum rate and better than the grocer’s pay. His new employer has already bumped up his wages twice in 18 months. “It’s pretty good,” he says with a grin. What’s really rare, he adds, is his annual week of paid holiday. The firm also offers help with health insurance.

这次他运气好，找到了更好的工作。今天他在一家连锁店里每周卖32个小时的烟草和香烟。这就为他的爱好——阅读科幻小说——留出了充足的时间。在多年的低收入之后，他每小时能挣13.90美元，几乎是州最低工资的两倍，比杂货店老板的工资还高。他的新雇主已经在18个月内两次提高了他的工资。“非常好，”他笑着说。他补充说，真正罕见的是他每年一周的带薪假期。该公司还提供医疗保险方面的帮助。

 

 

His improving fortunes reflect recent gains for many of America’s lowest-paid. Handwritten “help wanted” signs adorn windows of many cafés and shops in Madison. A few steps on from the cigarette shop is the city’s job centre, where a manager with little else to do points to a screen that tallies 98,678 unfilled vacancies across Wisconsin. In five years, he says, he has never seen such demand for labour. He says some employers now recruit from a vocational training centre for the disabled. Others tour prisons, signing up inmates to work immediately on their release.

他的财富增长反映了美国许多低收入人群最近的收入增长。麦迪逊许多咖啡馆和商店的窗户上都挂着手写的“招聘启事”。离这家卷烟店几步之遥就是该市的就业中心，在那里，一位没什么事可做的经理指着一个屏幕，上面显示着威斯康星州98,678个空缺职位。他说，五年来，他从未见过对劳动力的如此需求。他说，一些雇主现在从残疾人职业培训中心招聘。还有一些人参观监狱，让囚犯在获释后立即工作。

词汇

Adorn/装饰；使生色

Inmate/被收容者；居民

Unemployment in Wisconsin is below 3%, which is a record. Across America it was last this low, at 3.6%, half a century ago. A tight labour market has been pushing up median pay for some time. Fewer unauthorised immigrants arriving in America may contribute to the squeeze, though this is disputed. Official figures show average hourly earnings rising by 3.2% on an annual basis. “Right now, part time, it seems like everyone is hiring. Every American who wants a job right now can get a job,” says another shop worker in Merrillville, in northern Indiana.

威斯康辛州的失业率低于3%，创历史新高。半个世纪前，美国的失业率是3.6%。一段时间以来，紧张的劳动力市场一直在推高薪资中值。进入美国的非法移民数量的减少可能会促进佣金的增长，尽管这是处于争议之中。官方数据显示，平均时薪同比增长3.2%。“现在，兼职，似乎每个人都在招聘。现在每个想要工作的美国人都能找到工作。印第安纳州北部梅里维尔的另一位店员说道。

词汇

Squeeze/压榨；紧握；拥挤；佣金

 

In any economic upturn the last group of workers to prosper are typically the poorest earners, such as low-skilled shopstaff, food preparers, care-givers and temps. Their pay was walloped in the Great Recession a decade ago, and the recovery since has been unusually slow. Pay has leapt recently—with the lowest-paid enjoying faster gains than the better-off.

在任何经济好转时期，最后一批获得成功的劳动者通常都是最贫穷的劳动者，比如低技能的店员、食品准备员、看护员和临时工。他们的工资在十年前的大衰退中遭受重创，自那以后的复苏异常缓慢。最近工资上涨了——最低工资的人比较富裕的人增长得更快。

词汇

Wallop/猛击，痛打；击溃，击败

The benefits are not equally spread. In Wisconsin, as in much of the country, more jobs are being created in urban areas and in services. Laura Dresser, a labour economist, points to a “very big racial inequality among workers”. Wages have been rising fastest for African-Americans, but poorer blacks, especially those with felony convictions, are also likelier to have fallen out of the formal labour market, so are not counted in unemployment figures.

好处并不是平均分配的。在威斯康辛州，和全国大部分地区一样，城市地区和服务业正在创造更多的就业机会。劳工经济学家劳拉•德莱塞(Laura dresde)指出，“工人之间存在着非常大的种族不平等”。非洲裔美国人的工资增长速度最快，但较贫穷的黑人，尤其是那些被判重罪的黑人，也更有可能退出正规劳动力市场，因此不计入失业数据。

词汇

Felony/重罪

 

The wage recovery is not only about markets. Policy matters too. Some states, typically Republican-run, have been reluctant to lift minimum wages above the federal level of $7.25 an hour. In Merrillville, a worker in a petshop carries a Husky puppy to be inspected by a group of teenage girls. Staff are paid “a dollar or two above the minimum wage”, says his manager. Despite his 13 years’ employment, and over 40 hours’ toil each week, his pay and benefits amount to little. He calls occasional bonuses a “carrot at the end of the road”.

工资复苏不仅关乎市场。政策也很重要。一些州，特别是共和党控制的州，一直不愿意将最低工资提高到每小时7.25美元的联邦水平之上。在梅里维尔，一家宠物店的工作人员带着一只哈士奇小狗去接受一群十几岁的女孩的检查。他的经理说，员工的工资“比最低工资高出一两美元”。尽管他工作了13年，每周工作40多个小时，他的工资和福利却少之又少。他把偶尔的奖金称为“路尽头的胡萝卜”。

词汇

Reluctant/不情愿的；勉强的；顽抗的

He could munch on bigger carrots in other states. Lawmakers in some states are more willing to lift minimum wages. Where they do, the incomes of the lowestpaid rise particularly fast. Thirteen states and the District of Columbia raised the minimum wage last year. (Some cities, like Chicago and New York, occasionally raise it too). Elise Gould of the Economic Policy Institute told Congress in March that, in states which put up minimum wages at least once in the five years to 2018, incomes for the poorest rose by an average of 13%. In the remaining states, by contrast, the poorest got a rise of 8.6% over the same period.

他可以在其他州大嚼胡萝卜。一些州的立法者更愿意提高最低工资。在他们这样做的地方，收入最低的人的收入增长尤其迅速。去年，13个州和哥伦比亚特区提高了最低工资标准。(一些城市，如芝加哥和纽约，偶尔也会提高标准)。经济政策研究所的Elise Gould在三月份告诉国会，在截止到2018年的五年内至少一次提高最低工资的州，最贫困人口的收入平均增长了13%。相比之下，在剩下的几个州，最贫穷的人口薪酬同期增长了8.6%。

词汇

Munch/用力咀嚼；大声咀嚼

In neither case, however, do the increases amount to much better long-term prospects for the worst-off. By last year, the poorest 10% were still earning only a miserly 4.1% more per hour than they did (in real wages) 40 years ago. Median hourly pay for America’s workers was up a little more, by 14%.

然而，在这两种情况下，对最贫穷的人来说，增长都没有带来更好的长期前景。到去年，最穷的10%的人每小时的收入仅比40年前(实际工资)高出屈指可数的4.1%。美国工人的时薪中位数涨幅略高，达到14%。

词汇

The worst-off/最贫穷的人

Miserly/吝啬的；贪婪的

One study in Wisconsin suggests that caretakers, for example, took home over $12 an hour by last year, so were only just getting back to their (real) average earnings achieved in 2010. Expansion at the bottom of the labour market “is finally pulling some wages up. But it’s certainly been much slower in this boom than any other,” argues Tim Smeeding, a poverty expert at the University of Wisconsin, in Madison. He describes “capital winning over labour” for several decades, and expects the trend to continue, given weak unions, more automation and other trends.

例如，威斯康辛州的一项研究表明，到去年为止，看护人每小时的收入超过12美元，所以他们刚刚回到2010年的(实际)平均收入。劳动力市场底部的扩张“终于在一定程度上推高了工资水平。但在这次繁荣中，它肯定比以往任何一次都要慢得多，”麦迪逊市威斯康辛大学(University of Wisconsin)贫困问题专家蒂姆•斯米丁(Tim Smeeding)表示。他描述了几十年来“资本战胜劳动力”的情况，并预计鉴于工会疲弱、自动化程度提高和其他趋势，这一趋势将继续下去。

 

The poorest get some hard-to-measure benefits in addition to higher hourly pay. Mr Hooper is not alone in daring to walk away from an exploitative boss. More of the low-paid get a bit more say on how and when they toil. Many crave a reduction in the income volatility that afflicts them, since sudden swings in earnings are associated with poor mental health, high stress and worry over losing access to financial assistance or food stamps.

除了更高的时薪，最穷的人还能获得一些难以衡量的福利。霍珀并不是唯一敢于离开剥削型老板的人。更多的低收入者在如何以及何时工作上获得了更多的发言权。许多人渴望减少困扰他们的收入波动，因为收入的突然波动与脆弱的心理、压力过大以及担心无法获得财政援助或食品券有关。

词汇

Exploitative/剥削的；利用的；开发资源的

Toil/辛苦工作；艰难地行进

Crave/渴望；恳求

Reduction/减少；下降；缩小；还原反应

Volatility/挥发性；易变；活泼

One study of 7,000 households, by Pew, found in 2015 that 92% of them would opt for lower average incomes, if earnings were predictable. Follow-up research late last year suggested the same trends are still present. Low- and middle-income households remain anxious about volatile earnings. Most have almost no savings. Many would struggle with a financial shock of just a few hundred dollars.

皮尤研究中心2015年对7000户家庭进行的一项研究发现，如果收入可以预测，92%的家庭会选择较低的平均收入。去年年底的后续研究表明，同样的趋势仍然存在。低收入和中等收入家庭仍然对不稳定的收入感到焦虑。大多数人几乎没有储蓄。许多人将在仅有几百美元的金融冲击中挣扎。

 

Lots of jobs that are being created are in or near flourishing cities like Madison, where low-paid workers are squeezed by high housing costs. Pew has estimated that 38% of all tenant households spend at least 30% of their income on rent. Living in more affordable places, such as Janesville, an hour south of Madison, may be an option for the lower-paid. But that means commuting to the city, or taking local jobs with less pay and fewer benefits. Few workers earning less than $12 an hour get health insurance from their employer, whereas most do so above that threshold.

许多正在创造的就业机会都在麦迪逊等繁荣的城市或附近，那里的低收入工人受到高房价的挤压。皮尤研究中心估计，38%的租户家庭将至少30%的收入花在房租上。住在更经济实惠的地方，比如麦迪逊以南一小时车程的Janesville，可能是低收入者的一个选择。但这意味着要往返于城市之间，或者接受薪水和福利更少的当地工作。每小时收入低于12美元的工人很少能从雇主那里得到医疗保险，而大多数人的医疗保险都超过了这个门槛。

词汇

Tenant/承租人；房客；佃户；居住者

Katherine Cramer, who studies the long-standing causes of simmering anger among poorer, rural Americans, says “resentment is worse than before”, despite the recent better wages. Rural folk complain that “it’s been like this for decades”, she says. A year or two catching up has not yet been enough to change their minds.

凯瑟琳•克莱默(Katherine Cramer)研究了长期以来导致美国贫困农村居民怒火不断发酵的原因。她说，“这些贫困居民（对收入差距，问题）的愤恨比以前还要糟糕”，尽快这些年来，薪资在逐渐上涨。农村居民抱怨“这种情况已经持续了几十年”。工资一年或两年的迎头赶上还不足以改变他们的想法。

词汇

Simmer/炖；内心充满；即将爆发

Resentment/愤恨，怨恨