财富杂志 萎缩的中产阶级(2)（在线收听）

All of which creates a challenge of measurement.

所有这些都带来了阶级衡量的挑战。

If sizing up the middle class is difficult enough, it's that much harder to say that circumstances within this group have changed.

如果说估量中产阶级就已经够困难了，那么要想说这个群体的内部情况已经发生了变化，则就更为困难了。

And yet that is precisely what we've devoted the 28 pages in this special report to saying—and showing.

然而，这正是我们在这篇28页的特别报道中所要表达和展示的。

Life has gotten harder in recent years for millions of people within the middle class.

近年来，数百万中产阶级的生活变得越来越艰难。

Put simply: For too many, the American dream has been fading.

简而言之，对太多的人来说，美国梦在逐渐消失。

Such an assertion may seem to fly in the face of recent economic data and even the long upward slope of history.

这种说法似乎与近期的经济数据以及历史上长期上升趋势背道而驰。

Between 2013 and 2016, after all, the median income for U.S. families grew 10%, according to the Federal Reserve Board's oft-cited Survey of Consumer Finances.

毕竟，根据美国联邦储备委员会经常引用的消费者财务状况调查，在2013年到2016年间，美国家庭收入的收入中位数增长了10%。

The unemployment rate, meanwhile, is at its lowest level since 1969—the year of the moon landing—

与此同时，失业率处于1969年以来最低水平——登月的那一年——

as the private sector has generated some 20 million new jobs since 2010. Wages, too, are at last starting to climb after a long stretch of stagnation.

自2010年以来，私营部门创造了约2000万个新就业岗位。在经历了一段长时期的停滞后，工资也终于开始上涨。

All really good signs, no? And yet for nearly every rah-rah measure in the economy of late, there is an asterisk:

真的都是很好的迹象，不是？但对于近期经济采取的几乎每一项令人叫好的措施，都标注了一个星号：

a footnote that suggests that a huge and perhaps growing subset of Americans is being left off the dance floor. Consider the most basic: wages.

一个脚注，表明一个庞大的美国群体正在被排除在舞台之外，而这个群体的人数还在不断增长。考虑最基本的因素：工资。

For non-supervisors, average hourly earnings hit nearly $23 in November—a fact that, according to data from the Pew Research Center,

非管理层11月的平均时薪接近23美元——根据皮尤研究中心的数据，

gives today's workers slightly less purchasing power than those in January 1973, once inflation is factored in ($23.68 in 2018 dollars).

如果考虑通货膨胀因素（以2018年美元价值计算为23.68美元），如今工人们的购买力稍逊于1973年一月的那些工人。

For years, the company CareerBuilder has conducted, via the Harris Poll, a large survey of U.S. workers across the business landscape.

多年来，凯业必达公司通过哈里斯民意测验调查所，对美国业界的员工进行了一次大规模调查。

In 2017, a striking 40% of the nearly 3,500 respondents said they either always or usually live "paycheck to paycheck"—

2017年，在近3500名受访者中，有40%的人表示他们总是或经常过着“月光族”的生活——

a level that was up four percentage points from the company's 2013 poll.

这一水平较该公司2013年的调查上升了4个百分点。

Such data is explained in part by recent research by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York,

纽约联储银行的近期调查可以对这样的数据作出部分解释，

which reveals the $13.5 trillion IOU that American families have kept locked inside their desk drawers.

该调查显示，美国家庭的抽屉里锁着13.5万亿美元的欠条。

This past September, aggregate household debt balances jumped for the 17th straight quarter,

去年九月，美国家庭总债务余额连续第17个季度飙升，

with the debt now more than $800 billion higher than it was at its previous peak in 2008.

目前的债务规模比2008年达到的上一个峰值高出逾8000亿美元。