真實的美國：美國窮人的日子不好過

How Expensive It Is to Be Poor

美國窮人的日子不好過

Earlier this month, the Pew Research Center released a study that found that most wealthy Americans believed “poor people today have it easy because they can get government benefits without doing anything in return.”

本月早些時候，皮尤研究中心(Pew Research Center)發(fā)布的一份研究報告發(fā)現(xiàn)，多數(shù)富有的美國人相信“現(xiàn)在的窮人日子很好過，因為他們什么都不用做就能拿到政府的救濟(jì)”。

This is an infuriatingly obtuse view of what it means to be poor in this country — the soul-rending omnipresence of worry and fear, of weariness and fatigue. This can be the view only of those who have not known — or have long forgotten — what poverty truly means.

這種對美國窮人的愚蠢看法令人怒火中燒——那種撕心裂肺、無所不在的擔(dān)憂和恐懼，那疲憊和倦怠。只有那些不知道——或者早已忘記——什么才是真正的貧窮的人，才會這樣看。

“Easy” is a word not easily spoken among the poor. Things are hard — the times are hard, the work is hard, the way is hard. “Easy” is for uninformed explanations issued by the willfully callous and the haughtily blind.

“好過”不是窮人輕易說得出口的詞。日子不好過——世道艱難，工作艱難，路途艱難。“好過”，是那些任性的冷血動物和傲慢的瞎子想出來的無知解釋。

Allow me to explain, as James Baldwin put it, a few illustrations of “how extremely expensive it is to be poor.”

用詹姆斯·鮑德溫(James Baldwin)的話說，容我解釋一下為什么說“做一個窮人是代價高昂的”。

First, many poor people work, but they just don’t make enough to move out of poverty — an estimated 11 million Americans fall into this category.

首先，很多窮人是有工作的，但收入就是不足以讓他們擺脫貧困——約1100萬美國人屬于這個情況。

So, as the Pew report pointed out, “more than half of the least secure group reports receiving at least one type of means-tested government benefit.”

因此，正如皮尤的報告所指出的，“生活最缺乏保障的群體中，超過半數(shù)的人在接受至少一種需要通過經(jīng)濟(jì)狀況調(diào)查的政府救濟(jì)。”

And yet, whatever the poor earn is likely to be more heavily taxed than the earnings of wealthier citizens, according to a new analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. As The New York Times put it last week:

而且，據(jù)稅收與經(jīng)濟(jì)政策研究所(Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy)的最新分析報告，不管窮人掙到多少錢，稅負(fù)恐怕都要比富有的國民更重。正如《紐約時報》上周的文章所說：

“According to the study, in 2015 the poorest fifth of Americans will pay on average 10.9 percent of their income in state and local taxes, the middle fifth will pay 9.4 percent and the top 1 percent will average 5.4 percent.”

“根據(jù)該研究，2015年最窮的五分之一美國人平均需要將收入的10.9%用于繳納州和地方稅，中間的五分之一需要繳9.4%，最富有的1%平均繳納5.4%。”

In addition, many low-income people are “unbanked” (not served by a financial institution), and thus nearly eaten alive by exorbitant fees. As the St. Louis Federal Reserve pointed out in 2010:

此外，很多低收入者“沒有銀行賬戶”，也就得不到金融機(jī)構(gòu)的服務(wù)，因此要活活被過高的費用吞噬。正如圣路易斯聯(lián)儲(St. Louis Federal Reserve)在2010年指出的：

“Unbanked consumers spend approximately 2.5 to 3 percent of a government benefits check and between 4 percent and 5 percent of payroll check just to cash them. Additional dollars are spent to purchase money orders to pay routine monthly expenses. When you consider the cost for cashing a bi-weekly payroll check and buying about six money orders each month, a household with a net income of $20,000 may pay as much as $1,200 annually for alternative service fees — substantially more than the expense of a monthly checking account.”

“無銀行賬戶的消費者僅為了兌現(xiàn)支票就要用去政府救濟(jì)金的約2.5%到3%、薪水的4%到5%。另外還要花錢購買匯票，用于支付每月的固定開支。一周兩次兌現(xiàn)支票，每個月買大概六張匯票，想像一下一個凈收入2萬美元(約合人民幣12.4萬元)的家庭每年要另外支付1200美元的服務(wù)費——比按月結(jié)單的活期賬戶的費用高出很多。”

Even when low-income people can become affiliated with a bank, those banks are increasingly making them pay “steep rates for loans and high fees on basic checking accounts,” as The Times’s DealBook blog put it last year.

時報“交易錄”(DealBook)博客去年說過，即便低收入者可以在銀行開戶，銀行也會越來越多地收取“過高的貸款利息和高昂的基礎(chǔ)活期賬戶費用”。

And poor people can have a hard time getting credit. As The Washington Post put it, the excesses of the subprime boom have led conventional banks to stay away from the riskiest borrowers, leaving them “all but cut off from access to big loans, like mortgages.”

窮人很難拿到貸款。如《華盛頓郵報》(The Washington Post)所說，次級貸款的過度發(fā)展導(dǎo)致傳統(tǒng)銀行對高風(fēng)險的貸款人避之不及，因而這些人“基本上無緣房貸這樣的大額借貸”。

One way to move up the ladder and out of poverty is through higher education, but even that is not without disproportionate costs. As the Institute for College Access and Success noted in March:

接受更高等的教育也是一個提升地位、擺脫貧困的途徑，但連這方面的成本都是不對等的。大學(xué)入學(xué)及成功學(xué)會(Institute for College Access and Success)曾在三月指出：

“Graduates who received Pell Grants, most of whom had family incomes under $40,000, were much more likely to borrow and to borrow more. Among graduating seniors who ever received a Pell Grant, 88 percent had student loans in 2012, with an average of $31,200 per borrower. In contrast, 53 percent of those who never received a Pell Grant had debt, with an average of $26,450 per borrower.”

“領(lǐng)取佩爾助學(xué)金(Pell Grant)的畢業(yè)生家庭收入大多在4萬美元以下，他們更有可能去貸款，貸款額也更高。在得到佩爾助學(xué)金的畢業(yè)年級學(xué)生中，88%的學(xué)生在2012年有學(xué)生貸款，單個借貸者的平均貸款額為31200萬美元。相比之下，從未接受佩爾助學(xué)金的學(xué)生中，有債務(wù)的占53%，平均貸款額為26450美元。”

And often, work or school requires transportation, which can be another outrageous expense. According to the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights:

而工作或上學(xué)時常會產(chǎn)生交通費用，那將是又一筆巨額開支。據(jù)公民和人權(quán)領(lǐng)導(dǎo)人大會(Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights)的報告：

“Low- and moderate-income households spend 42 percent of their total annual income on transportation, including those who live in rural areas, as compared to middle-income households, who spend less than 22 percent of their annual income on transportation.”

“中低收入家庭的年收入中有42%用于交通，包括生活在鄉(xiāng)村地區(qū)的人，相比之下中等收入家庭的年收入有22%用于交通。”

And besides, having a car can make prime targets of the poor. One pernicious practice that the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. — and the protests that followed — resurfaced was the degree to which some local municipalities profit from police departments targeting poor communities, with a raft of stops, fines, summonses and arrests supported by police actions and complicit courts.

還有，擁有一輛車也可能導(dǎo)致窮人首當(dāng)其沖成為政府執(zhí)法的目標(biāo)。在密蘇里州弗格森發(fā)生邁克爾·布朗(Michael Brown)被槍殺事件及之后的抗議活動中，一種惡毒的做法再度進(jìn)入人們視線，那就是在警察行動和法院串謀的支持下，警察局針對窮人社區(qū)采取大規(guī)模的截查、罰款、傳喚和逮捕措施，令一些地方政府獲利頗豐。

As NPR reported in August:

正如全國公共廣播電臺(NPR)在八月的報道所說：

“In 2013, the municipal court in Ferguson — a city of 21,135 people — issued 32,975 arrest warrants for nonviolent offenses, mostly driving violations.”

“2013年，弗格森市法院簽發(fā)了32975份針對非暴力違法行為的逮捕令，多數(shù)是違章駕駛——該市人口為21135人。”