【英语国际】美国家庭收入经历“失去的十年”

The downturn that some have dubbed the 'Great Recession' has trimmed the typical household's income significantly, new Census data show, following years of stagnant wage growth that made the past decade the worst for American families in at least half a century.

The bureau's annual snapshot of American living standards also found that the fraction of Americans living in poverty rose sharply to 14.3% from 13.2% in 2008-the highest since 1994. Some 43.6 million Americans were living below the official poverty threshold, but the measure doesn't fully capture the panoply of government antipoverty measures.

The inflation-adjusted income of the median household-smack in the middle of the populace-fell 4.8% between 2000 and 2009, even worse than the 1970s, when median income rose 1.9% despite high unemployment and inflation. Between 2007 and 2009, incomes fell 4.2%.

'It's going to be a long, hard slog back to what most Americans think of as normalcy or prosperous times,' said Nicholas Eberstadt, a political economist at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute.

The data, released Thursday, underscore the extent to which U.S. households relied on government benefits-and each other-to weather the recession and how living standards at the middle of the middle class have stalled. The report comes as the economy is at the center of a vigorous debate over how government policy can best help the poor and unemployed.

President Barack Obama, in a statement, said the report showed that because of stimulus spending, 'millions of Americans were kept out of poverty last year.' Republicans, meanwhile, saw the report in a different light.

'By any objective standard, the stimulus failed to deliver on the promised results,' said a spokesman for Congress Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).

The median household income fell 0.7% to $49,777 in 2009, down 4.2% since 2007, when the recession started, the Census Bureau said.

The bureau said that the drop in income in the recent recession, so far, wasn't much different from those recorded in the early 1990s and early 2000s recessions, and was actually smaller than the 6% drop recorded in the deep recession of the early 1980s.

But there is a difference this time: In the prior three recessions, incomes fell after years of upswing, then resumed growing once the downturn ended. The decline this time comes on top of a long period in which incomes stagnated even through the recovery of 2003 to 2007.

The Census snapshot indicated that the gap between the best-off and worst-off Americans widened a bit more in 2009, a long-standing trend, but not by much. The top fifth of households accounted for 50.3% of all pre-tax income; the bottom two-fifths got 12%. In 1999, the top fifth claimed 49.4% and the bottom got 12.5% of the income.

The threshold for poverty in the U.S. in 2009 was a family of four earning $21,756. But this only takes into account monetary income, while omitting the many benefits that now form the backbone of the government efforts to lift the poor. Such programs include subsidized housing and the Earned Income Tax Credit.

The poverty rate 'misses most of the programs that have been added or expanded in the last 20 years to reduce poverty,' says Bruce Meyer, an economist at the University of Chicago.

美国人口普查局（Census）最新数据显示，被人们称作“大衰退”（Great Recession）的这几年的经济衰退使典型家庭收入大幅下降，近年来工资收入增长迟滞，过去十年成为至少半世纪来美国家庭最难过的时期。

人口普查局对美国人生活标准的年度简要报告还显示，生活在贫困中的美国人比率从2008年的13.2%大幅升至14.3%，为1994年以来最高水平。大约4,360万美国人生活在官方设定的贫困线以下，但该测算方法没有完全涵盖政府消除贫穷措施中的全部举措。

2000至2009年经通胀调整的家庭中位收入下降4.8%，甚至比上世纪70年代还差，当时尽管失业率和通胀率均较高，但家庭中位收入上升了1.9%。2007至2009年，家庭中位收入下降了4.2%。

美国企业研究所（American Enterprise Institute）政治经济学家埃伯施塔特（Nicholas Eberstadt）说，回到多数美国人认为的繁荣时期的常态，还要经过漫长、辛苦的努力。该研究所立场偏右。

这份周四公布的数据凸显了美国家庭依赖政府补贴和互助，以对抗经济衰退的程度，以及中产阶级的中等生活标准如何停滞不前。这份报告出炉之时，正值人们激烈讨论政府政策如何最好地帮助穷人和失业人口的时候。

美国总统奥巴马（Barack Obama）在声明中说，该报告显示了受刺激支出政策的影响，数百万美国人去年没有陷入贫困。而与此同时共和党人却以不同的眼光解读这份报告。

威斯康星州共和党国会议员瑞安（Paul Ryan）的发言人说，以任何客观标准衡量，刺激支出政策都没有带来此前承诺的结果。

人口普查局公布，2009年家庭中位收入下降0.7%至49,777美元，自2007年累计下降4.2%，当时经济开始衰退。

该局表示，迄今近期经济衰退中家庭收入下降的程度与上世纪90年代初和21世纪初经济衰退时家庭收入下降幅度差距不大，低于上世纪80年代初经济严重衰退时家庭收入下降6%的幅度。

但这次有一个不同点：在此前三次经济衰退中，家庭收入在经历多年上升后下降，一旦经济衰退结束，家庭收入又恢复增长。而在这次下降之前，家庭收入已有很长时间迟滞不前了，甚至在2003至2007年经济复苏时收入表现也是乏善可陈。

人口普查局简报显示，2009年收入最高和最低的美国人的差距略微扩大，这一趋势由来已久，但这次扩大的幅度并不是很大。这些收入最高的五分之一家庭在所有税前收入中占50.3%；收入最低的五分之二家庭在税前收入中占12%。1999年，这两项比率分别为49.4%和12.5%。

美国2009年设定的贫困线是，四口之家年收入为21,756美元。但这只考虑货币收入，没有包含政府当前为消除贫困所带来的许多福利。这些福利包括住房补贴和所得税抵免（Earned Income Tax Credit）。

芝加哥大学（University of Chicago）经济学家迈耶（Bruce Meyer）说，贫困率没有考虑进过去20年为消除贫穷而增加或扩充的多数福利。