1、A few days ago Walmart, Americas largest employer, announced that it will raise wages for half a million workers. For many of those workers the gains will be small, but the announcement is nonetheless a very big deal, for two reasons. First, there will be spillovers: Walmart is so big that its actio
2、n will probably lead to raises for millions of workers employed by other companies. Second, and arguably far more important, is what Walmarts move tells us namely, that low wages are a political choice, and we can and should choose differently. 几天前，美国最大的雇主沃尔玛(Walmart)宣布将为 50 万名员工加薪。对其中许多员 工来说，涨幅是很小的
3、，但并不妨碍此事的重要性，原因有两个。首先是会有溢出效 应：以沃尔玛的规模之大，这一举动可能引致数以百万计的其他公司员工得到加薪。 第二点，应该说也是更为重要的一点，沃尔玛的举动在告诉我们，低薪是一个政治选 择，我们可以，也应该做出别的选择。 Some background: Conservatives with the backing, I have to admit, of many economists normally argue that the market for labor is like the market for anything else. The law of sup
4、ply and demand, they say, determines the level of wages, and the invisible hand of the market will punish anyone who tries to defy this law. 提供一些背景：保守派不得不承认，他们的背后有一些经济学家的支持 通常 会说，劳动力市场跟任何其他东西的市场是一样的。他们说，供求法则决定薪资水平， 任何人要想违背这一法则，都会遭到市场无形之手的惩罚。 Specifically, this view implies that any attempt to push u
5、p wages will either fail or have bad consequences. Setting a minimum wage, its claimed, will reduce employment and create a labor surplus, the same way attempts to put floors under the prices of agricultural commodities used to lead to butter mountains, wine lakes and so on. Pressuring employers to
6、pay more, or encouraging workers to organize into unions, will have the same effect. 这种观念尤其在暗示，任何推高工资的企图都是徒劳的，或者会有糟糕的后果。它认 为设定最低工资会减少就业，造成劳动力过剩，就好比给农产品设定价格下限曾经导 致黄油成山、红酒成湖等等。强迫雇主增加工资，或鼓励工人组成工会，也会有同样 的效果。 But labor economists have long questioned this view. Soylent Green I mean, the labor force is pe
7、ople. And because workers are people, wages are not, in fact, like the price of butter, and how much workers are paid depends as much on social forces and political power as it does on simple supply and demand. 但劳动经济学家对这种看法一直存在质疑。大扁豆绿饼（Soylent Green，同名电影中 用死人制成的一种食物。译注） 我的意思是，劳动力是人。由于工人是 人，工资实际上和黄油的
8、价格不是一回事，工人的薪水多寡，取决于简单的供求关系， 同样也取决于社会中的力量和政治权力。 Whats the evidence? First, there is what actually happens when minimum wages are increased. Many states set minimum wages above the federal level, and we can look at what happens when a state raises its minimum while neighboring states do not. Does the
9、wage-hiking state lose a large number of jobs? No the overwhelming conclusion from studying these natural experiments is that moderate increases in the minimum wage have little or no negative effect on employment. 有什么证据？首先，看看提高最低工资标准后实际会怎样。许多州的最低工资是高于 联邦水平的，我们可以比较一下，当一个州提高最低工资，毗邻的州不提时会出现什 么情况。加薪州会失去
10、大量就业机会吗？不会通过研究这些自然实验可以得出毋 庸置疑的结论，最低工资的适度提高对就业的负面影响微乎其微。 Then theres history. It turns out that the middle-class society we used to have didnt evolve as a result of impersonal market forces it was created by political action, and in a brief period of time. America was still a very unequal society in
11、1940, but by 1950 it had been transformed by a dramatic reduction in income disparities, which the economists Claudia Goldin and Robert Margo labeled the Great Compression. How did that happen? 然后再来看历史。你会发现，我们曾经拥有的中产阶级社会，并不是非人的市场力量 促成的它是政治行动的成果，只用了不长的一段时间。1940 年的时候，美国还是 非常不平等的社会，但到了 1950 年，贫富差距的缩小带来
12、社会剧变，也就是被经济学 家克劳迪亚戈尔丁 (Claudia Goldin)和罗伯特马戈(Robert Margo)称为“大压缩” (Great Compression)的时期。这是怎么回事？ Part of the answer is direct government intervention, especially during World War II, when government wage-setting authority was used to narrow gaps between the best paid and the worst paid. Part of it,
13、surely, was a sharp increase in unionization. Part of it was the full-employment economy of the war years, which created very strong demand for workers and empowered them to seek higher pay. 政府的直接干预是一部分原因，尤其是在二战期间，政府动用薪资设定权力来缩小最 高薪和最低薪之间的差距。当然，工会数量的急剧增加起到了一定作用。还有就是战 时的充分就业经济营造了极其强劲的劳力需求，让工人有了寻求更高工资的
14、余地。 The important thing, however, is that the Great Compression didnt go away as soon as the war was over. Instead, full employment and pro-worker politics changed pay norms, and a strong middle class endured for more than a generation. Oh, and the decades after the war were also marked by unprecede
15、nted economic growth. 然而最重要的是，战争结束后“大压缩”并没有马上停止。 事实上，充分就业和支持 工人的政治改变了薪资规制，一个强劲的中产阶级延续到了下一代。噢对了，战后几 十年还出现了空前的经济大增长。 Which brings me back to Walmart. 这就让我想到了沃尔玛的事。 The retailers wage hike seems to reflect the same forces that led to the Great Compression, albeit in a much weaker form. Walmart is under
16、 political pressure over wages so low that a substantial number of employees are on food stamps and Medicaid. Meanwhile, workers are gaining clout thanks to an improving labor market, reflected in increasing willingness to quit bad jobs. 这家零售商的加薪，似乎是有一股力量在起作用，同样是这种力量当年促成了“大压 缩”，只不过这次的力量要小很多。沃尔玛是承受着政
17、治压力的，它的薪资太低，以 至于相当一部分员工要靠食物券和联邦医疗补助(Medicaid)过活。与此同时，随着劳动 力市场的改善，工人的势力在增加，这体现为辞去烂工作的意愿有所增强。 Whats interesting, however, is that these pressures dont seem all that severe, at least so far yet Walmart is ready to raise wages anyway. And its justification for the move echoes what critics of its low-wag
18、e policy have been saying for years: Paying workers better will lead to reduced turnover, better morale and higher productivity. 然而有意思的是，这些压力看起来不算特别大，至少目前是这样 但沃尔玛还是打 算加薪了。它提出的理由，和多年来一直在批评其低薪策略的人看法一致：给工人更 高的报酬会降低雇员流失率，提升士气和生产力。 What this means, in turn, is that engineering a significant pay raise for
19、 tens of millions of Americans would almost surely be much easier than conventional wisdom suggests. Raise minimum wages by a substantial amount; make it easier for workers to organize, increasing their bargaining power; direct monetary and fiscal policy toward full employment, as opposed to keeping
20、 the economy depressed out of fear that well suddenly turn into Weimar Germany. Its not a hard list to implement and if we did these things we could make major strides back toward the kind of society most of us want to live in. 进而我们看到，为成千上万的美国人策划一场大幅度的加薪，几乎可以肯定没有通常 认为的那么难。将最低工资标准充分上调；为工人组成工会提供便利，增加他
21、们的议 价权；以充分就业为目标制定直接的货币和财政政策，不要因为担心我们会一夜之间 变成魏玛德国，就去把经济保持在萧条的状态。这些举措要实施起来并不难 如果 我们去做，我们就能大踏步地向前迈进，实现我们理想中的社会。 The point is that extreme inequality and the falling fortunes of Americas workers are a choice, not a destiny imposed by the gods of the market. And we can change that choice if we want to. 我想说，极端的不平等和美国工人的财富流失是一个选择，不是市场诸神强加给我们 的命运。选择可以改变，只要我们愿意。 更多英语学习方法：企业英语培训
