Unemployment in America

A painful job to do

奥巴马面临艰难形势

Nov 7th 2008 | WASHINGTON, DC

From Economist.com

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As unemployment surges Barack Obama will have to take some awkward economic decisions

严峻的失业状况促使巴拉克·奥巴马不得不采取一系列棘手的经济决策。

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IT HAS been a sobering end to the week for Barack Obama. In his first two days after winning election he was greeted by a 10% plunge in the stockmarket. Then on Friday November 7th he got the news that unemployment had shot up to a 14-year high of 6.5% in October and non-farm employment had plunged by 240,000 from September.

巴拉克·奥巴马度过了一个令人清醒的周末。在他选举获胜的两天内，股票市场就以10%的跌幅“回敬”了他。周五（即11月7日），他得知10月的失业率已上升到了6.5%，这是14年以来的最高点，非农就业人口从9月起也减少了24万人。

The headlines are bad enough, but the details of the report paint an even more alarming picture: they suggest that the pace of erosion in the labour market is accelerating, and that it had begun to do so before the failure of Lehman Brothers in mid-September sharply worsened the global financial crisis.

（报告的）开头已经令人头疼，但是报告的细节更令人警醒：有迹象表明劳动力市场的萎靡正在加速，而这一趋势早在9月中旬莱曼兄弟破产深深地激化全球金融危机之前，就已经开始了。

The job losses in September were revised up to 284,000. Non-farm employment has fallen by 0.5% in three months, on a par with the worst of the 2001 recession. A worse picture emerges from the unemployment rate, which is based on a separate survey of households. It has risen by 1.5 points in six months, the most rapid rise in such a period since 1982. The fact that unemployment gives a gloomier impression than employment suggests that people who fail to find work are not leaving the labour force as much as they typically did. That may be because losses on retirement savings and homes have deprived many of the option of sitting out of the workforce for a spell.

9月份的失业人口数修正到了284,000人。非农人口就业率在3个月内跌了0.5%，这与2001年衰退时的数据持平。还有一个关于失业率的更糟糕的情况，它是基于对家庭经济的独立调查而得出来的。这一失业率在6个月内上升了1.5%，这是自1982年以来最快的上升速度。失业比就业更打击人心，这表明那些找不到工作的人口并不打算离开劳动力队伍，如同他们努力做的那样。这可能是因为养老储蓄和住宅的丧失暂时剥夺了人们不做劳动力的选择。

As for the timing, Michael Feroli of JPMorgan Chase notes that the September data were gathered in the week beginning September 7th, in the days before Lehman failed. “Whereas it had been thought the financial crisis pushed a teetering economy over the edge, it now looks like that crisis kicked an economy that was already down,” Mr Feroli wrote.

危机发生一段时间后，摩根大通的Michael Feroli指出，9月份的数据是在9月7日开始的这一周统计的，刚好在雷曼兄弟垮台之前。“尽管人们认为金融危机使得经济在边缘摇摆，但现在看来，此次危机使得已经下行的经济雪上加霜。”Feroli写到。

The job losses were widespread: 49,000 from construction, 90,000 from manufacturing (although 27,000 of those were caused by a Boeing strike which has since ended), 38,000 from retailers, and 16,000 from leisure and hospitality. Only education, health care and government showed gains, and this latter growth may not be sustained as states tighten their belts. Rising unemployment is capping wage gains: hourly pay rose by just 0.2% from September. It is up by 3.5% from a year earlier, but is bound to slow.

失业涉及到的行业极为广泛：建筑业失业49,000人，制造业失业90,000人（虽然其中27,000人是因为已经结束的波音事件而失业），零售业失业38,000人，娱乐休闲业失业16,000人。只有教育、医疗卫生和政府部门的就业有所增长，但后续增长可能因国家勒紧裤腰带过日而难以为继。不断升高的失业率促使薪金提升：9月以来以小时计算的工资提高了0.2%，这比一年前提高了3.5%，但增长速度注定会下降。

Grim as it is, the report says little about where the economy goes from here. The pattern of job losses is similar to what occurred after the September 2001 terrorist attacks, a period that actually marked the bottom of the recession (though not of job losses) as unprecedented fiscal and monetary firepower was brought to bear. The financial meltdown of this past September and October was in some ways similar: the collapse and near collapse of a series of financial institutions; the heart-stopping plunge in the stockmarket, and the death and resurrection of the $700 billion bail-out package transfixed the country and may have kept consumers out of shops.

依然严峻的是，报告对经济向何处去的问题几乎没有提及。失业的结构与2001年9月恐怖袭击后发生的情况及其相似，那段时间里，经济衰退到低谷（尽管不是失业到如此程度），前所未有的财政与货币政策被用来拯救经济。此次发生于去年9月和10月的金融垮台在一些方面与前述相似：大批金融机构破产或接近破产；股市发生大幅下跌，7000亿美元的救援计划震惊全国，此举可能刺激国内消费需求。（此句不知如何翻译合适，恳请高手指点）

For the picture to get better, the stimulus from monetary and fiscal measures must take hold. There are some signs of that, albeit small. The vast expansion of Fed lending, Treasury capital injections into banks and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation bank-debt guarantees are producing results. Three-month dollar Libor—a handy measure of banks’ willingness to lend to each other—has fallen sharply from 4.82% on October 10th to 2.29% on Friday, a four-year low. A handful of companies have been able to issue bonds, and emerging-market currencies have risen off their lows, as the availability of $200 billion in short-term credit from the Fed and IMF eases fears of a liquidity squeeze. And on the real economy front, the National Association of Realtors said on Friday that its index of “pending” home sales—for which contracts have been signed but not settled—fell by 4.6%, which actually leaves the upward trend in sales intact, says Ian Shepherdson of High Frequency Economics, a consultancy.

为使情况有所好转，来自货币与财政政策的刺激方案必须得到施行。虽然迹象不明显，但已经发生了作用。美联储广泛借债，财政部将资金注入银行，联邦存款保险公司对银行欠款的保证都在发挥作用。3个月的美元伦敦银行同业拆借利率——银行期望相互借贷的便利工具——从10月10日的4.82%降到周五的2.29%，达到了4年来的最低点。许多公司已有能力发行债券，市场涌现的货币也改变了他们低迷的形势，来自美联储和国际货币基金组织（IMF）的2000亿美元的短期信贷起到了作用，它们减轻了市场对流动性紧缩的恐惧。在经济形势的前沿，全国房地产经纪人协会周五宣布，其“未确定的”房屋销售率——合同已签却没有实现交易——跌了4.6%，这一数字让销售上升的趋势成为不可能，咨询公司“高频经济学”的Ian Shepherdson认为。

The prospects for a second stimulus package (on top of the tax rebates sent out earlier this year) will rise, as a result of the jobs data. Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, has proposed that as much as $100 billion be passed in a “lame duck” session before the new Congress is seated early next year. It would include extended unemployment benefits, aid to the states for health-care programmes, more infrastructure spending and other items. She also wants to see another package soon after Mr Obama becomes president on January 20th, that would include permanent tax cuts. Presumably this would incorporate the $500 per worker, $1,000 per family “Making Work Pay” tax credit that was a centerpiece of Mr Obama’s campaign platform.

人们因为对失业状况的不满，对第二波刺激方案（减退税款在今年早期已经施行）的期待将会继续。白宫发言人Nancy Pelosi提出，1000亿美元的刺激方案将会在“跛脚鸭”（比喻——指糟糕的经济情况）期间、在新的议会于明年早期入驻之前获得通过。其中将包括更广范围的失业保障，以帮助健康医疗项目的进行，对基础设施建设投入更大等等。她还希望在奥巴马1月20日成为总统后看到更多的刺激方案，其中将包括永久的减税措施。也许这将与给每位工作者500美元、每个家庭1000美元的“让工作得到薪金”的税收计划相结合，成为奥巴马施政策略的中心内容。

Mr Obama, who was due to meet his Transition Economic Advisory Board on Friday, may press for even more. But with his first budget deficit likely to be over $1 trillion, he also needs to calm investors by matching this up-front stimulus with a long-term plan to get the budget back in balance. Given the high price tag of his own many promises, the withering impact of the recession on tax revenue, and the looming surge in retirement and medical costs for retiring baby boomers, that is no easy act.

奥巴马因在周五与他的转型经济咨询委员会会面，可能会承诺更多。但是因第一笔预算赤字已经高达1万亿美元，他还需要让实施的刺激方案有长远的规划，以使得预算回归平衡以安抚投资者。人们对他的许多承诺抱有很高的期望，但面对税收收入方面由衰退带来的负面影响，退休大军的源源不断和婴儿潮需要的医疗支出，形势确实够严峻的。

Libor 伦敦银行同业拆借利率 解释：

http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/2965572.html?si=2

原文网址：

http://www.economist.com/daily/news/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12583077