财富杂志萎缩的中产阶级(1)（打印版）

The vast majority of Americans consider themselves "middle class." No one can quite agree, though, on what that means.

绝大多数美国人认为自己是“中产阶级”。但对于中产阶级的定义，没人能够达成一致意见。

Richard Reeves, along with colleagues at the Brookings Institution,

Richard Reeves和布鲁金斯学会的同事

has cataloged no fewer than a dozen economic formulas that seek to define this elastic cohort largely by what people earn each year:

共同编制了不少于12种经济公式，试图主要根据人们的年收入来定义这一弹性群体：

household income between X and Y; personal income that's within some percentage of the national median; distance from the poverty line; and so on.

家庭收入在X和Y之间；个人收入在全国中位数的某个百分比内；远离贫困线等等。

Combine the lot, and the range of who might be considered middle class is extraordinarily expansive—

将这些因素结合起来，可被认为是中产阶级的人的范围就非常大了——

including anyone from a single, part-time bartender scratching by on $13,000 a year

比如靠着1.3万美元年薪勉强糊口的单身兼职酒保

to a suburban power couple pulling in $230,000, or 90% of American households in all.

以及住在郊区，年收入23万美元的模范夫妇，或者是90%的美国家庭。

Other economists and social scientists stretch the boundaries of membership in different dimensions,

其他经济学家和社会科学家们从不同的维度拓展了中产阶级成员资格的界限，

based on degrees of wealth or spending power, professional status or education level, what neighborhood you live in,

以财富和消费能力、专业地位或教育水平、居住社区为依据，

or even on that very American of conceits, self-determination—which is to say, if you think you're middle class, you are.

甚至是以美国人的自负和自我决定为依据——也就是说，如果你认为自己是中产阶级，那么你就是。

"I sometimes think there are as many definitions of the middle class as there are Americans claiming to be middle class," says Reeves,

“有时我认为，对中产阶级有多少种定义就有多少美国人宣称自己是中产阶级，”Reeves说到，

a senior fellow at Brookings and director of its Future of the Middle Class Initiative,

他是布鲁金斯学会的高级研究员，也是中产阶级未来倡议的负责人，

who quickly throws in one of his favorite noneconomic definitions: "You're middle class if you have two refrigerators.

他很快给出了一个他最喜欢的非经济定义：“如果你有两台冰箱，那么你就是中产阶级。

You have a new one in your kitchen, and you have your old one in the garage or basement, where you keep your beer."

你的厨房里有一台新的，你的旧冰箱在车库或你存放啤酒的地下室里。”

The U.S. is a middle-class nation—it was founded on middle-class ideals, he continues.

美国是一个中产阶级国家——它是建立在中产阶级理想之上的，他继续说到。

And so defining one's self as middle class is, perhaps counterintuitively, aspirational in some ways.

所以将自己定义为中产阶级可能在某种程度上是有反常识的，也是充满抱负的。

"Americans don't like the idea of seeing themselves as upper crust, snobs, snooty, aristocrats, upper class, et cetera," says Reeves,

“美国人不喜欢把自己看成是上流社会、势利的人、傲慢的人、贵族、上层阶级等等，”Reeves说到，

an economist and self-described "recovered Brit" who has written a new book, Dream Hoarders, precisely on that rarefied American upper crust.

他是一名自诩“病愈的英国人”的经济学家，他写的新书《Dream Hoarders》正是针对这一高高在上的美国上流社会。

"People also don't like to think of themselves as poor, or even as working class.

“人们不喜欢把自己看成是穷人，或工人阶级。

To the extent that the U.S. has a class consciousness, it tends to be around the middle class."

就美国的阶级意识而言，它往往是围绕着中产阶级。”