海天英语课外补充阅读资料

1、海天英语课外补充阅读资料（1）（2013年4月10日4月20日）【注意事项】：本文通过2012年美国总统大选中候选人针对贫困阶层政策的讨论，系统描述和分析当今美国社会的贫困问题。本文有大量经典长难句、地道英文表达、美国文化和社会背景介绍、经济学和政治学专业词汇，篇幅较长，难度略高于考研真题。同学们在完成当周讲义学习和之前讲义复习的基础上，可以进行阅读。但也要按照课堂的要求进行精读。切记不要为了阅读此文而忽略讲义内容，不可主次不分；也不可泛泛而读，否则起不到补充训练的效果。本文有任何细节不懂，也可以随时向我提问。另，本文最后附有对部分生僻背景知识的注释。海天英语老师 赵南望The poor in

2、 America美国的贫困阶级Americas poor were little mentioned in Barack Obamas re-election campaign. They deserve better巴拉克·奥巴马的连任竞选几乎没有提到美国的穷人们。这对他们来说很不公平。(2012年11月10日，经济学人)You do what you can尽力而为When Barack Obama first ran for president, Emma Hamilton was part of that politically crucial cohort, the whi

3、te working class. A tall woman with tawny hair, broad shoulders, a firm handshake and a forthright, direct manner, Ms Hamilton worked as a loader at a factory in Sumter, a modest city of 40,000 in east-central South Carolina. In July 2008, however, after seven years on the factory floor, she mangled

4、 her hand between two heavy rollers. The accident was to leave her unable to work.2 / 15在巴拉克·奥巴马第一次竞选总统时，艾玛·汉密尔顿（Emma Hamilton）还在工作。当时的她属于在美国政治中起到举足轻重作用的阶级群体白人工人中的一员。汉密尔顿女士高个子，宽肩膀，长着一头褐发，举止直率，握手有力。她在南卡罗来纳州中东部一个4万人的小镇苏姆特上做工厂装货工干了七年。不幸的是，在2008年7月发生的一起工厂事故中，她的手被卷入两个重型滚筒之间。这次事故让她无法再继续工作。She lo

5、st her house three years later, in April 2011. She, her 20-year-old son and her dog moved into her teal Chevy van, where they have been living ever since, collecting metal cans during the day and sleeping in a grocery-store car park at night.三年之后，她在2011年4月失去了住的房子。于是，她和20岁的儿子以及家里的狗一起搬到她那辆蓝绿色的雪佛兰货车货厢内

6、居住。直到现在，他们依然住在货车里，每天白天捡易拉罐，晚上则把车停在一间杂货店门口的停车场上过夜。When a pain in Ms Hamiltons leg grew too severe to ignore, an employee at the shelter where she and her son occasionally stay directed her to the Excelsior Medical Clinic in downtown Sumter. The assistant who checked her in was named Patricia Dunham.

7、Ms Dunham has cinnamon-coloured skin, arresting blue eyes and an easy, infectious laugh. She works at the Excelsior for 37.5 hours each week. At night she works behind the counter at a fast-food restaurant. The first job pays $12.50 an hour, the second $7.25, the federal minimum wage. If she could r

8、ely on 24 hours a week at the restaurantwhich is what she would likeshe would earn $32,137.50 for working 61.5 hours a week, 50 weeks a year, before tax witholdings.汉密尔顿女士偶尔会和她儿子去一间收容所里居住。当汉密尔顿夫人腿上的疼痛剧烈的无法容忍时，一位她和她儿子偶尔住过的收容所的雇员介绍她去苏姆特市中心的精益医疗中心问诊。在那里为她挂号的助手名叫帕特丽夏·邓纳姆（Patricia Dunham）。邓纳姆女士有着淡红褐

9、色的皮肤，引人注目的蓝色双眸。她的笑声爽朗自在，很具有感染力。她每周在精益医疗中心工作37.5个小时。每天晚上她会在快餐店站柜台。前一份工作薪水为每小时12.50美元，后一份工作每小时则只有7.25美元，这是联邦政府规定的工资下限。如果她一周可以在快餐店打工24小时（她希望能够获得这么多工时），那么她每周工作61.5小时，一年工作50周的税前总收入会是32137.50美元。Ms Dunham has three school-age children and a husband who is unable to work. Mr Dunham has a prison record, and

10、since 2010 he has had periodic seizures that leave him bedridden for days afterwards. Ms Dunham has no health insurance at her jobs. She pays for her husbands anti-seizure medicine and her seven-year-olds attention-deficit medicine out of her own pocket.邓纳姆女士有三个还在上学年龄的孩子，她的丈夫不能工作。邓纳姆先生有过前科，而且在2010年后

11、就周期性频发癫痫，每次发作后都得在床上躺好几天。邓纳姆女士的工作不提供医疗保险。她必须自掏腰包为丈夫的抗癫痫药物和她七岁大孩子的治疗多动症药物买单。She and her husband are still paying off a $2,100 loan they had to take out in 2010 to bury Mr Dunhams mother, but car payments are no longer a concern: Ms Dunham fell behind, and shortly after your correspondent met her her c

12、ar was repossessed. Her medical office is in walking distance of her home, but the fast-food restaurant is not. Her shift ends late and the streets are not the safest.她和丈夫还在偿还2010年为了给邓纳姆先生的母亲办葬礼所借下的2100美元贷款，不过她已经不用为汽车贷款担心了。因为无法按时支付贷款，在笔者采访后不久她的汽车就被收走了。她工作的医疗中心离家并不远，可以步行上下班。但是那间快餐店则不然。她每天的轮班很晚才会结束，而晚

13、上城里的街道并不安全。These are two snapshots of life on the American margins. Some 15% of Americans (around 46.2m people) live below the poverty line, as Ms Hamilton does (see chart 1). You have to go back to the early 1960sbefore Lyndon Johnsons Great Society programmesto find a significantly higher rate. Ma

14、ny more, like Ms Dunham, have incomes above the poverty line but nevertheless cannot meet their families basic monthly needs, and there are signs that their number is growing.在她们身上你可以看到美国边缘阶级的两副画面。现在有约15%的美国人（大约4620万人）像汉密尔顿女士一样生活在贫困线以下。要在美国历史里找到上一次贫困率明显高于今天的时期，你得一直倒朔回20世纪60年代初林登·约翰逊（Lyndon John

15、son）的“伟大社会”政策注1实施之前。另一方面，还有数量多得多的美国人和邓纳姆女士一样，他们的收入虽位于贫困线之上，但却不够满足其家庭的每月基本需求。而且现在有越来越多迹象显示这一人群的数量正在增加。Getting stickier日益棘手Once upon a time the fates of these people weighed heavily on American politicians. Ronald Reagan boasted about helping the poor by freeing them from having to pay federal income

16、tax. Jack Kemp, Bob Doles running-mate in 1996, sought to spearhead a “new war on poverty.” George W. Bush called “deep, persistent povertyunworthy of our nations promise”.曾几何时，穷困人民的命运是美国政治家心头的一副重担。罗纳德·里根（Ronald Reagan）以帮助穷人而自傲，他使得穷人可以免交联邦所得税。1996年大选时鲍勃·多尔（Bob Dole）的竞选搭档杰克·凯普（Jack Kem

17、p）试图带头“打一场新的反贫困战争”。小布什（George W. Bush）称“严重而持久的贫困现象辜负了美国对人民作出的承诺”注2。No longer. Budgets are tight and the safety net is expensive. Mitt Romney famously said he was not “concerned about the very poor” because they have a safety net to take care of them. Mr Obamas second-term plan mentioned poverty once

18、, and on the trail he spoke gingerly of “those aspiring to the middle class”. “Poor” is a four-letter word.但这已成为过去。如今政府预算吃紧，而社会保障系统又费用高昂。米特·罗姆尼（Mitt Romney）公开宣称他“不关心那些非常穷困的人”，因为那些人有社会保障照料。奥巴马的第二任计划书内仅有一处提到贫困问题，在整个竞选过程中他在提到贫困阶级时一直小心翼翼地称其为“那些争取跻身中产阶级的人们”。“贫穷”一词看来已经变成了禁语。Mr Obamas re-election and

19、Democratic control of the Senate give federal anti-poverty programmes a level of security they would have lacked under a Romney administration. But Americas poor face systemic challenges beyond the aid of any single administration or programme. Once diligent high-school dropouts could get a job on a

20、 factory line and work their way into the middle class: no longer. The low-skill, high-wage jobs that many used to climb out of poverty in the 20th century are largely gone. Deteriorating family structure among the poor threatens to trap poor children at the bottom of the income ladder for life. And

21、 looming cuts to discretionary spending threaten Americas already thin safety net.奥巴马赢得连任，加上民主党控制了参议院让扶贫政策获得了一定程度上的保障，如果罗姆尼上任的话，这些政策恐怕是凶多吉少了。但即使如此，美国的穷人依然面临着方方面面的巨大问题，这些并不是单靠某届政府，或是某个项目就能够解决的。过去勤奋的高中辍学生可以找到工厂流水线上的工作，并在这些岗位上逐步跻身中产阶级。现在情况则大不一样了，20世纪曾帮助很多人脱贫的低技术、高薪水工作现在基本已经消失。穷困阶级内日益恶化的家庭结构问题意味着穷人家的孩子终

22、生被困在收入阶梯最底层的机会越来越大。而政府可支配开支注3即将面临的巨大削减也将进一步威胁到本来已非常薄弱的美国社会保障系统。The 15% poverty rate is calculated using the official federal poverty threshold of $11,702 in annual income for an individual or $23,201 for a family of four, which is about 44% of median income for an individual and 30% for a family of

23、four. The OECD, a rich-country club, provides comparative figures for a poverty line of 40% of median household income after tax and transfer. On that basis Americas rate is 11%, well above the OECD average of 6% (see chart 2).上述15%的贫困率是根据联邦政府的贫困标准算出的。该标准将贫困线定在个人年收入低于11702美元（美国个人中位收入值的44%），或是四口之家年收入

24、低于23201美元（美国四口之家中位收入值的30%）。主要由发达国家组成的经济合作和发展组织（OECD）将贫困线定在税收和补贴计算之后的中位家庭收入值的40%。如果按这个标准来算，美国的贫困率应该是11%，这要大大高于OECD所有成员的平均值6%。Popular images of American poverty summon up Appalachia or Oaklandrural whites and urban blacksand there is much truth in that. Most counties exhibiting persistent povertymeani

25、ng counties with poverty rates of 20% or higher, consistently, from 1990 to 2010are indeed in rural America (see map). And the overall rate of poverty is highest in large cities. While a plurality of the poor19.2mare non-Hispanic white, the rates of poverty are higher among minorities; over a quarte

26、r of both blacks and Latinos live in poverty, while only a tenth of whites do.提到美国的穷人，人们脑中最先想到的往往是阿巴拉契亚或奥克兰这两处分别代表穷困的农村白人和城市黑人这种印象确实和很多现实情况相吻合。美国大多数持续贫困县（指贫困率在1990年到2010年之间一直处于20%或以上的县）确实都是农村地区。而整体贫困率最高的地方则往往是大都市。虽然超过半数的穷人（1920万）是非拉丁裔白人，少数族裔中的贫困率往往更高。黑人和拉丁裔中的贫困率都超过四分之一，而白人中仅有十分之一生活在贫困线以下。The child-p

27、overty rate is higher, according to a UNICEF report, than that in Japan, Canada or any European country other than Romania, and it blights lives. A child from a family in Americas bottom quintile of earners is markedly less likely than a child born into the top quintile to be ready for school at fiv

28、e. He is less likely to graduate from high school with decent grades; he is more likely while still of school age to become a parent or be convicted of a crime. Degrees and high earnings are even less probable.根据联合国儿童基金会（UNICEF）的一份报告，美国的儿童贫困率比日本、加拿大以及除罗马尼亚外所有的欧洲国家都要高，而儿童贫困对于受影响者的生活会造成巨大打击。拿两个孩子为例，其中

29、一个的家庭排在全美国收入最低的五分之一家庭内，另一个的家庭则排在美国收入最高的五分之一家庭里，那么前者在5岁时达到可入学上课水平的机会比后者要低得多。前一个孩子将来以较好的成绩从高中毕业的机会更低，也更有可能还在就学年龄就当上父母或是犯罪，大学文凭和高收入对他来说更是遥不可及。For most, poverty will be a temporary condition; chronic poverty remains relatively rare. But it does seem to be growing more common. Only 2.8% of Americans were

30、 poor throughout the 36 months starting in January 2004. In 2009-10, after the crisis, that share rose to 4.8%. Another problem which got worse during the crisis, but was growing beforehand, is suburban poverty. The number of poor people living in the suburbs grew 53% between 2000 and 2010 as decade

31、s of suburban flight reversed and Americas cities once again became desirable places to work, attracting back better-off suburbanites and damaging marginal suburban economies. The financial crisis made things worse, particularly in the once-booming sunbelt. As of 2008 more than a third of Americas p

32、oor live in suburbs.对于大多数人来说，贫困只是个暂时现象。长期贫困相对来说还是比较罕见的。但这种现象正在变得越来越普及。从2004年1月开始算起的36个月内生活一直处于贫困线之下的美国人只有2.8%。而在金融危机之后，在20092010年间，这个比例上跳到了4.8%。市郊贫困是另一个在金融危机期间变得更严重的问题，只不过这个问题早在危机之前就已呈恶化趋势。2000年至2010年间生活在市郊的穷人数目增长了整整53%。在这段时间内，之前持续了几十年的移居市郊趋势开始逆转，美国城市重新开始吸引人们前来工作，一些经济宽裕的市郊人士纷纷移回市内居住，这对一些边缘的市郊经济造成了巨大

33、破坏。金融危机让这个问题进一步加剧，其影响在曾经繁荣的阳光地带注4特别显著。2008年美国穷人中有超过三分之一居住在市郊地区。Imprisoned in poverty, and vice versa被穷困禁锢，在禁锢中变穷In 2010 10.5m Americans counted as working poor, meaning they spent 27 weeks in the labour force but still lived below the poverty line. This was the highest number since the Bureau of Lab

34、our Statistics started keeping track in 1987. The number would be much higher if it included people such as Ms Dunham, unable to meet all her familys needs despite being above the poverty line2010年，共有1050万美国人属于穷困工薪阶级。这意味着这些人每年至少工作27周，但还是处于贫困线以下。这是美国劳工统计局自1987年开始统计这一数据以来的最高值。如果算入像是邓纳姆女士这样位于贫困线以上，但无法满

35、足所有家庭需要的人士，这个数字还会高得多。A common lament is that, 40 or 50 years ago, motivated workers with little formal education, like Ms Dunham, would have been able to find factory jobs that paid a decent wage with benefits. But low-skilled and humdrum jobs, particularly in manufacturing, have gone overseas, or f

36、allen victim to automation. Only low-level service jobs have been left in their wake (almost a third of the working poor are in the service sector). This is an oversimplificationmanufacturing jobs are not invariably higher paying than service jobsbut there is some truth to it.经常可以听到这样的叹息：四五十年前，像邓纳姆女

37、士那样勤劳肯干但没受过什么正规教育的工人可以找到一份工资不错、且拥有各种福利的工厂工作。但低技能和单调工作，尤其是制造业岗位不是流失到海外，就是变成自动化的牺牲品。只有低技能服务业岗位得以保存下来（穷困工薪阶级有将近三分之一从事的是服务业）。这样的感叹有点把事情过于简化，制造业的岗位薪水并不一定比服务业高。即使如此，这些感叹依然道出了一些真相。Wages for low earners have been largely stagnant for the past 40 years. Between 1947 and 1967, hourly wages of private, non-sup

38、ervisory workers, who comprise more than 80% of American wage-earners, grew by an average of 2.3% a year. In the past three decades, however, hourly wages rose by a paltry 0.2% annually. From 2007 to 2011 average hourly wages fell for the bottom 70% of American workers, with the steepest drops for t

39、he lowest-paid.美国低收入员工的薪水在过去40年几乎没有什么变化。美国工作人口中有超过80%在私有企业非管理类岗位就职，而在1947年至1967年间，这些岗位的时薪平均每年增加2.3%。但在过去三十年里，这类工作的时薪平均每年只增长了微薄的0.2%。2007年到2011年间，全美收入最高的30%以外的所有工作人士的平均时薪都减少了，而收入最低者时新减少得最厉害。As well as declines in wages, the crisis brought a sharp reduction in the proportion of the population of worki

40、ng age in the workforce. In the early 2000s the proportion was between 62% and 63%. By 2010 it was below 59%. The longer someone is out of work the harder it becomes to get back in, which could turn the temporary macroeconomic problem of high unemployment in the slump into a structural shift towards

41、 poverty.除了薪水缩减以外，金融危机也大幅度减少了工作人士在适工年龄人群中所占的比例。在2000年代初期，工作参与率介于62%和63%之间。到2010年这个数字跌到59%以下。失业时间越长，要重新找到工作也越困难。这样一来，经济萧条时期的高失业率这本应是暂时性的宏观经济问题慢慢转变成了向贫困靠拢的结构性变迁。Americas phenomenally high incarceration rate also plays a part. Mr Dunhams prison record is not unusual; 37% of young black high-school drop

42、outs have one. Time in prison makes a person more likely to earn less, more likely to have trouble holding on to a job and less likely to be married. Roughly three-quarters of high-school dropouts with prison records never make it above the bottom income quintile. The eightfold growth in the prison

43、population from 1970 to 2010 has turned ever more poor decisions into poor lives.美国高得异乎寻常的监禁率也加剧了这个问题。杜纳姆先生的前科记录并不稀奇。黑人高中辍学青年中有37%都有前科。在牢里呆过的人收入更有可能会较低，也更难长时间呆在一个岗位上，同时结婚的机会也更小。有前科的高中辍学人士中有大约四分之三再也没有逃出过全美收入最低的五分之一人士这个圈子。1970年到2010年间美国监狱监禁人数翻了八倍，越来越多的人因一时犯错而身陷穷困。Then there is deteriorating family str

44、ucture among the poor. In 1965 Daniel Patrick Moynihan, then working on Lyndon Johnsons “war on poverty”, warned of the breakdown in family structure among black families. A quarter were headed by women, he wrote in “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action”, and nearly a quarter of black chil

45、dren were, in the language of the time, “illegitimate”. Today the unmarried birth rate for Americans averaged across all ethnicities is higher than that, at almost 41%. For white women who did not finish high school, that proportion rises to over 60%.穷人中的家庭结构也在逐渐恶化。1965年曾为林登·约翰逊总统那场“反贫困战争”出力的丹尼

46、尔·帕特里克·莫伊尼汉（Daniel Patrick Moyniha）警告黑人家庭结构面临着分崩离析的危险。在他所著的黑人家庭：需要举国行动的问题一书里，他指出有四分之一的黑人家庭是由女性当家，而有将近四分之一黑人儿童用当时的话来说是“私生儿”。今天美国所有族裔的平均未婚生育率已远远超过那个数字，将近41%。而在未读完高中的白人女性中这个比例要超过60%。You do what you can尽力而为Most poor children live in single-parent homes, and most families that are poor lack mar

47、ried parents. More than a third of families like Ms Hamiltonsheaded by a single mother, with no husband presentare poor, compared with fewer than one in fourteen families with married parents. Back in 1999 Isabel Sawhill, a poverty scholar at the Brookings Institution, a think-tank, warned of “a bif

48、urcation in childrens life prospects that threatens to divide the US into a society of haves and have-nots”a bifurcation driven largely by the immense difference in life prospects between children born to rich or poor and to married or unmarried parents.大多数贫困儿童都身处单身家庭中，而大多数贫困家庭里的父母都没有结婚。和汉密尔顿女士的家庭类似

49、，主要经济来源是没有丈夫帮助的单身母亲的家庭有超过三分之一生活在贫困线以下。相较之下已婚父母家庭中贫困的比例不到十四分之一。智囊组织布鲁金斯学院的贫困问题学者伊萨贝尔·扫希尔（Isabel Sawhill）在1999年就警告说儿童前途的两极化会把美国分裂成贫富两个群体。这种两极化很大程度上是因为出生在贫穷和富裕家庭里的孩子之间，或出生在父母已婚和单身父母家庭里的孩子之间在前途上存在着巨大差异。It is not hard to see why marriage aids stability. Consider Ms Hamilton, whose husband is out of

50、the picture. She has no family to fall back on. She has one sister living with multiple sclerosis and a bad heart in an apartment complex that does not allow overnight visitors. Her other sister, also in her 60s, has a husband who does not work and has had cancer for years; they just lost their hous

51、e. Her son, fortunately, was past childhood when they fell into extreme poverty; had he been younger his future would have been bleaker.婚姻对稳定生活有利这一点不难看出。看看汉密尔顿女士，她完全没有丈夫帮助。她也没有任何可供依靠的亲人。她有一个姊妹患有多发性硬化症，而且心脏不好。她住的宿舍大楼不允许客人过夜。她另一位姊妹也60多岁了，丈夫没有工作且罹患癌症多年，他们的房子也刚刚被收走。幸运的是，汉密尔顿女士身陷极度贫困的时候她儿子已经长大，如果他年纪再小一些，

52、那贫困将会对他的未来产生更大的影响。To see how marriage can help, consider Ms Dunham. Her situation is precarious, but without Mr Dunham at home to take care of the children it would be worse. She would have to spend more on child care. Her children would receive less supervisionMr Dunham is fond of warning Ms Dunham

53、s 15-year-old son of the perils of “hardheadedness” and gang life, which he blames for his own failings. And though his work may be sporadic and informal, it can swell the family coffers. When Ms Sawhill refers to marriage as providing a “reserve army” for the familyan extra helper, an extra earnert

54、his is what she means.要想知道婚姻如何能够帮助克服贫困，我们可以看看杜纳姆女士的例子。她的情况并不算好，但如果没有杜纳姆先生在家带孩子则可能会更糟。如果没有丈夫，她将不得不花钱在托儿所上，而且她的孩子受到的看管也会更少。邓纳姆先生喜欢警告他们15岁的儿子“无同情心”和加入帮会会带来多大的灾难。他把自己人生的失败归咎于这两点上。而且虽然邓纳姆先生只能不定期地打点小工，这些收入还是能够帮补到家用。扫希尔女士称婚姻为家庭的“预备军”就是指婚姻可以提供多一个帮手，多一份收入。America is not blind nor indifferent to the problems

55、of poverty, even if its rich and poor increasingly live separate lives in separate neighbourhoods, and with different social mores. The poor are helped by a number of programmes, some of them now creaking under the strain. The amount the federal government spends on food stamps hit a record $75.7 bi

56、llion in the 2011 fiscal yearmore than double the level of 2008. Enrolment in Medicaid, through which federal and state governments provide health care to low-income Americans, has grown every year since 2008, though its 2012 growth was the slowest since the recession began, and its spending grew at

57、 a lower level than enrolment because of federal and state cost-control measures. In 2011 states disbursed $113.3 billion in unemployment benefits to 9.9m recipients, as well as roughly $16.6 billion received in block grants as part of a federal programme called Temporary Assistance for Needy Famili

58、es.虽然美国的穷人和富人越来越倾向于住在互不相干的社区内，双方的习惯风俗也截然不同，但美国并没有对贫困问题视而不见、或漫不关心。穷人受到数个政府项目的贴补，其中一些更是因为资助金额过大而不堪重负。联邦政府花在食物券上的开支在2011财年达到创纪录的757亿美元，是2008年开支的两倍有余。联邦和州级政府为低收入美国人提供的医保计划医疗补助的注册人数自2008年以来每年都有所上升。不过2012年医疗补助注册人数的增长是经济衰退以来最小的，而且因为各种联邦和州级开支控制措施，医疗补助的开支增长并没有注册人数增长那么快。2011年各州政府总共为990万名人士提供了总共1133亿美元的失业补助。此外

59、，做为联邦政府名为“贫困家庭临时救助”项目的一部份，各州政府也已发放了联邦政府分配的总额166亿美元的综合拨款。Hardly a hammock和舒适沾不上边注5That said, America is unusually reluctant, compared with other rich countries, about giving cash transfers to the poor. The country has a long-standing political aversion to anything that seems to “reward” being poor; instead, it fights poverty using a progressive, if somewhat paternalistic, tax code.