双语:贫富分化导致美国人权问题日益严重

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摘要Full Text: The Growing Division Between the Rich and the Poor Leading to Increasingly Severe Human Rights Issues in the United States

三、美国的贫富分化问题难以解决

Part 3 The Division Between the Rich and the Poor Remaining a Difficult Problem to Solve in the United States文章源自英文巴士-https://www.en84.com/9468.html

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导致美国贫富分化的原因并非是偶然性或周期性的,美国的所谓民主制度忽视公民的经济、社会和文化权利,导致美国社会贫富分化问题日趋严重,数千万人口的贫困问题长期得不到解决。文章源自英文巴士-https://www.en84.com/9468.html

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The causes of the division between the rich and the poor in the United States are not something occasional or periodic. The so-called US democratic system deprives its citizens of economic, social, and cultural rights, leading to a growing gap between the rich and the poor and the long-unsolved problem of poverty that affects tens of millions of people.文章源自英文巴士-https://www.en84.com/9468.html

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(一)导致贫富分化的结构性原因文章源自英文巴士-https://www.en84.com/9468.html

 文章源自英文巴士-https://www.en84.com/9468.html

(1) Structural Causes Leading to the Division Between the Rich and the Poor 文章源自英文巴士-https://www.en84.com/9468.html

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第一,资本市场的无序竞争和恶意收购导致中等收入工作岗位减少。盖洛普公司网站2016年9月20日报道,企业高价收购竞争对手导致中等收入工作岗位大幅度减少。此前的20年间,美国证券交易所上市公司的数量已经从约7300家锐减为3700家左右。美国近年来小企业的破产数量大于新成立的数量。英国《卫报》网站2017年12月8日报道,2017年美国年轻人的失业率高达15.9%。全职就业岗位不足,约有480万想做全职工作的人只能从事非全职工作。

 

First, disorderly competition in the capital market and hostile takeovers have resulted in fewer middle-income jobs in the United States. The Gallup website reported on September 20, 2016, that high-priced acquisitions of rival businesses resulted in a significant reduction in middle-income jobs, and that in the recent 20 years, the number of companies listed on the American stock exchanges had plummeted from 7,300 to about 3,700, and bankrupted small businesses had significantly outnumbered newly-established ones in recent years. The website of the British newspaper The Guardian reported on December 8, 2017, that in 2017, the unemployment rate of young US citizens was as high as 15.9 percent and that due to insufficient full-time jobs, about 4.8 million people who wanted to work full-time jobs could only engage in part-time jobs.

 

第二,住房价格的结构性上升导致低收入人群住房更加困难。美国全国房地产经纪人协会2018年对购房者进行的一项调查显示,由于住房价格上涨和利率上升,而负担能力下降,导致是否购房成为民众日益艰难的抉择。哈佛大学住房研究联合中心发布的《2018年美国住房状况》报告显示,在20个城市地区,超过30%的中产阶层家庭将他们至少30%的收入用于住房。《华盛顿邮报》网站2018年8月6日报道,城市贫穷居民近年来经历了房租的大幅上涨。自2011年以来,全国的最低房租增长了18%。特别值得关注的是,2017年夏季以来,在旧金山、亚特兰大、纳什维尔、芝加哥、费城、丹佛、匹兹堡、华盛顿、波特兰、俄勒冈州等地区,最高收入者的房租在下降,而最贫穷者的房租却在上涨。

 

Second, the structural rise in housing prices has made housing more unaffordable for low-income people in the United States. In 2018, the National Association of Realtors of the United States conducted a survey on home buyers and found that due to rising housing prices and interest rates, housing affordability declined and house purchasing was no longer an easy decision for home buyers. “The State of the Nation’s Housing 2018” released by the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies showed that in 20 urban areas, more than 30 percent of middle-class households spent at least 30 percent of their incomes on housing. The website of The Washington Post reported on August 6, 2018, that poor urban residents had experienced sharp increases in rent in recent years. According to the report, since 2011, the nation’s minimum rent has increased by 18 percent, and it is particularly noteworthy that since the summer of 2017, in San Francisco, Atlanta, Nashville, Chicago, Philadelphia, Denver, Pittsburgh, Washington, Portland, Oregon, and other places, the rent for the high-income group has fallen, while the rent for the poorest group has risen.

 

第三,高价低效的医疗服务导致低收入人群健康状况堪忧。美国民众健康状况下降与美国医疗系统的高价低效密切相关。根据英联邦基金会2014年对医疗服务体系的调查,在11个同水平国家中,美国的医疗服务体系效率最低,最不公平,医疗产出最差。美国的死亡率和婴儿死亡率均为最高,60岁人群的健康状况最差。但与在上述其他国家生活的人相比,美国人却要负担两倍以上的医疗费用。英国《卫报》网站2017年11月13日报道,美国的医疗费用和医疗保险越来越贵,尤其是慢性疾病的治疗费用,从哮喘到癌症的药物价格不断创出历史新高。

 

Third, due to the high-priced, inefficient medical services, the health conditions of low-income US people have deteriorated. The deteriorating health conditions of the US people are closely related to the high-priced, inefficient US medical system. According to a survey on medical service systems conducted by the Commonwealth Foundation in 2014, among the 11 countries at the same developmental level, the United States had the least efficient, least productive, and most unfair medical service system, it also had the highest mortality rate and infant mortality rate, and its citizens aged 60 had the worst health conditions. Besides this, the survey also showed that US citizens paid twice as much for medical services as those living in the other 10 countries did. The website of the British newspaper The Guardian reported on November 13, 2017, that medical costs and medical insurance in the United States were becoming increasingly expensive, especially those for the treatment of chronic diseases, and the prices of medicines treating asthma or cancer continued to hit record highs.

 

第四,高等教育收费飞涨剥夺了低收入群体接受高等教育的机会。盖洛普公司网站2017年8月3日报道,自1980年以来,没有任何可测指标证明美国高等教育质量提高,但收费却飞速增长。福布斯新闻网2017年2月21日报道,学生贷款债务成为仅次于抵押贷款债务的消费债务类别,高于信用卡和汽车贷款。有超过4400万名学生贷款上学,贷款额高达1.3万亿美元。2016级学生人均贷款37172美元。在一些地区,财政计划削减正在导致入学率下降。《芝加哥论坛报》网站2016年9月30日报道,很多州立大学新生入学人数大幅下降,例如,芝加哥州立大学的新生入学人数比2010年减少了一半,伊利诺斯大学新生人数比上一年下降约25%。华盛顿的一个无党派智库“预算和政策优先中心”2016年的研究报告显示,伊利诺斯州的公立高校对每个学生的资助水平比2008年降低了54%,而亚利桑那州的降幅更高达56%。根据世界银行2018年公布的《全球代际经济流动性概览》,以20世纪80年代出生的人作为研究对象,在通过教育实现阶层流动方面,美国是全球表现最差的50个经济体中仅有的4个高收入经济体之一,同时也是高收入经济体中在收入的代际流动性方面表现较差的经济体。

 

Fourth, the rising cost of higher education has deprived low-income groups of their opportunities to receive higher education in the United States. The Gallup website reported on August 3, 2017, that since 1980, there had been no measurable indicators showing any improvement in the quality of higher education in the United States, but the prices for higher education had increased rapidly. The Forbes website reported on February 21, 2017, that student loan debts had become the type of consumer debts second only to mortgage debt, outnumbering the total of credit cards and car loans. There are more than 44 million students relying on loans to continue their education, and the total amount of their loans is as high as US$1.3 trillion. The average per capita loan for students enrolled in 2016 was US$37,172. In some regions, cuts in fiscal plans are leading to a decline in school enrollment. The website of the Chicago Tribune reported on September 30, 2016, that the freshmen enrollment declined significantly in many state universities. For example, the number of freshmen enrolled in Chicago State University was half of what it was in 2010, and the number of freshmen enrolled in the University of Illinois has fallen by 25 percent from the previous year. A 2016 study made by a non-partisan think tank, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), showed that public colleges in Illinois reduced their per-capita funding for the students by 54 percent compared to the number in 2008, while in Arizona, there was a 56 percent reduction. In 2018, the World Bank released a report entitled Intergenerational Mobility around the World. It took the people born in the 1980s as its subject of research and found that the United States was one of the only four developed economies among the 50 economies that did the worst in realizing intergenerational mobility through education and that the United States was among the developed economies that did a bad job in actualizing intergenerational income mobility.

 

(二)美国政府缺乏扭转贫富分化的政治意愿

 

(2) The US Government Lacking the Political Will to Narrow the Gap Between the Rich and the Poor

 

美国政府缺乏政治意愿改变导致贫富分化的结构性根源,反而采取一系列加重贫富分化的政策措施。

 

The US government lacks the political will to change the structural roots that lead to the division of the rich and the poor. Instead, it adopts a series of policies and measures that further widen the gap.

 

第一,美国政府为刺激经济增长制定的政策措施仅着眼于使富人受益,而没有考虑如何使低收入人群减轻负担。联合国极端贫困与人权问题特别报告员菲利普·奥尔斯顿在2018年5月发表的访美报告中指出,美国现政府推行系列刺激经济增长措施,但发展成果仅惠及富人,普通民众并未获益。美国政府以牺牲社会福利为代价,对大公司和富有阶层实施前所未有的大规模减税计划,该策略似乎是为扩大不平等而量身定制。根据美国税收和经济政策研究所的分析,2019年美国通过减税产生的收益中预计有27%流入了美国最富有的1%人群的口袋。富人成为税改政策最大的受益群体。政府财政投入不足导致困难群体缺乏相应的社会保障。皮尤研究中心2015年8月18日发布的研究报告显示,美国用于社会保障的经费严重不足,2014年的收支逆差约为740亿美元。美国受托人社会保障和医疗保险信托基金2015年的报告显示,美国社会保障系统已有25.8万亿美元的亏损,这几乎是美国年度GDP总量的1.5倍。

 

First, the US government’s policies and measures to stimulate economic growth are only aimed at benefiting the rich instead of taking into consideration how to reduce the burdens on low-income groups. In his report on his visit to the United States, which was published in May 2018, Philip Alston, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, pointed out that the current US administration’s strategy of stimulating economic growth benefited only the rich people, not the common people. The current US administration’s policy of carrying out unprecedentedly large-scale tax cuts for large companies and the wealthy class at the expense of social welfare seems to be a policy formulated to widen the existing inequality. According to the analysis made by the Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), it is estimated that 27 percent of the revenue generated by the United States tax cuts in 2019 will flow into the pockets of the richest 1 percent people of the United States and the rich people will become the group who benefits the most from the current tax policies. Insufficient government financial investment leads to the lack of corresponding social security for the needy groups in the United States. A research report released by the Pew Research Center on August 18, 2015, showed that the United States had a serious shortage of funds for social security, with a deficit of about US$74 billion in 2014. The 2015 annual report of the Social Security and Medicare Boards of Trustees showed that the US social security system had a deficit of US$25.8 trillion, which was almost 1.5 times the total annual GDP of the United States.

 

第二,推翻医改法案,拒绝医保全覆盖。美国是少数没有实行全民医疗保险的发达国家之一,有相当数量的居民没有医疗保险,因而无法在患病时得到应有的医疗照护。尽管美国国会在2010年就通过了奥巴马政府提出的医疗改革法案,承诺要建立全民医保体系,但据美国人口普查局公布的数据,2015年还有3300万美国人没有被医疗保险覆盖。2017年5月4日,美国众议院以217票对213票通过《美国医保法》草案,推翻了“奥巴马医改”的诸多重要内容。

 

Second, the Health Care Reform Act has been struck down, and full coverage of medical insurance has been rejected in the United States. The United States is one of the few developed countries that do not have universal health coverage. A considerable number of its residents do not have medical insurance and cannot receive the medical care they deserve when they become ill. Despite the US Congress adopting the Healthcare Reform Bill proposed by the Obama administration in 2010 and promising to establish a universal health care system, data released by the U.S. Census Bureau showed that there were still 33 million US citizens not covered by medical insurance in 2015. On May 4, 2017, the U.S. House of Representatives adopted the American Health Care Act by a vote of 217 to 213, overturning many important contents of the Obama’s health care reform plan, also known as “Obamacare.”

 

第三,关闭乡村医院,“医疗荒漠”不断扩大。半岛电视台美国频道网站2017年12月17日报道,自2010年以来,美国已有80多家乡村医院关闭,另有数百家濒临倒闭,“医疗荒漠”地带正在变得越来越普遍。据“北卡罗来纳乡村健康研究项目”的研究数据,每个被关闭的医院所服务的居民大约有1万人,他们是社会上最弱势的群体,对如何健康生活最缺乏了解。而关闭乡村医院,毁掉了原来建立的乡村医院网络,使当地居民不得不驱车到数十英里以外的医院去就诊。皮尤研究中心2017年12月14日发布的调查报告显示,自2015年以来,民众对政府保障医疗服务的正面评价下降了20%。

 

Third, many rural hospitals have been closed in the United States, which has expanded the “medical desert”. The website of Al Jazeera’s US channel reported on December 17, 2017, that since 2010, more than 80 rural hospitals in the United States had been closed, and hundreds of rural hospitals were on the verge of bankruptcy. The “medical desert” zone is expanding. According to the research data from the North Carolina Rural Health Research Program (NC RHRP), each closed rural hospital can serve approximately 10,000 local residents, who are the most vulnerable group in US society and know the least about how to live a healthy life. The closure of rural hospitals has destroyed the original rural hospital network and forced local residents to drive to hospitals dozens of miles away to receive medical services. A survey report released by the Pew Research Center on December 14, 2017, shows that since 2015, the public’s positive evaluation of government-guaranteed medical services has fallen by 20 percent.

 

第四,互联网管理政策扩大“数字鸿沟”,低收入群体的劣势地位更加突出。半岛电视台美国频道网站2017年12月15日报道,美国2015年制定的《开放互联网规则》规定了网络中立规则,即所有互联网服务提供商必须同等对待所有数据,不能对某些数据流进行阻塞或“节流”。然而,这一规则于2017年12月14日被美国政府废除。报道认为,此举将使富人可以花钱享受到更快捷的网络服务,从而加深富人与低收入群体之间的“数字鸿沟”,使低收入群体在迈向数字化未来的竞争中处于劣势。例如,底特律的贫困水平接近40%,同时也有大约40%人口的家庭没有因特网。底特律“平衡互联网倡导”组织的纳西娅·瓦尔德兹认为,更昂贵的互联网将会对贫困人口更加不利,“这将是毁灭性的,会进一步加剧已经存在的不平等现象。”

 

Fourth, the Internet management policy has widened the “digital divide” and strengthened the inferior position of low-income groups in the United States. As reported by the website of Al Jazeera’s US channel on December 15, 2017, on December 14, 2017, the US government ended the net neutrality rules stipulated in the 2015 Open Internet Rules, which forbade Internet service providers from blocking or “throttling” certain data streams and required that traffic would have to be treated equally regardless of the users’ ability to pay. The report commented that this move would allow rich people to enjoy faster Internet services with the help of money and thereby deepen the “digital divide” between the rich people and the low-income groups, putting the low-income groups at a disadvantage in the competition toward a digital future. For instance, in Detroit, where the poverty rate is close to 40 percent, about 40 percent of the city’s population do not have access to the Internet at home. Nyasia Valdez, who engages in the city’s Equitable Internet Initiative, has expressed that making the Internet more expensive will further economically disadvantage poor people. “It would be so devastating and further exacerbate the inequality that’s already there,” Valdez said.

 

美国政府之所以缺乏扭转贫富分化趋势的政治意愿,从更深层次分析,是与美国的政治制度和美国政府所代表的资本利益密切相关的。愈演愈烈的金钱政治使得美国政府已经成为富豪的代言人。英国《卫报》网站2018年8月7日报道,公众普遍认为美国选举是腐败的,国会议员被企业、富人和特殊利益集团俘获。正如联合国极端贫困与人权问题特别报告员菲利普·奥尔斯顿在2018年5月发布报告所指出的,美国是世界上最富有、最强大和最具科技创新能力的国家之一,但无论是财富、权力还是技术都没有被用来解决约4000万人持续贫困的局面。“极端贫困的持续存在是当权者做出的政治选择。”

 

A deeper analysis shows that the reason the US government lacks the political will to bridge the divide between the rich and the poor is closely related to the US political system and the capital interests represented by the US government. The vigorous development of money politics has turned the US government into a spokesman for the rich. The website of the British newspaper The Guardian reported on August 7, 2018, that the public generally believed that the US elections were corrupt and that members of the US Congress served only the companies, wealthy people, and special interest groups. As pointed out by Philip Alston, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, in his report released in May 2018, the United States is one of the richest, most powerful, and most technologically innovative countries in the world, but its wealth, power, and technology have not been used to address the persistent poverty of the 40 million people. “The persistence of extreme poverty is a political choice made by those in power,” Alston wrote.

 

美国的贫富分化是一个稳定的长期趋势,人们无法期望这一状况能够在短期内出现任何实质性扭转,由此对美国人民享有和实现人权造成的严重负面影响也将日趋恶化。

 

The division between the rich and the poor in the United States will be a stable, long-term trend. One cannot expect any substantial reversal of this situation within a short period. The severe negative impact it has brought on the enjoyment and realization of the human rights of the US people will continue to worsen.

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 最后更新:2020-7-15
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