《纽约时间》原创文章，转载须征求许可，规范署名(公号名/ID/作者)，违者必究
编辑：江南
【编者按】：
美国佛蒙特州参议员伯尼·桑德斯（Bernie Sanders）在《卫报》上发表了一篇评论文章，讨论美国的贫富差距问题，以及解决问题的方法。
桑德斯出生于纽约布鲁克林一个工薪阶层的犹太家庭，通常被认为是美国最受欢迎的政治人物之一，自称是民主社会主义者，自2016年总统大选以来一直被认为影响了民主党的左倾。他是社会民主和进步政策的倡导者，以反对经济不平等和新自由主义而著称。
《纽约时间》特将这篇简短有力的评论全文翻译，并附上英文原文，供读者参考。
原标题：【美国的贫富差距是可耻的，所以让我们修复它吧——以下是怎么做】
当劳动人民在挣扎求生的时候，那些最富有的人的日子却从来没有这么好过。现在是反击的时候了——我们的民主取决于此。
作者：伯尼·桑德斯（Bernie Sanders），美国佛蒙特州参议员。
编译：江南
来源：卫报
当少数人拥有如此之多而多数人拥有如此之少的时候，美国就不可能繁荣昌盛，也不可能保持为一个充满活力的民主国家。虽然我的许多国会同事选择忽视这个问题，但收入和财富不平等问题是我们面临的重大道德、经济和政治危机之一，必须加以解决。
不幸的现实是，我们正在迅速走向寡头社会的状态，少数亿万富翁拥有巨大的财富和权力，而工薪家庭却一直在挣扎，这是我们自大萧条以来从未见过的。这种情况因新冠疫情而更加恶化。
今天，我们有一半的人靠薪水过活，我们中间有50万最贫穷的人无家可归，数以百万计的人担心被驱逐，9200万人没有保险或保险不足，全国各地的家庭都在担心如何养活他们的孩子。今天，整整一代年轻人背负着高得离谱的学生债务，面临着他们的生活水平将低于其父母的现实。而且，最令人不齿的是，低收入的美国人现在的预期寿命比富人低15年左右。贫困在美国已经成为一个死刑。
同时，上层的人从来没有这么好过。最上层的1%的人现在拥有的财富比最底层92%的人多，最富有的50个美国人拥有的财富比美国社会底层的一半——1.65亿人拥有的多。虽然数以百万计的美国人在大流行期间失去了工作和收入，但在过去的一年里，650名亿万富翁的财富增长了13亿美元。
富人和其他人之间的差距越来越大，这不是什么新鲜事。
在过去的40年里，财富从中产阶级和工人家庭大量转移到美国最富有的人手中。
1978年，前0.1%的人拥有全国约7%的财富。在2019年，也就是有数据的最近一年，他们拥有近20%的财富。
令人难以置信的是，美国最富有的两个人，杰夫·贝佐斯（Jeff Bezos） 和埃隆·马斯克（Elon Musk），现在拥有的财富比底层40%的美国人加起来还要多。
 纽约街头的亚马逊抗议者
如果在过去40年里，收入不平等没有急剧上升，而只是保持不变的话，美国的普通工人每年的收入会多出4.2万美元。相反，由于企业首席执行官现在的收入是普通员工的300多倍，美国普通工人现在每周的收入比48年前少了32美元（扣除通货膨胀因素后）。换句话说，尽管技术和生产力有了巨大的提高，但普通工人实际上正在失去地位。
解决收入、财富和不平等问题并不容易，因为我们将与美国国内一些最强大、资金最充裕的实体对抗，包括华尔街、医疗保险业、制药公司、化石燃料业和军工复合体。但我们必须要做。以下是国会和总统在不久的将来可以做的一些事情。
我们必须将最低工资从目前的每小时7.25美元的“饥饿工资”提高到每小时至少15美元的“生活工资”。一份工作应该让工人摆脱贫困，而不是让他们陷入贫困。
我们需要让工人加入工会更容易，而不是更难。财富和收入不平等的大量增加与美国工会会员的减少有直接关系。
我们需要创造数以百万计的高薪工作，重建我们破败的基础设施——我们的道路、桥梁、污水厂、下水道、涵洞、水坝、学校和经济适用房。
我们需要从根本上改变我们的能源系统，从化石燃料转向高效率能源和可再生能源，以应对气候变化，这也将创造数以百万计的高薪工作。
我们需要做几乎所有其他主要国家都在做的事情——保证所有人的医疗保健是一项人权。通过“全民医保”计划将结束我们人均支付的医疗费用是其他国家人民的两倍，而数以千万计的美国人却没有保险或保险不足的荒谬局面。
我们需要确保我们所有的年轻人，无论收入多少，都有权接受高质量的教育——包括大学。这意味着使公立学院和大学免学费，并大幅减少工薪家庭的学生债务。
是的，我们需要让美国最富有的人和最赚钱的公司开始缴纳他们应缴的税收。
日益严重的收入和财富不平等不仅仅是一个经济问题，它涉及到美国民主的基础。如果非常富有的人变得更富有，而数以百万计的劳动人民看到他们的生活水平继续下降，那么他们对政府和我们的民主制度的信心将会萎缩，对独裁主义的支持将会增加。我们不能让这种情况发生。
英文原文：
The United States cannot prosper and remain a vigorous democracy when so few have so much and so many have so little. While many of my congressional colleagues choose to ignore it, the issue of income and wealth inequality is one of the great moral, economic and political crises that we face – and it must be dealt with.
The unfortunate reality is that we are moving rapidly toward an oligarchic form of society, where a handful of billionaires have enormous wealth and power while working families have been struggling in a way we have not seen since the Great Depression. This situation has been exacerbated by the pandemic.
Today, half of our people are living paycheck to paycheck, 500,000 of the very poorest among us are homeless, millions are worried about evictions, 92 million are uninsured or underinsured, and families all across the country are worried about how they are going to feed their kids. Today, an entire generation of young people carry an outrageous level of student debt and face the reality that their standard of living will be lower than their parents’. And, most obscenely, low-income Americans now have a life expectancy that is about 15 years lower than the wealthy. Poverty in America has become a death sentence.
Meanwhile, the people on top have never had it so good. The top 1% now own more wealth than the bottom 92%, and the 50 wealthiest Americans own more wealth than the bottom half of American society – 165 million people. While millions of Americans have lost their jobs and incomes during the pandemic, over the past year 650 billionaires have seen their wealth increase by $1.3tn.
The growing gap between the very rich and everyone else is nothing new.
Over the past 40 years there has been a massive transfer of wealth from the middle class and working families to the very wealthiest people in America.
In 1978, the top 0.1% owned about 7% of the nation’s wealth. In 2019, the latest year of data available, they own nearly 20%.
Unbelievably, the two richest people in America, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, now own more wealth than the bottom 40% of Americans combined.
If income inequality had not skyrocketed over the past four decades and had simply stayed static, the average worker in America would be earning $42,000 more in income each year. Instead, as corporate chief executives now make over 300 times more than their average employees, the average American worker now earns $32 a week less than he or she did 48 years ago – after adjusting for inflation. In other words, despite huge increases in technology and productivity, ordinary workers are actually losing ground.
Addressing income and wealth and inequality will not be easy, because we will be taking on some of the most powerful and well-financed entities in the country, including Wall Street, the health insurance industry, the drug companies, the fossil fuel industry and the military-industrial-complex. But it must be done. Here is some of what Congress and the president can do in the very near future.
We must raise the minimum wage from the current starvation wage of $7.25 an hour to a living wage of at least $15 an hour. A job should lift workers out of poverty, not keep them in it.
We need to make it easier, not harder, for workers to join unions. The massive increase in wealth and income inequality can be directly linked to the decline in union membership in America.
We need to create millions of good-paying jobs rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure – our roads, bridges, wastewater plants, sewers, culverts, dams, schools and affordable housing.
We need to combat climate change by fundamentally transforming our energy system away from fossil fuels towards energy efficiency and renewable energy which will also create millions of good paying jobs.
We need to do what virtually every other major country does by guaranteeing healthcare to all people as a human right. Passing a Medicare for All program would end the absurdity of us paying twice as much per capita for healthcare as do the people of other countries, while tens of millions of Americans are uninsured or under-insured.
We need to make certain that all of our young people, regardless of income, have the right to high quality education – including college. And that means making public colleges and universities tuition free and substantially reducing student debt for working families.
And yes. We need to make the wealthiest people and most profitable corporations in America start paying their fair share of taxes.
Growing income and wealth inequality is not just an economic issue. It touches the very foundation of American democracy. If the very rich become much richer while millions of working people see their standard of living continue to decline, faith in government and our democratic institutions will wither and support for authoritarianism will increase. We cannot let that happen.
原文链接：
The rich-poor gap in America is obscene. So let's fix it – here's how | Inequality | The Guardian

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