经济学家表示，免除学生债务将提振经济

经济学家表示，免除学生债务将提振经济

Presidential hopefuls Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders want to tear up your student loans and set you financially free. That's popular among voters – especially those struggling to pay off this debt.

总统候选人伊丽莎白·沃伦和伯尼·桑德斯希望取消你的学生贷款，让你在经济上自由。这在选民中很受欢迎，尤其是那些努力偿还债务的人。

Other Democratic candidates have more modest plans. But economists say the dramatic proposals from Sanders and Warren to free millions of Americans from the burden of student debt could boost the economy in significant ways and help combat income inequality.

其他民主党候选人的计划则更为温和。但经济学家们表示，桑德斯和沃伦提出的让数百万美国人摆脱学生债务负担的引人注目的提议，可能在很大程度上提振经济，并有助于消除收入不平等。

Warren would forgive up to $50,000 for most people. Sanders would go further with total loan forgiveness. But with these plans having a price tag north of $1 trillion, such legislation would come with plenty of risks.

沃伦对大多数人的免除高达5万美元。桑德斯将进一步全面免除贷款。但是由于这些计划的花费超过了1万亿美元，这样的立法会带来很多风险。

The reason debt forgiveness could have a big impact on the overall economy is that a generation of Americans is making major life decisions differently because of student loans.

债务减免可能对整体经济产生重大影响的原因是，由于学生贷款，一代美国人正在以不同的方式做出人生重大决定。

Greenwood works for the state education agency. She's 30 years old and makes $63,000 a year. "I make probably a better salary than a lot of my peers."

格林伍德在州教育机构工作。她今年30岁，年收入6.3万美元。“我的薪水可能比很多同事都高。”

But after paying for college and grad school, Greenwood owes $96,000 in student loans. And she says that's got her and her partner feeling frozen. "Yeah. It's always, we're interested in having kids, but just cost of living and all our other bills and then the student loans." She says it makes starting a family feel impossible.

但在支付了大学和研究生院学费之后，格林伍德还欠着9.6万美元的学生贷款。她说，这让她和她的伴侣感觉很僵。“是的。我们总是想要孩子，但是生活成本和其他账单，还有学生贷款。”她说这让她觉得成家是不可能的。

So if people like Greenwood suddenly had this millstone of debt lifted from their necks, it stands to reason that would unleash pent-up desires and spending that would be good for the economy. A lot more people would have kids, or start businesses, or buy houses.

因此，如果像格林伍德这样的人突然摆脱了沉重的债务负担，释放出被压抑的欲望和支出，对经济是有好处的，这是合乎情理的。更多的人会有孩子，或创业，或买房。

"In the short term, it would be very positive for the housing market," says Lawrence Yun, the National Association of Realtors chief economist. He says his group's surveys show that student debt has people delaying homeownership by five to seven years.

全美房地产经纪人协会首席经济学家劳伦斯•云表示:“短期而言，这将对房地产市场非常有利。”他说，他的小组的调查显示，学生贷款使人们推迟了5到7年才有住房。

He's not endorsing any particular plan, but he estimates that broad loan forgiveness would push up the number of home sales quite a bit. "Home sales could be, say, 300,000 higher annually if people were not saddled with large student debt." Yun says that would be "a boost to the housing sector as well as the economy."

他并不支持任何具体的计划，但他估计，广泛的贷款减免将大大推高房屋销量。“比如说，如果人们没有背上沉重的学生债务，房屋销量每年可能会增加30万套。”他说，这将“提振房地产行业和经济”。

The effects would go beyond the housing market. William Foster is a vice president with Moody's, which just did a report on student debt forgiveness. "There've been some estimates that U.S. real GDP could be boosted on average by $86 billion to $108 billion per year," which is "quite a bit," he says. "That's if you had total loan forgiveness." Foster says it wouldn't have to be total forgiveness to see significant results. And he says it could also help address rising income inequality.

其影响将超出房地产市场。威廉·福斯特是穆迪公司的副总裁，该公司刚刚发布了一份关于学生债务减免的报告。他说:“有人估计，美国的实际国内生产总值每年平均可以增加860亿美元到1080亿美元。”福斯特说，不一定要完全原谅才能看到显著的结果。他还说，这也有助于解决收入不平等加剧的问题。

And there are other issues. Many people would oppose a giveaway to, say, lawyers and doctors who stand to make a lot of money in the future but happen to have a lot of student loan debt. And you probably wouldn't want to tax the working class to pay for higher-income college graduates' loan forgiveness.

还有其他问题。许多人会反对把钱送给律师和医生之类的人，这些人将来可能赚很多钱，但碰巧背负着大量的学生贷款债务。你可能不想向工人阶级征税来支付高收入大学毕业生减免的贷款。

That's why presidential candidates are proposing to tax the wealthy to pay for it — which, by the way, Foster says would also create less drag on the economy from the taxes because wealthy people's spending patterns are less influenced by such changes than people in lower income brackets.

这就是为什么总统候选人提议向富人征税来支付这笔费用——顺便说一句，福斯特说这也会减少税收对经济的拖累，因为富人的消费模式受这些变化的影响比低收入阶层的人要小。