富人停止了消费，这给经济带来了沉重打击

富人停止了消费，这给经济带来了沉重打击

The wealthiest American households are keeping a tight grip on their purse strings even as their lower income counterparts are spending a lot more freely when they emerge from weeks of lockdown. That decline in spending by the wealthy could limit the whole country's economic recovery.

最富有的美国家庭正在严格控制他们的钱袋，而低收入的美国家庭在经历了数周的封锁后，在支出上要自由得多。富人支出的下降可能会限制整个国家的经济复苏。

Researchers based at Harvard have been tracking spending patterns using credit card data. They found that people at the bottom of the income ladder are now spending nearly as much as they did before the coronavirus pandemic.

哈佛大学的研究人员一直在使用信用卡数据跟踪消费模式。他们发现，处于收入阶梯底层的人们现在的支出几乎与冠状病毒大流行前一样多。

"When the stimulus checks went out, you see that spending by lower-income households went up a lot," said Nathan Hendren, a Harvard economist and co-founder of the Opportunity Insights research team.

哈佛大学经济学家、Opportunity Insights研究团队的联合创始人内森·亨德伦说:“当刺激计划发出支票时，你会看到低收入家庭的支出大幅增加。”

However, the wealthy are not matching them. "For higher-income individuals, that spending is still way far off from where it was prior to COVID and it has not recovered as much," Hendren said.

不过，富人并不符合他们的要求。“对于高收入的个人来说，这一支出仍远未达到COVID之前的水平，而且还没有恢复到原来的水平。” 亨德伦说。

That's potentially crippling because consumer spending is a huge driver of economic activity. In fact, so much of the country's economy depends on shopping by the top income bracket, that the lack of spending by 25% of the wealthiest Americans made up fully two-thirds of the total decline in spending since January.

这可能会造成严重后果，因为消费者支出是经济活动的巨大推动力。事实上，美国经济在很大程度上依赖于收入最高阶层的购物，因此，自1月份以来，美国最富有阶层中有25%的人没有消费，这足足占了消费总额下降的三分之二。

The wealthy aren't holding back because they don't have the money. By and large, they have lost fewer jobs and aren't the ones who are worried about making rent.

有钱人不会因为没有钱而退缩。总的来说，他们失去的工作更少，也不用担心房租问题。

They have a lot of discretionary income and before the pandemic, were spending a significant chunk of that going to nice restaurants, the theater, or traveling and staying in nice hotels. Those are precisely the things that have been off limits since the coronavirus hit.

他们有很多可支配收入，在流行病之前，他们花了很大一部分钱去高档餐厅，剧院，旅游和住高档酒店。这些正是自冠状病毒袭击以来禁止做的事情。

That makes this very different from an ordinary recessiony. And those experiences are usually a lot more expensive than food and other essential items, which the rich and poor alike have continued to spend on.

这使得这与普通的经济衰退截然不同。这些经历通常要比食物和其他必需品贵得多，富人和穷人都在继续消费(食物和其他必需品)。

Hendren and his colleagues found that businesses that deliver in-person services in wealthy neighborhoods have seen the biggest drop in sales and are struggling to recover, while a retail store or take-out restaurant in a poorer neighborhood might have seen some decline but they're starting to come back now.

亨德伦和他的同事发现，在富裕社区提供当面服务的企业销售额下降幅度最大，目前正努力恢复。而在较贫穷社区的零售商店或外卖餐厅销售额可能有所下降，但现在正开始回升。

Many of those jobs may not be coming back any time soon. The usual tools the government might use to fight a recession are not terribly helpful here.

许多这样的工作岗位可能不会很快恢复。政府用来对抗经济衰退的常用工具在这里并不是特别有用。