实现“美国梦”很大程度上取决于你在哪里长大

CNBC:

Where a child grows up in the U.S. is becoming an increasingly critical component toward determining their future economic status.

孩子在美国长大的地方正成为决定其未来经济状况的一个越来越重要的因素。

Research from economists at Brown University, Harvard University and the U.S. Census Bureau shows that the numerous variables that define neighborhoods — such as the quality of their school districts, poverty rates and conditions that influence social capital in a community — all have lasting impacts on children’s future income. The research’s findings were presented earlier this year comparing mobility levels around the world at a World Bank conference.

布朗大学、哈佛大学和美国人口普查局的经济学家的研究表明，定义社区的众多变量——例如学区的质量、贫困率以及影响社区社会资本的条件——都对儿童的生活产生持久影响。未来的收入。该研究结果于今年早些时候在世界银行会议上公布，比较了世界各地的流动水平。

While it may seem obvious that a good neighborhood may translate into better chances for success in adulthood, it also highlights that being immersed in these areas at a young age is important — and that sociological forces, while difficult to quantify, play an important role in economic prospects.

虽然似乎很明显，一个好的社区可能会转化为成年后更好的成功机会，但它也强调了在年轻时沉浸在这些领域中是很重要的——社会学力量虽然难以量化，但在成年后发挥着重要作用。经济前景。

These insights could help to shift the tide against worsening rates of intergenerational mobility in the U.S. by informing policymakers as to which decisions could be the most influential in shaping upward prospects, according to John Friedman, professor of economics at Brown University and co-director of Opportunity Insights. Given the geographic span of the U.S., intergenerational mobility varies across a national scale. Yet even when focusing on just an intra-city level, mobility can differ widely between neighborhoods across the street from each other, Friedman said.

布朗大学经济学教授兼国际研究中心联席主任约翰·弗里德曼 (John Friedman) 表示，这些见解可以帮助政策制定者了解哪些决策对塑造向上前景最有影响力，从而扭转美国代际流动性恶化的趋势。机会洞察。鉴于美国的地理跨度，代际流动性在全国范围内存在差异。然而，弗里德曼说，即使只关注城市内部的层面，街对面的社区之间的流动性也可能存在很大差异。

Friedman and his colleagues at Opportunity Insights research program created the Opportunity Atlas, which tracks children’s outcomes in adulthood using U.S. Census and tax data. The data shows a child can earn an average of $56,000 as an adult if they grow up in one neighborhood, versus just $33,000 if they grow up in an adjacent area. 

弗里德曼和他在机会洞察研究项目的同事创建了机会图集，该图集利用美国人口普查和税务数据跟踪儿童成年后的结果。数据显示，如果一个孩子在一个社区长大，成年后的平均收入为 56,000 美元，而如果他们在邻近地区长大，则仅为 33,000 美元。

“It’s not just that exposure to these local places is incredibly important. It seems [that] exposure during childhood is the most important thing,” Friedman said. 

“不仅仅是接触这些当地的地方非常重要。看来童年时期的接触是最重要的，”弗里德曼说。

While moving to a “better” neighborhood can shape their earnings as adults, the age at which a child moves is also critical in realizing these benefits, Friedman found. The older a child is at the time of the move, the lower their projected income at age 35. At age 24, no income gains can be measured from moving to a higher-mobility neighborhood. 

弗里德曼发现，虽然搬到“更好”的社区可以影响他们成年后的收入，但孩子搬家的年龄对于实现这些好处也至关重要。孩子搬家时年龄越大，他们在 35 岁时的预计收入就越低。在 24 岁时，搬到流动性较高的社区无法衡量收入的增加。

Although it’s difficult to pinpoint all the various characteristics of high-mobility neighborhoods, these areas hold certain common characteristics. These include lower poverty rates, more stable family structure, greater social capital and better school quality.

尽管很难确定高流动性社区的所有特征，但这些区域具有某些共同特征。这些包括更低的贫困率、更稳定的家庭结构、更多的社会资本和更好的学校质量。

“Policies tend to be more impactful in people’s trajectories when people are kids, but I don’t think there’s a sharp cut-off,” said Friedman. 

弗里德曼说：“当人们还是孩子的时候，政策往往对人们的发展轨迹产生更大的影响，但我不认为存在明显的界限。”

Measures of mobility 流动性措施

There are two measures of mobility: relative and absolute. The former measures the chances of rising to the top of the country’s income distribution and has remained stable in the U.S. The latter gauges the chances that a child born into poverty rises to a higher standard of living. 

流动性有两种衡量标准：相对流动性和绝对流动性。前者衡量的是上升到国家收入分配顶端的机会，并且在美国一直保持稳定。后者衡量的是出生在贫困中的孩子达到更高生活水平的机会。

“We have less [relative] mobility in this country than we do in other developed nations, especially in Europe and developing European countries. And so even though relative mobility haven’t gotten much better, or much worse over time, it is harder to move from the bottom to the top,” said Kreg Steven Brown, director of economic mobility policy at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth. “We are thought to be the country of the American dream, [where] once you start from the bottom, you move to the top. But that’s just not really what we see.”

“与其他发达国家相比，特别是在欧洲和欧洲发展中国家，我们在这些国家的[相对]流动性较低，。因此，尽管随着时间的推移，相对流动性并没有变得更好，甚至更糟，但从底层到顶层的转变却变得更加困难，”华盛顿公平增长中心经济流动性政策主任克雷格·史蒂文·布朗表示。 “我们被认为是美国梦的国家，一旦你从底层开始，你就会登上顶层。但这并不是我们真正看到的。”

In the U.S., there’s 13.1% average probability that a child of parents in the bottom half of the income distribution can make it to the top quartile, according to data from the World Bank. In Denmark, that probability rises to more than 20%. China, South Africa and Morocco also rank higher than the U.S.

根据世界银行的数据，在美国，收入分配处于下半部分的父母的孩子进入前四分之一的平均概率为 13.1%。在丹麦，这一概率上升到 20% 以上。中国、南非和摩洛哥的排名也高于美国。

Absolute mobility across generations has been in continuous decline in the U.S. since 1980, according to Opportunity Insights. Concurrently, economic inequality has risen over this period. While slowing economic growth compared to developing economies can be cited as a factor, the American economy is becoming relatively immobile compared to its developed-economy peers. 

Opportunity Insights 的数据显示，自 1980 年以来，美国各代人的绝对流动性一直在持续下降。与此同时，这一时期的经济不平等现象有所加剧。虽然与发展中经济体相比经济增长放缓可以作为一个因素，但与发达经济体相比，美国经济变得相对不稳定。

The “Great Gatsby Curve” demonstrates the correlation between income inequality and intergenerational earnings “stickiness.” Higher levels of income elasticity correlate to less upward mobility.

“了不起的盖茨比曲线”展示了收入不平等与代际收入“粘性”之间的相关性。收入弹性越高，向上流动性越低。

The curve shows that, compared to other developed nations such as Germany, Canada, Japan, France and Scandinavian countries, not only is wealth much more concentrated amongst a small group in the U.S. — there is also less upward mobility.

该曲线显示，与德国、加拿大、日本、法国和斯堪的纳维亚国家等其他发达国家相比，美国的财富不仅更加集中在一小部分人手中，而且向上流动性也较小。

Possibilities from education

教育的可能性

Inequality and mobility remain tricky subjects for economists to measure. Collecting data sets that span over a generation is difficult, and with so many social factors at force — racial segregation, gender, education, household structure, environment — identifying causation, correlation and confounding variables in a study continue to pose challenges.

不平等和流动性仍然是经济学家衡量的棘手课题。收集跨越一代人的数据集是很困难的，而且由于存在如此多的社会因素——种族隔离、性别、教育、家庭结构、环境——识别研究中的因果关系、相关性和混杂变量仍然构成挑战。

“It’s really hard to know what works, because we don’t really have the time to wait a generation to see if [a] particular intervention designed in [a] way actually made the change you want to see,” said Brown.

布朗说：“真的很难知道什么有效，因为我们真的没有时间等待一代人来看看以某种方式设计的特定干预措施是否真正带来了你想要看到的改变。”

However, education has been underscored as one of the greater openers toward greater mobility.

然而，教育被强调是实现更大流动性的更重要途径之一。

“One of the biggest equalizers, or mobility-enhancing policies, that you can do is to you provide good-quality education without a burden of debt,” said Juan Palomino, a research scholar at Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

马德里康普顿斯大学的研究学者胡安·帕洛米诺说：“你可以做的最大的均衡器或增强流动性的政策之一就是在没有债务负担的情况下提供高质量的教育。”

Education also stands out because of all the pre-existing policy applications that can directly improve quality and resource allocation relative to other factors, Friedman added. “It’s a policy area that’s very impactful, and there’s also a lot of policy levers that one could pull that would increase, kids’ long-term outcomes.”

弗里德曼补充说，教育之所以脱颖而出，是因为所有现有的政策应用都可以直接提高相对于其他因素的质量和资源配置。 “这是一个非常有影响力的政策领域，而且还有很多政策杠杆可以用来增加孩子们的长期成果。”

The U.S. only ranks behind England for having the world’s highest university tuition fees, according to data from the OECD. Tuition and fees have also more than doubled over the last 20 years and outstanding student loans total $1.75 trillion, as of the third quarter of 2021.

根据经合组织的数据，美国的大学学费仅次于英国，位居全球最高。过去 20 年来，学杂费也增加了一倍多，截至 2021 年第三季度，未偿还学生贷款总额为 1.75 万亿美元。

Friedman noted that while improvements could be made to the U.S. financial aid system. Data on aid awards from the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation given to Nebraska high school graduates showed only about an 8% increase, from a base of 62%, in the fraction of people who went to a four-year college.

弗里德曼指出，美国的财政援助体系还有待改进。苏珊·汤普森·巴菲特基金会向内布拉斯加州高中毕业生提供的援助金数据显示，就读四年制大学的人数比例仅比 62% 增加了 8% 左右。

Notably, the Biden Administration’s student loan forgiveness plan was struck down by the Supreme Court in June, denying millions of borrowers the chance to have their debts reduced.

值得注意的是，拜登政府的学生贷款减免计划于 6 月被最高法院否决，剥夺了数百万借款人减少债务的机会。

“College is much more expensive than it used to be, but it remains [about] the single best investment most people can make,” said Friedman.

弗里德曼说：“上大学的费用比以前贵得多，但它仍然是大多数人可以做出的最佳投资。”