美國人的好日子結束了英語美文

If history is a reliable guide, the recession of 2008 is now unavoidable.

The dismal jobs report released Friday showed overall employment to be lower than it was three months ago. Every time such a slump has occurred since the early 1970s, a recession has followed — or already been under way.

And if the good times have really ended, they were never that good to begin with. Most American households are still not earning as much annually as they did in 1999, once inflation is taken into account. Since the Census Bureau began keeping records in the 1960s, a prolonged expansion has never ended without household income having set a new record.

For months, policy makers and Wall Street economists have been predicting, and hoping, that the aggressive series of interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve would keep the economy growing, despite the housing bust. But the possibility seemed to diminish almost by the hour on Friday.

Shortly after 8 a.m., the Fed announced yet another measure meant to unlock the struggling credit markets. At 8:30, the Labor Department released the unexpectedly poor jobs report. Almost immediately, the economists at JPMorgan Chase — who only last week had told clients they thought the economy was still growing — reversed course and said a recession appeared to have started earlier this year.

Stocks fell when the markets opened at 9:30, recovered and then fell again, with the Standard & Poor 500-stock index closing down 0.8 percent. Traders became even more confident, based on the price of futures contracts, that the Fed would cut its benchmark interest rate three-quarters of a point, to 2.25 percent, when policy makers meet on March 18.

Even the one apparent piece of good news in the employment report was a mirage. The unemployment rate fell to 4.8 percent, from 4.9 percent in January, but only because more people stopped looking for work and thus were not counted as unemployed by the government.

Over the last year, the number of officially unemployed has risen by 500,000, while the number of people outside the labor force — neither working nor looking for a job — has risen by 1.3 million.

The median household earned $48,201 in 2006, down from $49,244 in 1999, according to the Census Bureau. It now looks as if a full decade may pass before most Americans receive a raise.

如果歷史是可靠的嚮導，那麼，2008年的衰退就是不可避免的了。

星期五公佈的令人失望的就業報告顯示，總體就業率比3個月前有所下降。自從上個世紀70年代初以來，每次出現這樣的下降，經濟衰退就會隨之而來，或者已經來到了。

如果好日子真的結束了，那麼它們開始的時候根本就沒那麼好。如果把通貨膨脹考慮在內，大多數美國家庭的年收入還不如1999年。自美國人口普查局在上個世紀60年代開始統計以來，從來沒有一次持續的經濟增長結束時家庭收入不創新高的.。

幾個月來，政策制定者和華爾街的經濟學家們一直在預測並希望儘管有房貸危機，但美聯儲一系列積極的降息措施能夠使經濟保持增長。但是星期五，這種可能性似乎減小了。

早上8點過後不久，美聯儲又宣佈了另一項意在給掙扎中的信貸市場鬆綁的措施。8點30分，勞工部公佈了意想不到的糟糕的就業情況報告。摩根大通銀行的經濟學家們幾乎馬上就改口説，衰退在今年更早些時候似乎已經開始了。而僅僅在上週，他們還在對客户説，他們認為經濟仍然在增長。

9點30分股市開盤後先跌後反彈然後再跌。標準普爾500指數收盤時跌0.8%。根據期貨合同的價格，交易商們更加相信政策制定者們在3月18日開會時，美聯儲會降3/4個百分點的基準利率至2.25%。

即使是就業報告中的一條明顯的好消息也是虛幻的。失業率從1月份的4.9% 降到了4.8%，但這只是因為更多的人停止了找工作，因而沒有被政府統計為失業。

去年，官方統計的失業人數增加了50萬，而勞動力隊伍以外的人數——那些既不工作也不找工作的人數增加了130萬。

根據美國人口普查局的統計，2006年的平均家庭收入是48，201美元，而1999年是49，244美元。看起來似乎在整個10年過去之前，大多數美國人的收入將得不到提高。