There’s something weird happening with the economy. On a personal level, most Americans say they’re doing pretty well right now. And according to the data, that’s true. Wages have gone up faster than inflation. Unemployment is low, the stock market is generally up so far this year, and people are buying more stuff.

現在的經濟狀況有些奇怪。在個人層面上，大多數美國人說他們現在做得很好。根據數據，這是真的。工資的增長快于通貨膨脹。失業(yè)率很低，今年到目前為止股市普遍上漲，人們購買更多的東西。

And yet in surveys, people keep saying the economy is bad. A recent Harris poll for The Guardian found that around half of Americans think the S. & P. 500 is down this year, and that unemployment is at a 50-year high. Fifty-six percent think we’re in a recession.

然而在調查中，人們一直說經濟很糟糕。哈里斯最近為《衛(wèi)報》進行的一項民意調查發(fā)現，大約一半的美國人認為標準普爾500指數(s&p 500)今年會下跌，失業(yè)率處于50年來的最高水平。56%的人認為我們正處于經濟衰退之中。

There are many theories about why this gap exists. Maybe political polarization is warping how people see the economy or it’s a failure of President Biden’s messaging, or there’s just something uniquely painful about inflation. And while there’s truth in all of these, it felt like a piece of the story was missing.

關于為什么會有這種差距，有很多理論。也許政治兩極分化正在扭曲人們對經濟的看法，或者是拜登總統(tǒng)的信息傳遞失敗，或者只是通貨膨脹帶來了一些獨特的痛苦。雖然所有這些都是真實的，但感覺好像缺少了一部分故事。

And for me, that missing piece was an article I read right before the pandemic. An Atlantic story from February 2020 called “The Great Affordability Crisis Breaking America .” It described how some of Americans’ biggest-ticket expenses — housing, health care, higher education and child care — which were already pricey, had been getting steadily pricier for decades.

對我來說，那缺失的部分是我在大流行之前讀到的一篇文章。2020年2月的一個大西洋故事，名為“打破美國的巨大負擔能力危機”，它描述了美國人的一些最大的費用——住房，醫(yī)療保健，高等教育和兒童保育——已經非常昂貴，幾十年來一直在穩(wěn)步上漲。

At the time, prices weren’t the big topic in the economy; the focus was more on jobs and wages. So it was easier for this trend to slip notice, like a frog boiling in water, quietly, putting more and more strain on American budgets. But today, after years of high inflation, prices are the biggest topic in the economy. And I think that explains the anger people feel: They’re noticing the price of things all the time, and getting hammered with the reality of how expensive these things have become.

當時，價格并不是經濟中的大話題，人們更多地關注就業(yè)和工資。因此，這種趨勢更容易被忽視，就像一只在水中沸騰的青蛙，悄悄地給美國預算帶來越來越大的壓力。但如今，在經歷了多年的高通脹之后，價格是經濟中最大的話題。我認為這解釋了人們的憤怒：他們一直在注意東西的價格，并被這些東西變得多么昂貴的現實所打擊。

The author of that Atlantic piece is Annie Lowrey. She’s an economics reporter,, and also my wife. In this conversation, we discuss how the affordability crisis has collided with our post-pandemic inflationary world, the forces that shape our economic perceptions, why people keep spending as if prices aren’t a strain and what this might mean for the presidential election.

《大西洋月刊》的作者是安妮·勞瑞。她是一名經濟學記者，也是我的妻子，在這次談話中，我們討論了負擔能力危機如何與我們的后流行性通貨膨脹世界發(fā)生沖突，塑造我們經濟觀念的力量，為什么人們繼續(xù)消費，好像價格不是一種壓力，以及這對總統(tǒng)選舉可能意味著什么。