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Harvard economist Raj Chetty has done some of the most acclaimed work on this historic decline.
哈佛經濟學家Raj Chetty對這一歷史性衰退進行了一些備受贊譽的研究。
In 2016, Chetty and colleagues showed that fewer than half of those born in the 1980s earned more than their parents had at the same age, adjusting for inflation.
2016年，Chetty和同事發現，經通貨膨脹調整后，在相同的年紀，80年代出生的人中只有不到一半的人比他們的父母的收入高。
By contrast, of those born in 1940, more than 90% had accomplished the feat.
相比之下，1940年出生的人中，超過90%的人都完成了這一壯舉。
"We can see that there has been a collapse of intergenerational mobility," says Claudia Goldin, a leading economic historian and labor economist at Harvard.
哈佛大學權威經濟歷史學家兼勞動經濟學家Claudia Goldin表示，“我們可以看到代際流動的崩潰。”
It's all part of the feeling, for millions of Americans, of falling behind—
這是數百萬美國人的落后感之一——
a feeling made all the more frustrating by the sense that the gap between the middle class and the superrich keeps widening...
中產階級和超級富豪之間的差距不斷擴大，經濟引力定律似乎不再適用，
that the laws of economic gravity no longer seem to apply. And compounding that is one more nagging concern:
這種感覺讓人更加沮喪……另一個更令人擔憂的問題使之雪上加霜：
that the breakneck speed of technological change now disrupting one industry after another—
據皮尤研究中心的人所說，正在擾亂一個又一個行業的飛速發展的技術變革——
a revolution of A.I.-infused automation—will uproot the one thing that, according to the folks at Pew,
人工智能注入自動化革命——將根除幾乎所有人都認為
virtually everyone agrees is critical to middle-class membership: a secure job.
對中產階級成員至關重要的一件事：一份穩定的工作。
Each previous era's industrial revolution has, of course, raised the same fears.
當然，上一個時代的工業革命都引發了同樣的擔憂。
Reeves thinks "a good starting position is to be skeptical about the claim that this time is different."
Reeves認為，“一個好的出發點是對‘這一次不同’的說法持懷疑態度。”
But the two things worth asking about the current revolution, he says, are: "One, will it be differently quick this time?
但他表示，關于目前的改革，有兩件事值得一問：“一是，這次的速度之快是否有所不同？
And two, will it be differently different?" It's question No. 1 that makes him a little nervous:
二是，這次的不同之處是否有所差異？第一個問題讓他有點緊張：
Yeah, sure, with every grand sweep of automation,
是的，確實，隨著每一次大規模的自動化，
business models change and new positions get created, and there's a transitional time in between them.
商業模式會改變以及新崗位會產生，并且兩者之間會有一個過渡期。
"So surely the economy will adjust and new jobs will be created," he says,
“所以經濟肯定會調整，新的工作機會肯定會被創造出來，”他說到，
"but will those people who are displaced be the ones to get those jobs? And will they get them fast enough?
“但那些被取代的人會得到這些新工作嗎？并且他們能夠很快就得到這份工作嗎？
You're not talking about 20, 30, 40, 50 years of transition between approach A and approach B. You're talking about two, three years.
我們所討論的不是方法A和方法B之間20、30、40、50年的過渡期，而是兩年、三年的過渡期。
What it means is people need to reskill, retool at a pace that has never before been witnessed in human history."
這意味著人們需要以人類歷史上從未見過的速度重新學習和升級技能。”
The closest thing to it, says Reeves, would be like a mobilization during war. So be it: Many Americans feel like they're already in one.
與此最接近的，Reeves說，是戰爭時期的動員。順其自然吧：很多美國人覺得他們已經身處其中了。
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