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Harvard economist Raj Chetty has done some of the most acclaimed work on this historic decline.
哈佛经济学家Raj Chetty对这一历史性衰退进行了一些备受赞誉的研究。
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和同事发现，经通货膨胀调整后，在相同的年纪，80年代出生的人中只有不到一半的人比他们的父母的收入高。
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，超过90%的人都完成了这一壮举。
"We can see that there has been a collapse of intergenerational mobility," says Claudia Goldin, a leading economic historian and labor economist at Harvard.
哈佛大学权威经济历史学家兼劳动经济学家Claudia Goldin表示，“我们可以看到代际流动的崩溃。”
It's all part of the feeling, for millions of Americans, of falling behind—
这是数百万美国人的落后感之一——
a feeling made all the more frustrating by the sense that the gap between the middle class and the superrich keeps widening...
中产阶级和超级富豪之间的差距不断扩大，经济引力定律似乎不再适用，
that the laws of economic gravity no longer seem to apply. And compounding that is one more nagging concern:
这种感觉让人更加沮丧……另一个更令人担忧的问题使之雪上加霜：
that the breakneck speed of technological change now disrupting one industry after another—
据皮尤研究中心的人所说，正在扰乱一个又一个行业的飞速发展的技术变革——
a revolution of A.I.-infused automation—will uproot the one thing that, according to the folks at Pew,
人工智能注入自动化革命——将根除几乎所有人都认为
virtually everyone agrees is critical to middle-class membership: a secure job.
对中产阶级成员至关重要的一件事：一份稳定的工作。
Each previous era's industrial revolution has, of course, raised the same fears.
当然，上一个时代的工业革命都引发了同样的担忧。
Reeves thinks "a good starting position is to be skeptical about the claim that this time is different."
Reeves认为，“一个好的出发点是对‘这一次不同’的说法持怀疑态度。”
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，关于目前的改革，有两件事值得一问：“一是，这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，这次的不同之处是否有所差异？第一个问题让他有点紧张：
Yeah, sure, with every grand sweep of automation,
是的，确实，随着每一次大规模的自动化，
business models change and new positions get created, and there's a transitional time in between them.
商业模式会改变以及新岗位会产生，并且两者之间会有一个过渡期。
"So surely the economy will adjust and new jobs will be created," he says,
“所以经济肯定会调整，新的工作机会肯定会被创造出来，”他说到，
"but will those people who are displaced be the ones to get those jobs? And will they get them fast enough?
“但那些被取代的人会得到这些新工作吗？并且他们能够很快就得到这份工作吗？
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.
我们所讨论的不是方法A和方法B之间20、30、40、50年的过渡期，而是两年、三年的过渡期。
What it means is people need to reskill, retool at a pace that has never before been witnessed in human history."
这意味着人们需要以人类历史上从未见过的速度重新学习和升级技能。”
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.
与此最接近的，Reeves说，是战争时期的动员。顺其自然吧：很多美国人觉得他们已经身处其中了。
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