发表于 2025年10月26日
Last week, the federal government shut down, with both Republican and Democratic plans to finance ongoing appropriations failing to garner enough votes to pass the Senate.
Donald Trump did not seem overly worried about the situation, calling it an “unprecedented opportunity” to throttle funds going to blue states and fire federal employees. The stock market surged higher and the bond market did not react. But up to 750,000 workers will be furloughed, losing out on $400 million in wages a day. Every week that the government remains closed will cut the annualized GDP growth rate by 0.1 percent this quarter, Mark Zandi of Moody’s Analytics estimates. The White House forecasts that a month-long shutdown would lead to 43,000 Americans losing their job. The economy is already weakening in some important respects. Might this be enough to tip it into a recession?
No, one might say, of course not: GDP is rising at a strong 3.8 percent a year. Yes, certainly, another might argue: Businesses have been on a months-long hiring freeze and the jobless rate is starting to tick up. No: The country is in the midst of a massive technology and infrastructure boom. Yes: Confidence is sinking, wage growth is slowing, and default rates are rising. No: The Federal Reserve is cutting interest rates, flushing cheaper money to credit-starved borrowers. Yes: The trade war and the White House’s immigration policies are causing sharp “Trump slumps” in Las Vegas and other communities. No: Consumer spending has remained remarkably resilient, despite high prices.
I could go on like that for paragraph after paragraph; a reader could be forgiven for being confused, because what’s happening is confusing.
Sometimes, the economy has a single story to tell. Toward the end of George W. Bush’s presidency, the housing market collapsed, causing a financial crisis that led to a catastrophic global downturn. Near the end of Trump’s first term, the coronavirus froze the economy in place, causing a brief but extreme recession and a long shakeout in the supply chain.
Today, the economy has several stories to tell. Mike Wilson, the chief investment officer of Morgan Stanley, argues that we have been in a “rolling recession” for three years—an apt term, capturing the queasy, bewildering state of the financial world. Downturns have afflicted sector after sector, region after region, and many of these mini-busts resolved into mini-recoveries. The technology sector is flourishing as the housing market and manufacturing industry flail. Overall the economy has performed fine. Still, if a few more stories turn darker, the country might be in trouble.
The shutdown won’t cause a nationwide recession, provided it is over soon. But it could certainly worsen some smaller ones already gathering force. Trump’s dismissal of 300,000 federal workers and cancellation of hundreds of billions of dollars of government contracts tipped the Washington region into a slump this year. The jobless rate has been flat in most large metro areas, but the D.C. area’s unemployment rate has jumped 0.6 percent; measures of financial distress, such as food-bank usage, have surged.
If the Senate agrees on a spending bill and reopens the government quickly, the shutdown and furloughs won’t have much effect, Zandi told me. But “if the shutdown lasts three or four weeks, it becomes a deal for the economy, as government workers who aren’t getting paid pull back on their spending and government contractors lose business,” he said. If it lasts for more than a month, the shutdown could have a significant impact—directly on families, and indirectly as investors question “the ability of the U.S. government to do basic things like keep the lights on.”
At the same time, the trade war has led to a minor downturn in the manufacturing sector, which has contracted for the past seven months and shed workers for the past two and a half years. The agricultural industry is also shrinking, thanks to the rising cost of labor and equipment and the falling price of commodity crops, though the Trump administration is angling for a bailout. Finally, the housing market is in a—well, I’m not even sure what to call it. The number of “starts,” or new projects that construction firms have broken ground on, is perilously low. Existing-home sales are dropping. Real-estate prices are falling. Lower interest rates and prices might help some borrowers, but won’t make much of a dent in the country’s severe housing shortage.
The country’s GDP and stock market are performing well, though, thanks to a colossal flush of investment in artificial intelligence and related technologies. Companies are pouring hundreds of billions of dollars a year into data centers; investors are forking over money to start-ups and major tech firms, which are spending the cash on operating costs, model improvements, acquisitions, and hires. ChatGPT and its ilk are driving half of American GDP growth at the moment. And the tech boom (or bubble, perhaps) is buoying the country’s equity valuations and its electricity and utility sectors.
At the household level, the unemployment rate remains low and income strong enough. But most companies are simply not hiring, meaning that jobless workers are spending much longer looking for a position. And though the jobless rate is not high, it is rising, climbing from a post-pandemic low of 3.4 percent to 4.3 percent. The country’s cost-of-living crisis shows no sign of relenting either. The APR on a credit card sits at 21.1 percent, up from 14.5 percent three years ago; mortgage rates are above 6 percent. And tariffs are jacking up the cost of consumer goods: The effective tariff rate is 17.9 percent, the highest since 1934, according to the Yale Budget Lab. The price increases are costing families $2,400 a year.
Given these dynamics—plus the uncertainty afflicting businesses, plus the tenor of the political debate in Washington, plus soaring insurance premiums and pending health-care cuts—the public’s assessment of how things are going is plummeting. Consumers are “much less positive” than they were a few months ago, argues Stephanie Guichard of the Conference Board. A lot of people think the economy is already in a recession.
Depending on where they are and what sector they work in, they might not be wrong. It may take some time for us to know for sure. While the government remains shut down, the Bureau of Labor Statistics and other agencies won’t publish data on hiring, inflation, unemployment, and other key metrics. Jerome Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, describes the overall situation as “challenging,” “turbulent,” and “curious”—not exactly the words you want to hear from the head of the country’s monetary authority.
Washington has already put itself in a recession. Maybe the rest of the country is next.
Last week, the federal government shut down, with both Republican and Democratic plans to finance ongoing appropriations failing to garner enough votes to pass the Senate.
上周，美国联邦政府陷入停摆（即部分机构因资金耗尽而暂停运作），原因是共和党和民主党提出的、旨在为政府持续拨款提供资金的方案，都未能在参议院获得足够票数通过。
Donald Trump did not seem overly worried about the situation, calling it an “unprecedented opportunity” to throttle funds going to blue states and fire federal employees. The stock market surged higher and the bond market did not react. But up to 750,000 workers will be furloughed, losing out on $400 million in wages a day. Every week that the government remains closed will cut the annualized GDP growth rate by 0.1 percent this quarter, Mark Zandi of Moody’s Analytics estimates. The White House forecasts that a month-long shutdown would lead to 43,000 Americans losing their job. The economy is already weakening in some important respects. Might this be enough to tip it into a recession?
唐纳德·特朗普（Donald Trump）似乎并不特别担心这种情况，他称其为“前所未有的机会”，借此削减流向“蓝州”（民主党州）的资金并解雇联邦雇员。股市大涨，债市则毫无反应。然而，多达75万名工人将面临停薪休假，每天损失4亿美元的工资。穆迪分析（Moody’s Analytics）的马克·赞迪（Mark Zandi）估计，政府每关闭一周，本季度年化GDP增长率将因此下降0.1个百分点。白宫预测，如果政府停摆长达一个月，将导致4.3万美国人失业。经济在某些重要方面已经显现出疲软迹象。这是否足以将经济推入衰退呢？
No, one might say, of course not: GDP is rising at a strong 3.8 percent a year. Yes, certainly, another might argue: Businesses have been on a months-long hiring freeze and the jobless rate is starting to tick up. No: The country is in the midst of a massive technology and infrastructure boom. Yes: Confidence is sinking, wage growth is slowing, and default rates are rising. No: The Federal Reserve is cutting interest rates, flushing cheaper money to credit-starved borrowers. Yes: The trade war and the White House’s immigration policies are causing sharp “Trump slumps” in Las Vegas and other communities. No: Consumer spending has remained remarkably resilient, despite high prices.
不，有人可能会说，当然不会（发生经济衰退）：国内生产总值（GDP）正以每年3.8%的强劲速度增长。是的，当然，另一些人可能会争辩说：企业已经经历了长达数月的招聘冻结，失业率开始上升。不：这个国家正处于一场大规模的技术和基础设施繁荣之中。是的：信心正在下降，工资增长正在放缓，违约率正在上升。不：美联储正在降息，向那些急需信贷的借款人注入更廉价的资金。是的：贸易战和白宫的移民政策正在拉斯维加斯及其他社区造成显著的“特朗普式衰退”。不：尽管物价高企，消费者支出依然保持着显著的韧性。
I could go on like that for paragraph after paragraph; a reader could be forgiven for being confused, because what’s happening is confusing.
我可以像这样一段接一段地讲下去；读者感到困惑也情有可原，因为当前发生的一切确实令人费解。
Sometimes, the economy has a single story to tell. Toward the end of George W. Bush’s presidency, the housing market collapsed, causing a financial crisis that led to a catastrophic global downturn. Near the end of Trump’s first term, the coronavirus froze the economy in place, causing a brief but extreme recession and a long shakeout in the supply chain.
有时候，经济只有一个故事可讲。在乔治·W·布什总统任期末期，房地产市场崩盘，引发了一场金融危机，并导致了灾难性的全球经济衰退。在特朗普总统第一个任期即将结束时，冠状病毒使经济停滞，造成了一次短暂但极其严重的衰退，并导致了供应链的长期震荡。
Today, the economy has several stories to tell. Mike Wilson, the chief investment officer of Morgan Stanley, argues that we have been in a “rolling recession” for three years—an apt term, capturing the queasy, bewildering state of the financial world. Downturns have afflicted sector after sector, region after region, and many of these mini-busts resolved into mini-recoveries. The technology sector is flourishing as the housing market and manufacturing industry flail. Overall the economy has performed fine. Still, if a few more stories turn darker, the country might be in trouble.
如今，经济呈现出多种不同的景象。摩根士丹利（Morgan Stanley）的首席投资官迈克·威尔逊（Mike Wilson）认为，我们已经经历了三年的“滚动式衰退”（rolling recession）——这是一个恰当的说法，它形象地描述了金融世界令人不安、困惑的状况。经济低迷一个接一个地影响着各个行业和地区，其中许多小规模的经济衰退最终演变为小幅度的复苏。科技行业正在蓬勃发展，而房地产市场和制造业却举步维艰。整体而言，经济表现尚可。尽管如此，如果再出现一些负面情况，美国经济可能就会陷入困境。
The shutdown won’t cause a nationwide recession, provided it is over soon. But it could certainly worsen some smaller ones already gathering force. Trump’s dismissal of 300,000 federal workers and cancellation of hundreds of billions of dollars of government contracts tipped the Washington region into a slump this year. The jobless rate has been flat in most large metro areas, but the D.C. area’s unemployment rate has jumped 0.6 percent; measures of financial distress, such as food-bank usage, have surged.
如果政府关门能尽快结束，它就不会导致全国性的经济衰退。但它肯定会加剧一些已经显现出势头的、规模较小的衰退。特朗普解雇了30万联邦雇员，并取消了数千亿美元的政府合同，这使得华盛顿地区在今年陷入了经济低迷。大多数大都市区的失业率一直持平，但华盛顿特区（D.C.地区）的失业率却飙升了0.6个百分点；同时，衡量经济困境的指标，例如食品银行的使用量，也大幅激增。
If the Senate agrees on a spending bill and reopens the government quickly, the shutdown and furloughs won’t have much effect, Zandi told me. But “if the shutdown lasts three or four weeks, it becomes a deal for the economy, as government workers who aren’t getting paid pull back on their spending and government contractors lose business,” he said. If it lasts for more than a month, the shutdown could have a significant impact—directly on families, and indirectly as investors question “the ability of the U.S. government to do basic things like keep the lights on.”
赞迪（Zandi）告诉我，如果参议院能迅速通过一项支出法案并重启政府，那么政府停摆和强制休假将不会产生太大影响。但他表示，“如果停摆持续三到四周，那对经济来说就成了个大问题，因为拿不到薪水的政府雇员会减少开支，而政府承包商也会失去业务。”如果停摆持续一个多月，它可能会产生重大影响——直接影响到家庭，间接则是因为投资者会质疑“美国政府维持基本运作（例如供电）的能力”。
At the same time, the trade war has led to a minor downturn in the manufacturing sector, which has contracted for the past seven months and shed workers for the past two and a half years. The agricultural industry is also shrinking, thanks to the rising cost of labor and equipment and the falling price of commodity crops, though the Trump administration is angling for a bailout. Finally, the housing market is in a—well, I’m not even sure what to call it. The number of “starts,” or new projects that construction firms have broken ground on, is perilously low. Existing-home sales are dropping. Real-estate prices are falling. Lower interest rates and prices might help some borrowers, but won’t make much of a dent in the country’s severe housing shortage.
与此同时，贸易战导致制造业小幅下滑，该行业在过去七个月里持续萎缩，并在过去两年半的时间里裁减了员工。农业也在萎缩，这要归因于劳动力和设备成本的上涨，以及大宗农产品价格的下跌，尽管特朗普政府正在寻求救助。最后，房地产市场正处于一个……好吧，我甚至不知道该怎么形容它。建筑公司已动工的新项目（即“开工”数量）低得危险。现房销售正在下降。房地产价格正在下跌。较低的利率和房价可能会帮助一些借款人，但对于解决全国严重的住房短缺问题来说，作用不大。
The country’s GDP and stock market are performing well, though, thanks to a colossal flush of investment in artificial intelligence and related technologies. Companies are pouring hundreds of billions of dollars a year into data centers; investors are forking over money to start-ups and major tech firms, which are spending the cash on operating costs, model improvements, acquisitions, and hires. ChatGPT and its ilk are driving half of American GDP growth at the moment. And the tech boom (or bubble, perhaps) is buoying the country’s equity valuations and its electricity and utility sectors.
不过，得益于对人工智能及相关技术的巨额投资涌入，该国的GDP和股市表现良好。企业每年向数据中心投入数千亿美元；投资者向初创公司和大型科技公司投入巨资，后者则将这些资金用于运营成本、模型改进、收购和招聘。目前，ChatGPT及其类似技术正在推动美国一半的GDP增长。此外，这场科技繁荣（或许可以说是一场泡沫）正在支撑该国的股票估值及其电力和公用事业领域。
At the household level, the unemployment rate remains low and income strong enough. But most companies are simply not hiring, meaning that jobless workers are spending much longer looking for a position. And though the jobless rate is not high, it is rising, climbing from a post-pandemic low of 3.4 percent to 4.3 percent. The country’s cost-of-living crisis shows no sign of relenting either. The APR on a credit card sits at 21.1 percent, up from 14.5 percent three years ago; mortgage rates are above 6 percent. And tariffs are jacking up the cost of consumer goods: The effective tariff rate is 17.9 percent, the highest since 1934, according to the Yale Budget Lab. The price increases are costing families $2,400 a year.
在家庭层面，失业率依然较低，收入也足够强劲。但是，大多数公司目前根本不招聘，这意味着失业工人需要花费更长时间才能找到工作。尽管失业率并不高，但它正在上升，已从疫情后的最低点3.4%攀升至4.3%。同时，该国的生活成本危机也丝毫没有缓解的迹象。信用卡年利率（APR）已达21.1%，高于三年前的14.5%；抵押贷款利率也超过了6%。此外，关税正在推高消费品成本：根据耶鲁大学预算实验室（Yale Budget Lab）的数据，实际关税税率高达17.9%，是自1934年以来的最高水平。物价上涨每年使每个家庭额外花费2400美元。
Given these dynamics—plus the uncertainty afflicting businesses, plus the tenor of the political debate in Washington, plus soaring insurance premiums and pending health-care cuts—the public’s assessment of how things are going is plummeting. Consumers are “much less positive” than they were a few months ago, argues Stephanie Guichard of the Conference Board. A lot of people think the economy is already in a recession.
鉴于这些动态——再加上企业面临的不确定性、华盛顿政治辩论的紧张气氛，以及飙升的保险费和即将到来的医疗保健削减——公众对经济形势的评价正在急剧下降。经济咨询委员会（Conference Board）的斯蒂芬妮·吉查德（Stephanie Guichard）认为，消费者远没有几个月前那么乐观。许多人认为经济已经处于衰退之中。
Depending on where they are and what sector they work in, they might not be wrong. It may take some time for us to know for sure. While the government remains shut down, the Bureau of Labor Statistics and other agencies won’t publish data on hiring, inflation, unemployment, and other key metrics. Jerome Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, describes the overall situation as “challenging,” “turbulent,” and “curious”—not exactly the words you want to hear from the head of the country’s monetary authority.
根据他们所处的地理位置和所从事的行业，他们的看法或许没错。我们可能需要一段时间才能确定真相。在政府持续停摆期间，劳工统计局（Bureau of Labor Statistics）及其他机构将不会发布有关招聘、通货膨胀、失业率以及其他关键经济指标的数据。美联储主席杰罗姆·鲍威尔（Jerome Powell）将当前整体局势描述为“具有挑战性”、“动荡不安”和“令人费解”——这绝不是你希望从一个国家货币管理机构负责人那里听到的词汇。
Washington has already put itself in a recession. Maybe the rest of the country is next.
华盛顿已经陷入了衰退。也许接下来就轮到全国其他地区了。