What can be done about mass unemployment? All the wise heads agree: there're no quick or any answers. There's work to be done, but workers aren't ready to do it-they're in the wrong places, or they have the wrong skills. Our problem are "structural," and will take many years to solve.
如何解决大规模失业问题，所有精英人士均认为，没有快速简单的解决办法，工作是有的，但是工人还没有准备好去做，他们处在不合适的职位或是拥有的技能不匹配，我们的问题是结构性问题，需要从长计议。
But don't bother asking for evidence that justifies this bleak view. There isn't any. On the contrary, all the facts suggest that high unemployment in America is the result of inadequate demand. Saying that there're no easy answers sounds wise, but it's actually foolish: our unemployment crisis could be cured very quickly if we had the intellectual clarity and political will to act. In other words, structural unemployment is a fake problem, which mainly serves as an excuse for not pursuing real solutions.
但是不必麻烦去寻找，有哪些证据证明了这个蹩脚的观点，没有任何证据相反，所有的事实都表明美国的高失业率是需求不足的结果，声称没有简单的解决方案，听起来很明智，但实际上很愚蠢，如果我们保持着清晰的思路和政治意愿去行动，我们的失业危机就可以很快得到解决，换言之，结构性失业是一个虚假的问题，其主要是为不去寻找真正的解决方案提供一个借口。
The fact is job openings have plunged in every major sector, while the number of workers forced into part-time employment in almost all industries has soared. Unemployment has surged in every major occupational category. Only three states, with a combined population not much larger than that of Brooklyn, have unemployment rates below 5%. So the evidence contradicts the claim that we're mainly suffering from structural unemployment. Why, then, has this claim become so popular?
事实上在各个重要行业，就业机会都急剧下降，而几乎在所有行业里，被迫从事兼职工作的人，数量却在飙升，每个重要工种的失业率都在激增，仅有三个州的失业率低于5%，而这三个州的人口之和都不及一个布鲁克林的人口，因此这一证据反驳了我们主要受结构性失业影响的这一说法，那么为什么这种说法会如此流行呢？
Part of the answer is that this is what always happens during periods of high unemployment——in part because experts and analysts believe that declaring the problem the problem deeply rooted, with no easy answers, makes them sound serious.
部分原因是这种情况总发生在高失业率期间，在某种程度上因为专家和分析专家相信，宣布没有简单解决方案的根深蒂固的问题，会让他们听起来非常严重。
I've been looking at what self-proclaimed experts were saying about unemployment during the Great Depression; it was almost identical to what Very Serious People are saying now. Unemployment cannot be brought down rapidly, declared one 1935 analysis, because the workforce is "unadaptable and untrained. It cannot respond to the opportunities which industry may offer." A few years later, a large defense buildup finally provided a fiscal stimulus adequate to the economy's needs-and suddenly industry was eager to employ those "unadaptable and untrained" workers.
我查看了大萧条时期自称专家的人关于事业发表的言论，几乎和现在认真负责的人所说的一模一样，1935年的一份分析宣称失业率不可能迅速下降，因为劳动力缺乏适应能力与专业训练，其并不能应对工业发展所提供的机会，几年后，大规模的国防建设最终提供了满足经济发展需求的财政刺激，工业发展突然开始迫切需要雇佣那些缺乏适应能力与专业训练的工人。
But now, as then, powerful forces are ideologically opposed to the whole idea of government action on a sufficient scale to jump-start the economy. And that, fundamentally, is why claims that we face huge structural problems have been multiplying: they offer a reason to do nothing about the mass unemployment that is crippling our economy and our society.
但是现在如同那时一样，强权势力在思想上就反对政府采取大规模的行动以推动经济的整体理念，从根本上讲，这就是为什么声称我们面临巨大的结构性失业问题的言论不断的增多，他们为对削弱我们经济和社会的大规模失业无所作为提供了一个理由。
So what you need to know is that there's no evidence whatsoever to back these claims. We aren't suffering from a shortage of needed skills; we're suffering from a lack of policy resolve. As I said, structural unemployment isn’t real problem, it's an excuse——a reason not to act on America's problems at a time when action is desperately needed.
所以你需要知道的是没有任何证据支持这些言论，我们并不缺少必备技能，我们缺少的是政策救助，正如我们所说，结构性失业并不是一个真正的问题，而是一个借口，一个每当迫切需要行动时，却对美国的问题不采取行动的理由。
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