Public Pensions: An Economic Time Bomb
公共养老金: 一个经济定时炸弹
翻译：
sunny
校对：
FungChuh
人文经济学会资助译制
I want to talk to you about three words that should scare the heck out of you, especially if you’re young: public pension liabilities.
我想和你们谈谈三个词，它们应该会吓坏你们，特别是如果你还年轻：公共养老金负债。
Okay, I know you probably have about a hundred things you’re worried about, and public pension liabilities likely aren’t one of them.
好吧，我知道你可能有上百件要担心的事情，公共养老金负债可能不是其中之一。
But that’s the reason this is so scary—because almost no one is paying attention.
但这就是它如此可怕的原因ーー因为几乎没有人在意。
Unless you’re okay with your city going full Detroit and giving more of your hard-earned money to pay off someone else’s debts, stay with me.
除非你不介意你的城市充分底特律化并且将更多你辛苦赚来的钱偿用于偿还他人的债务，否则你就支持我吧。
So what is a public pension liability?
那么，什么是公共养老金负债？
A pension is a guaranteed, lifetime payment to someone after they retire. Pensions used to be a big deal in the private sector. Every major American company had them. But they became too expensive, and companies have taken steps to phase them out.
养老金是退休人员的终身报酬。过去，养老金在私企是个大问题。每个美国大公司都有养老金。但是它们变得太昂贵了，公司们已经采取措施逐步淘汰它们。
However, pensions still live on in the public sector—among employees of the government—and they’re eating city and states’ budgets alive. More and more money that could go to tax cuts or better services is instead being shoveled aside to pay for these benefits.
然而，养老金仍然存在于公共部门——在政府雇员中——它们正在吞噬城市和州预算。越来越多钱，它们本可以用于减税或者更好的服务，现在却被用来支付这些福利。
Why is this happening? Over decades, politicians have promised trillions of dollars in pensions to government workers. That includes police, firefighters, teachers, and city and state officials. You name a government job, and there’s a pension associated with it.
为什么会发生这种情况？几十年来，政客们给政府工作者承诺了数万亿美元的养老金。他们包括警察、消防员、教师以及市和州政府官员。你随便说一份政府工作，它肯定配套有养老金。
Now, you may be wondering, “How big are these payments?” Many pensions are quite large. In California, more than 62,000 retired public employees are receiving pensions of over $100,000 per year. Sometimes, it’s even crazier. A retired New York City sanitation worker is getting $285,000 per year. A retired county administrator in California receives over $400,000 per year.
你可能想知道，「这些报酬有多少?」许多养老金数额相当大。在加利福尼亚州，超过 62,000 名退休公务员每年领取超过十万美元的养老金。有时甚至更离谱。一位退休的纽约市环卫工人每年可以领到 285,000 美元。加利福尼亚州的一位退休县行政官员每年领到超过 40 万美元。
Remember, these are guaranteed lifetime yearly payouts.
记住，这些是终身保障的年度报酬。
Now, we love our public employees. They do vital work for our local communities and the wider society. They deserve competitive pay and retirement benefits. But currently, many cities are, in effect, paying for multiple public departments at the same time: the department that’s working now and, because people are living longer, a generation or two of retirees.
我们爱我们的公务员。他们的工作对我们的当地社区和更广泛的社会至关重要。他们应该得到有竞争力的薪酬和退休福利。但是目前，许多城市实际上是在同时为多个公共部门付钱：现在正在运作的部门，而且，由于现在人们寿命更长，和一两代退休人员。
The system amounts to a self-perpetuating, corrupt merry-go-round. Public-sector unions give large donations to candidates, who are then responsible for negotiating how much of your money goes to public sector workers. These arrangements not only promise high salaries in the short-term, but they also hide the payments that will be due down the road when it will be much too late.
这个系统相当于一个自我延续的、腐败的旋转木马。公共部门工会向候选人提供大量捐款，然后由候选人负责协商你的钱有多少流向公共部门工人。这些安排不仅保证了短期内的高薪，而且还遮掩了总有一天到期的未付款，到那时就为时已晚了。
The results are predictable.
结果不难预料。
State and local governments across the U.S. openly admit to 1.4 trillion dollars of unfunded pension liabilities, or $11,000 per household. “Unfunded” means dollars that have been promised, but there’s no actual money in the bank. And that’s just the amount they admit to. The real number, according to the Federal Reserve, is much larger—around 4 trillion dollars, or $32,000 per household.
美国各州和地方政府公开承认有 1.4 万亿美元无资金准备的养老金负债，相当于每个家庭 1.1 万美元。「Unfunded」意思是已经承诺支付，但是银行里没有实际资金的。这还只是他们承认的数目。美联储的数据显示，实际数字要大得多，大约为 4 万亿美元，即每个家庭 3.2 万美元。
Pensions have already thrown California cities like San Bernardino and Vallejo into bankruptcy. And the entire state of Illinois is teetering on the edge.
养老金已经把圣贝纳迪诺和瓦列霍等加州城市推到了破产境地。整个伊利诺伊州都在危机的边缘。
So how do politicians get away with this? They use a time-tested political strategy: they lie.
那么，政客们是如何逃脱责任的呢？他们使用了经久不变的政治策略：撒谎。
They lie by saying they can pay for more and more generous pensions—not by collecting more taxes, but by making investments at a “guaranteed” 7.5% return.
他们撒谎说他们能够支付越来越丰厚的养老金——不是通过征收更多的税收，而是通过收益率为「有保证的」7.5% 的投资。
But this is nonsense. It’s less and less likely they’ll meet their 7.5% goal over time, and their investment behavior—pouring ever more funds into ever riskier investments—suggests they know it. But if they were to use a more realistic assessment, they’d need to raise taxes dramatically. And they love their jobs too much for that.
