生活和教育成本攀升 美国年轻人债务负担日益沉重

据美国《财富》杂志网站8日报道，高通胀导致房租和食品价格持续上涨，加之学生贷款债务沉重，美国Z世代（1997-2012年出生）正面临前所未有的经济挑战。文章指出，房租已成为影响Z世代可支配收入的最重要因素之一，美国多数大城市的房租涨幅远超工资增长，而食品价格上涨以及高昂的学生贷款让Z世代的财务状况雪上加霜。

Gen Z risk starting further and further behind previous generations building a life for themselves as soaring rents chew into their disposable income, leaving them deeper in a financial hole they are still digging.
随着房租飙升，Z世代的可支配收入越来越少，他们的生活水平可能越来越落后于上一代人，在自己挖掘的财务陷阱中越陷越深。

According to new data from credit reporting agency TransUnion, these higher costs matched with their entry level salaries have forced young Americans born between 1997 and 2012 to rely much more often on expensive forms of revolving lines of debt—such as credit cards—to make ends meet.
美国征信机构环联最新数据显示，生活成本不断上涨，却只拿着入门级薪资，Z世代年轻人不得不更频繁地依赖信用卡等昂贵的循环债务方式来维持生计。

“This is a generation that is feeling financial stress in a more acute way than millennials did a decade ago,” Charlie Wise, head of global research at TransUnion, told the Wall Street Journal.
环联全球研究负责人查理·怀斯告诉《华尔街日报》：“这一代美国人比十年前的千禧一代感受到了更为沉重的财务压力。”

The average open balance on US credit cards for Gen Z consumers grew to $2,834 last year versus $2,248 a decade earlier. 
2023年，Z世代消费者的美国信用卡平均未结余额增至2834美元，而十年前为2248美元。

In Bank of America's annual Better Money Habits survey published in October, nearly three out of four said they have changed their spending habits to offset higher living expenses, by doing such things as cooking at home more frequently, limiting groceries to essential purchases and spending less on clothes.
在美国银行去年10月发布的年度“更好的金钱习惯”调查中，近四分之三的人表示，他们已经改变了消费习惯，通过更频繁地在家做饭、非必要不购买食品杂货以及减少衣服支出等方式来抵消更高的生活开支。

Should this persist, their finances could create a structural impediment to longer-term US economic growth. An inability to build a financially secure foundation is often reason to delay plans for starting a family, inadvertently contributing to a further drop in US fertility rates, now at their lowest since records began a century ago.
如果这种情况持续下去，他们的财务状况可能会对美国长期的经济增长造成结构性障碍。无法建立有保障的经济基础往往是推迟组建家庭计划的原因，这也无意间导致了美国生育率的进一步下降。目前美国生育率处于有记录的一个世纪以来的最低水平。