老闆們 給你的員工加薪吧大綱

A few days ago Walmart, America’s largest employer, announced that it will raise wages for half a million workers. For many of those workers the gains will be small, but the announcement is nonetheless a very big deal, for two reasons. First, there will be spillovers: Walmart is so big that its action will probably lead to raises for millions of workers employed by other companies. Second, and arguably far more important, is what Walmart’s move tells us — namely, that low wages are a political choice, and we can and should choose differently.

幾天前，美國最大的僱主沃爾瑪(Walmart)宣佈將爲50萬名員工加薪。對其中許多員工來說，漲幅是很小的，但並不妨礙此事的重要性，原因有兩個。首先是會有溢出效應：以沃爾瑪的規模之大，這一舉動可能引致數以百萬計的其他公司員工得到加薪。第二點，應該說也是更爲重要的一點，沃爾瑪的舉動在告訴我們，低薪是一個政治選擇，我們可以，也應該做出別的選擇。

Some background: Conservatives — with the backing, I have to admit, of many economists — normally argue that the market for labor is like the market for anything else. The law of supply and demand, they say, determines the level of wages, and the invisible hand of the market will punish anyone who tries to defy this law.

提供一些背景：保守派——不得不承認，他們的背後有一些經濟學家的支持——通常會說，勞動力市場跟任何其他東西的市場是一樣的。他們說，供求法則決定薪資水平，任何人要想違背這一法則，都會遭到市場無形之手的懲罰。

Specifically, this view implies that any attempt to push up wages will either fail or have bad consequences. Setting a minimum wage, it’s claimed, will reduce employment and create a labor surplus, the same way attempts to put floors under the prices of agricultural commodities used to lead to butter mountains, wine lakes and so on. Pressuring employers to pay more, or encouraging workers to organize into unions, will have the same effect.

這種觀念尤其在暗示，任何推高工資的企圖都是徒勞的，或者會有糟糕的後果。它認爲設定最低工資會減少就業，造成勞動力過剩，就好比給農產品設定價格下限曾經導致黃油成山、紅酒成湖等等。強迫僱主增加工資，或鼓勵工人組成工會，也會有同樣的效果。

But labor economists have long questioned this view. Soylent Green — I mean, the labor force — is people. And because workers are people, wages are not, in fact, like the price of butter, and how much workers are paid depends as much on social forces and political power as it does on simple supply and demand.

但勞動經濟學家對這種看法一直存在質疑。大扁豆綠餅（Soylent Green，同名電影中用死人制成的一種食物。——譯註）——我的意思是，勞動力——是人。由於工人是人，工資實際上和黃油的價格不是一回事，工人的薪水多寡，取決於簡單的供求關係，同樣也取決於社會中的力量和政治權力。

What’s the evidence? First, there is what actually happens when minimum wages are increased. Many states set minimum wages above the federal level, and we can look at what happens when a state raises its minimum while neighboring states do not. Does the wage-hiking state lose a large number of jobs? No — the overwhelming conclusion from studying these natural experiments is that moderate increases in the minimum wage have little or no negative effect on employment.

有什麼證據？首先，看看提高最低工資標準後實際會怎樣。許多州的最低工資是高於聯邦水平的，我們可以比較一下，當一個州提高最低工資，毗鄰的州不提時會出現什麼情況。加薪州會失去大量就業機會嗎？不會——通過研究這些自然實驗可以得出毋庸置疑的結論，最低工資的適度提高對就業的負面影響微乎其微。

Then there’s history. It turns out that the middle-class society we used to have didn’t evolve as a result of impersonal market forces — it was created by political action, and in a brief period of time. America was still a very unequal society in 1940, but by 1950 it had been transformed by a dramatic reduction in income disparities, which the economists Claudia Goldin and Robert Margo labeled the Great Compression. How did that happen?

然後再來看歷史。你會發現，我們曾經擁有的中產階級社會，並不是非人的市場力量促成的——它是政治行動的成果，只用了不長的一段時間。1940年的時候，美國還是非常不平等的社會，但到了1950年，貧富差距的縮小帶來社會劇變，也就是被經濟學家克勞迪亞·戈爾丁(Claudia Goldin)和羅伯特·馬戈(Robert Margo)稱爲“大壓縮”(Great Compression)的時期。這是怎麼回事？

Part of the answer is direct government intervention, especially during World War II, when government wage-setting authority was used to narrow gaps between the best paid and the worst paid. Part of it, surely, was a sharp increase in unionization. Part of it was the full-employment economy of the war years, which created very strong demand for workers and empowered them to seek higher pay.

政府的直接干預是一部分原因，尤其是在二戰期間，政府動用薪資設定權力來縮小最高薪和最低薪之間的差距。當然，工會數量的急劇增加起到了一定作用。還有就是戰時的充分就業經濟營造了極其強勁的勞力需求，讓工人有了尋求更高工資的餘地。

The important thing, however, is that the Great Compression didn’t go away as soon as the war was over. Instead, full employment and pro-worker politics changed pay norms, and a strong middle class endured for more than a generation. Oh, and the decades after the war were also marked by unprecedented economic growth.

然而最重要的是，戰爭結束後“大壓縮”並沒有馬上停止。 事實上，充分就業和支持工人的政治改變了薪資規制，一個強勁的中產階級延續到了下一代。噢對了，戰後幾十年還出現了空前的經濟大增長。

Which brings me back to Walmart.

這就讓我想到了沃爾瑪的事。

The retailer’s wage hike seems to reflect the same forces that led to the Great Compression, albeit in a much weaker form. Walmart is under political pressure over wages so low that a substantial number of employees are on food stamps and Medicaid. Meanwhile, workers are gaining clout thanks to an improving labor market, reflected in increasing willingness to quit bad jobs.

這家零售商的加薪，似乎是有一股力量在起作用，同樣是這種力量當年促成了“大壓縮”，只不過這次的力量要小很多。沃爾瑪是承受着政治壓力的，它的薪資太低，以至於相當一部分員工要靠食物券和聯邦醫療補助(Medicaid)過活。與此同時，隨着勞動力市場的改善，工人的勢力在增加，這體現爲辭去爛工作的意願有所增強。

What’s interesting, however, is that these pressures don’t seem all that severe, at least so far — yet Walmart is ready to raise wages anyway. And its justification for the move echoes what critics of its low-wage policy have been saying for years: Paying workers better will lead to reduced turnover, better morale and higher productivity.

然而有意思的是，這些壓力看起來不算特別大，至少目前是這樣——但沃爾瑪還是打算加薪了。它提出的理由，和多年來一直在批評其低薪策略的人看法一致：給工人更高的報酬會降低僱員流失率，提升士氣和生產力。

What this means, in turn, is that engineering a significant pay raise for tens of millions of Americans would almost surely be much easier than conventional wisdom suggests. Raise minimum wages by a substantial amount; make it easier for workers to organize, increasing their bargaining power; direct monetary and fiscal policy toward full employment, as opposed to keeping the economy depressed out of fear that we’ll suddenly turn into Weimar Germany. It’s not a hard list to implement — and if we did these things we could make major strides back toward the kind of society most of us want to live in.

進而我們看到，爲成千上萬的美國人策劃一場大幅度的加薪，幾乎可以肯定沒有通常認爲的那麼難。將最低工資標準充分上調；爲工人組成工會提供便利，增加他們的議價權；以充分就業爲目標制定直接的貨幣和財政政策，不要因爲擔心我們會一夜之間變成魏瑪德國，就去把經濟保持在蕭條的狀態。這些舉措要實施起來並不難——如果我們去做，我們就能大踏步地向前邁進，實現我們理想中的社會。

The point is that extreme inequality and the falling fortunes of America’s workers are a choice, not a destiny imposed by the gods of the market. And we can change that choice if we want to.

我想說，極端的不平等和美國工人的財富流失是一個選擇，不是市場諸神強加給我們的命運。選擇可以改變，只要我們願意。