You know me. I am in your friendship circle hidden in plain sight. My clothes are still impeccable -- bought in the good years when I was still making money. To look at me you would not know that my electricity was cut off last week for nonpayment, or that I meet the eligibility requirements for food stamps. But if you paid attention, you would see that sadness in my eyes -- hear that hint of fear in my otherwise self-assured voice.
你们认识我的, 我就藏在你们朋友圈里 那不起眼的地方。 我衣着依然得体—— 这还是我在赚钱的好年景里买的。 只看的我外表,你不会知道, 我家上周因付不起电费而断电, 你也不知道我已贫困到满足 领取救济食品券的标准。 但如果你留意一下, 就会发觉我眼里的悲伤, 在我原本自信的声音中, 你会听到一丝丝的恐惧。
These days I'm buying the $1.99 trial-size jug of Tide to make ends meet. I bet you didn't know laundry detergent came in that size. You invite me to the same expensive restaurants the two of us have always enjoyed, but I order mineral water now with a twist of lemon, not the 12-dollar glass of chardonnay. I am frugal in my menu choices. Meticulous, I count every penny in my head. I demur dividing the table bill evenly to cover desserts and designer coffees and second and third glasses of wine I did not consume.
这些天,我只能买得起 1.99 美元 1 罐的试销装洗衣液 来维持生计。 我确信你不知道还会有 那个尺寸装的洗衣液。 你邀我去那些我俩以前 经常喜欢去的高档餐厅, 但我点了矿泉水,挤了几滴柠檬, 而不再喝 12 美元一杯的白葡萄酒; 我点菜时斟酌再三, 仔细地默数着每一分钱; 我不同意平分账单, 因为我没吃那些甜点、 没喝名品咖啡和 第 2 杯、第 3 杯红酒,
I am tired of trying to fake appearances. A friend told me that I'm broke not poor, and there is a difference. I live without cable, my gym membership and nail appointments. I've discovered I can do my own hair. There is no retirement savings, no nest egg. I exhausted that long ago. There is no expensive condo to draw equity and no husband to back me up. Months of slow pay and no pay have decimated my credit. Bill collectors call constantly, reading verbatim from a script before expressing polite sympathy for my plight and then demanding payment arrangements I can't possibly meet. Friends wonder privately how someone so well educated could be in economic free fall.
我厌倦了打肿脸充胖子。 一位朋友说我虽破产但不穷, 破产与贫穷是两码事。 我没有有线电视、没有健身卡, 也不去做美甲, 还发现竟然可以自己做头发。 我没有退休储蓄, 没有(养老或应急用的)储备金, 这些很久以前就被我花光了。 我既没有昂贵的公寓来套现, 也没有丈夫来支持我。 几个月的延期付款和 未支付行为毁了我的信用, 催账员电话不断, 他们先照本宣科地 念(催款)文字, 然后表达对我困境的同情, 接下来又要求我做 无法兑现的付款计划。 朋友们私下里很好奇, 我一个受过良好教育的人, 怎会在经济上如此捉襟见肘。
I'm still as talented as ever and smart as a whip, but work is sketchy now, mostly on and off consulting gigs. At 55 I've learned how to fake cheeriness, but there are not many opportunities for work anymore. I don't remember exactly when it stopped, but I cannot deny now having entered the uncertain world of formerly and used to be. I'm not sure anymore where I belong. What I do know is that dozens of online job applications seem to just disappear into a black hole. I'm wondering what is to become of me. So far my health has held up, but my body aches -- or is it my spirit? Homeless women used to be invisible to me but I appraise them now with curious eyes, wondering if their stories started like mine.
我一如过去才华横溢,聪明睿智, 但现在工作也是断断续续的, 主要是时有时无的临时咨询工作。 55 岁时,我学会了如何假装快乐, 但对我来说,现在已没有 多少工作机会了。 我不记得是什么时候开始的, 但无法否认,我已进入了 过去和曾经的那种不确定的境况。 我不确定自己属于哪里, 只知道在线申请的几十个工作 就好比石沉大海、杳无音讯。 我在想,该何去何从呢? 到目前为止,我健康状况良好, 但身体会痛疼——或许是 我的精神已经变得脆弱不堪? 过去我曾漠视那些 无家可归的妇女, 但现在我会用好奇的眼光审视她们, 思索着我是否在重蹈她们的覆辙。
I wrote this piece a year ago. It's a composite of my story and other women I know. I wrote it because I was tired of pretending I was all right when I wasn't. I was tired of faking normal. I wasn't seeing myself in the popular press. Nobody I knew was traveling the world or buying a condo in Costa Rica. Very few of my friends had set aside the 15 to 20 percent experts tell us we need to maintain our standard of living in retirement. My friends, many in their 50s and 60s, were looking at a downward mobility, a work-for-life proposition, just a job loss, medical diagnosis or divorce away from insolvency. We may not have hit rock bottom, but many of us saw a sequence of events where rock bottom was possible for the first time.
这是我一年前写下的一段文字, 它综合了我自己及其他 我所认识的女性的故事。 我写下这段文字, 是因为我厌倦了 自己明明过得不好, 却还要装模作样, 厌倦了假装一切正常。 我已从主流媒体上消失, 我认识的人里,没人周游世界 或在哥斯达黎加买公寓。 我的朋友中,没几个人能存上 专家建议的 15-20% 的收入, 以维持我们退休后的正常生活。 我的很多朋友已经五六十岁, 除了破产,还有失业、 医疗或离婚的原因, 正面临生活开始走下坡路, 需要考虑终身工作。 我们的经济状况可能还没跌入低谷, 但很多人都目睹了这一系列事情, 它们可能会导致个人 财务状况首次触底。
And the truth is, it really doesn't take much. The median household in the US only has enough savings to replace one month of income. Forty-seven percent of us cannot pull together 400 dollars to deal with an emergency. That's almost half of us. A major car repair and we're standing on the abyss. You wouldn't know it to look around you -- I'm not the only one in this situation. There are people in this room who are in the same predicament, and if it's not you, it is your parents or your sister or maybe your best friend. We get good at faking normal. Shame keeps us silent and siloed. When I first decided I was going to come out with my story, I did a website and a friend noticed that there were no photos of me -- it was all kind of cartoons like this. Even as I was coming out, I was still hiding.
事实上,跌入谷底很容易, 美国中等家庭的储蓄 只够维持一个月的生活, 我们当中 47% 的人 一次性拿不出 400 美元救急, 这几乎相当于一半的人口。 (遇到)一次车辆大修, 就会让我们处于地狱的边缘。 看看自己周围,你不会发现—— 处于这种境地的人并非我一人。 这个房间里就有人 处于同样的困境, 如果不是你, 也可能是你的父母或姐妹, 或者是你最好的朋友。 我们擅长假装一切正常, 羞耻心让我们变得沉默和孤立。 当我第一次决定要勇敢 站出来、讲出我的故事时, 我建了个网站, 一个朋友注意到 那上面没有我的照片, 全是像这样的漫画。 即便我站出来、说出实情时, 我仍在隐藏。
We live in a world where success is defined by income. When you say that you have money problems, you're announcing pretty much that you're a loser. When you're a graduate of Harvard Business School as I am, you're some kind of double loser.
在我们生活的世界里, 成功是用收入来界定的。 当你说自己有财务问题时, 你就好像在说 自己是个失败者。 若你像我一样, 是哈佛商学院毕业生的话, 那你就是双重的失败者。
We boomers hear a lot about how we have underfunded our retirement; how it's all our fault. Why on earth would we draw down our 401(k) plan to cover the shortfall on our mother-in-law's nursing home care, or to pay for our kid's tuition, or just to survive? We're accused of being poor planners and deadbeats -- all that money we spent on lattes and bottled water. To shame and blame is so deliciously tempting. Many of us don't even wait for others to do it we're so busy doing it to ourselves. I say let's own our part: we all could have saved more. I know I could have saved more, and if you were to rifle through my life over the last 30 years, you would see more than one dumb thing I have done financially. I can't change that now and neither can you, but let's not mix up individual, isolated behavior with the systemic factors that have caused a 7.7-trillion-dollar retirement income gap.
我们婴儿潮这一批人,听了 很多退休金如何不足的事情, 以及如何责任在我们的说辞。 我们为何要削减自己的退休金计划, 去补齐岳母(婆婆)的 养老院的费用? 或者去支付孩子的学费, 或者只是为了生存? 大家指责我们不但没有 规划好生活,还不懂节约—— 比如会把钱花在拿铁咖啡和瓶装水上。 羞辱和指责他人非常容易, 但我们很多人还没等别人这么做, 就已经自责不已。 那就各自反省一下吧: 我们本来可以多存些钱, 我知道我是可以多存一些的; 如果你审视我过去 30 年的生活, 会发现我在财务上 做的傻事可不止一桩。 我无力改变过去, 你也一样; 但我们不要把个人、孤立的行为 和造成 7.7 万亿美元退休金缺口的 系统因素混为一谈。
Millions of boomer-age Americans did not land here because of too many trips to Starbucks. We spent the last three decades dealing with flat and falling wages and disappearing pensions and through-the-roof cost on housing and health care and education. It used to not be like this. We all remember the three-legged retirement income stool which had the savings and pension and social security. Well, that stool has gone wobbly.
数百万婴儿潮出生的美国人 落到了今天这个地步, 不是因为去星巴克的次数太多, 而是因为过去 30 年中,我们 面对的是工资涨幅的停滞或下降、 消失的退休金, 还有上涨过快的 住房、医疗和教育成本。 以前可不是这样的, 我们都记得退休收入的“三脚凳”, 它由储蓄、养老金和社保组成。 那个凳子现在已经摇摇晃晃了。
Take savings -- what savings? For many families, there's just nothing left to save after the bills have been paid. The pension leg of the stool has also gone wobbly. We can remember when many people had pensions. Today only 13 percent of American workers are employed by companies that offer them. So what did we get instead? We got 401(k)-type plans and suddenly responsibility for retirement planning got shifted from our companies to us. We got the reigns but we also got the risk, and it turns out that millions of us just aren't that good at voluntarily investing over 40 years. Millions of us just aren't that good at managing market risk. And really the numbers tell the story. Half of all American households have no retirement savings at all. That would be zero. No 401(k), no IRA, not a dime. Among 55-to-64-year-olds who do have a retirement account, the median value of that account is 104,000 dollars. Now, 104,000 dollars does sound better than zero, but as an annuity, it generates about 300 dollars. I don't have to tell you that you can't live on that.
拿储蓄来说,哪有什么储蓄? 很多家庭, 在支付完各种账单后, 所剩已寥寥无几了。 养老金的凳腿也摇晃不稳, 我们还记得,以前 很多人都有养老金, 但今天,只有 13% 的美国工人 受雇于提供养老金的公司。 那我们有什么呢? 我们有了 401(K) 之类的退休计划, 突然间,退休保障计划的责任 从公司转移到了我们个人身上。 我们获得了主动权, 但也承担了风险, 而结果就是, 我们数百万人在过去 40 年里 一直不擅长主动投资、 不擅长管理市场风险。 数字已经说明了一切。 半数的美国家庭 压根儿就没有退休储蓄, 也就是说,退休储蓄为“零”, 压根儿没有 401(K)、没有 个人退休账户、没有一分钱储蓄。 在 55-64 岁有退休金账户的人中, 他们账户的平均余额是 10.4 万美元。 10.4 万美元听起来确实比没有好, 但作为退休年金, 每月收益约 300 美元, 显而易见, 你根本无法靠这点钱生活。
With savings down, pensions becoming a relic of the past and 401(k) plans failing millions of Americans, many near-retirees are dependent on social security as their retirement plan. But here's the problem. Social security was never supposed to be the retirement plan. It's not nearly enough. At best it replaces something like 40 percent of your pre-retirement income.
随着储蓄能力的下降、 养老金变得有名无实、 401(K) 计划让几百万 美国人大失所望, 很多快退休的人只能仰仗社会保险 来作为他们的退休保障计划。 但这里有个问题, 社会保险从来就不能 等同于退休保障计划, 它远远不够, 最多只可以保障 你退休前 40% 的收入。
Things have changed a lot from when social security was introduced back in 1935. Then, a 21-year-old male had a 50 percent chance of living until he was 65. So he retired at 60, did a little fishing, kissed his grandkids, got his gold watch -- he'd be dead within five years of receiving benefits. That's not the pattern today. If you're in your late 50s and in good health, you're going to live easily another 20 or 25 years. That's a really long time to make ends meet if you are broke.
自 1935 年引入社会保险制度以来, 很多事情都发生了变化。 那时,一个 21 岁的男性 活到 65 岁的概率是 50%, 所以他在 60 岁退休时, 还可以钓钓鱼,陪儿孙玩耍, 有金手表可以戴—— 但领取不到 5 年的退休金就会死去。 今天的格局已全然不同, 如果你快 60 岁了, 身体状况仍然很棒, 再活 20 或 25 年都是很轻松的事。 假若你已经穷困潦倒, 你还有很长的时间 需要维持生计。
So what's the play if you've landed here and you're 50 or 55 or 60? What's the play if you don't want to land here and you're 22 or 32? Here's what I've learned from my own experience. The cavalry's not coming. There is no big rescue, no prince charming, no big bailout in the works. To have a shot at something other than being old and poor in America, we're going to have to save ourselves and each other. I've had to come out of the shadows, stand here openly, and I'm inviting you to do so as well. I'm not going to tell you that it's not easy. I ventured though to tell my story because I thought it would make it a little easier for people to tell theirs. I think it's only through our strength in numbers that we can begin to change the national "la-la" conversation that we are having on this retirement crisis. With so many of us shell-shocked and adrift about what has happened to us, we're going to have to build up from the grassroots, forming what I think are resilience circles. These are small groups of people coming together to talk about what has happened to them, to share resources and information and to begin to figure out a way forward. I believe from this base that we can find our voices again and sound the alarm -- start pushing our institutions and policymakers to go hard on this retirement crisis with the urgency it deserves.
若在你 50,55 或 60 岁时 落到了这般田地, 你该怎么做? 假如你现在 20 或 30 岁出头, 不想将来狼狈到这般地步, 打算怎样做呢? 下面是我自己的一些经验教训。 不会有英雄拔刀相助, 也没有救世主, 没有白马王子, 也没有大的救助计划。 如果不想让自己在美国贫穷的老去, 可以试着去做些事情, 我们必须自我拯救 并相互帮助。 我已经从财务危机的阴影中走出来了, 公开站在这里, 我邀请你们也跟随我的脚步。 我想说的并不是这有多难, 我大胆讲出我的故事, 是因为我觉得这会让别人 更容易讲述他们的遭遇。 我认为,只有团结起来, 我们才会开始改变国家 关于目前退休危机的牵强说辞。 发生在我们身上的事情 已经让我们精疲力尽,却无能为力, 我们必须从最基本的做起, 形成我所谓的“应变圈”。 已经有一些小组的人聚在一起, 他们讲述彼此的遭遇、 分享资源和信息, 并开始找到前进的出路。 我相信以此为基础, 我们可以为自己发声, 去提醒当局—— 开始对我们的机构 和政策制定者施加压力, 让他们重视并认真处理退休危机。
In the meantime -- and there is an "in the meantime" -- we're going to have to adopt a live-low-to-the-ground mindset, drastically cutting back on our expenses. And I don't mean just living within our means. A lot of people are already doing that. What is called for now is to, in a much deeper way, ask ourselves what it really means to live a life that is not defined by things. I call it "smalling up." Smalling up is figuring out what you really need to feel contented and grounded. I have a friend who drives really beat-up, raggedy cars, but he will scrimp and save 15,000 dollars at one point to buy a flute because music is what really matters to him. He smalled up.
与此同时—— 注意这个词,“与此同时”—— 我们要有勒紧腰带过日子的心态, 大幅削减开支, 我指的不是量入为出地生活, 很多人已经在这样做了。 现在,我指的是, 以一种更深层次的方式, 问问我们自己, 不由物质定义的生活 真正意味着什么, 我称之为“简约生活”。 简约生活,是指弄清楚究竟什么 才能让自己感到满足和踏实。 我有个朋友,他开的是 一辆超级破旧的车, 但是他会在一段时间里 精打细算并攒下 15000 美元, 去买一只笛子, 因为音乐对他真的很重要。 他过的就是“简约生活”。
I've had to also let go of magical thinking -- this idea that if I just was patient enough and tightened my belt that things would go back to normal. If I just sent in one more CV or applied to one more job online or attended one more networking event that surely I'd get the kind of job I was used to having. Surely things would return to normal. The truth is I'm not going back and neither are you. The normal that we knew is over. In this new place that we are, we're going to be asked to do things that we don't want to do. We're going to be asked to take assignments that we think are beneath our station and our talent and our skill. I have had to get off my throne. Last year, a good friend of mine asked me if I would help her with some organization work. I assumed she meant community organizing along the lines of what President Obama did in Chicago. She meant organizing somebody's closet. I said, "I'm not doing that." She said, "Get off your throne. Money is green."
我也不得不放弃了 一些奇妙的想法—— 认为只要我有足够的耐心, 并省吃俭用的话, 生活就会回到正常水平; 如果我多发一封简历, 或者在线多申请一个职位, 或者多参加一场交流活动, 那么我一定能够找到 自己过去所从事的工作, 事情也就会自然而然地回归正常。 但真相是:我回不去,你也一样, 我们所说的“正常”已经不复存在了。 我们生活在一种新的形势下, 会被要求去做 我们不想去做的事情。 人们会要求我们去做一些 我们自认为是低于我们身份、 能力和技能的任务。 我也不得不放低身段。 去年,一个好朋友问我, 能否帮她做点组织工作。 我以为她指的是 配合做社区组织活动, 像奥巴马总统在芝加哥做的那样, 其实,她指的是 为人家整理衣橱。 我说:我才不做这个呢。 她说:“你别再矫情了, 挣钱才是硬道理。”
It's not easy being part of the advance team that is ushering in this new era of work and living. First is always hardest. First is before there are networks and pathways and role models ... before there are policies and ways to show us how to go forward. We're in the middle of a seismic shift, and we're going to have to find bridgework to get us through. Bridgework is what we do in the meantime; bridgework is what we do while we're trying to figure out what is next. Bridgework is also letting go of this notion that our worth and our value depend on our income and our titles and our jobs. Bridgework can look crazy or cool depending on how you were rolling when your personal financial crisis hit. I have friends with PhDs who are working at the Container Store or driving Uber or Lyft, and then I have other friends who are partnering with other boomers and doing really cool entrepreneurial ventures. Bridgework doesn't mean that we don't want to build on our past careers, that we don't want meaningful work. We do. Bridgework is what we do in the meantime while we're figuring out what is next.
在这个新时代, 成为一位在工作和 生活上的引路人并不容易。 “第一”总是最难的。 “第一”指的是在没有网络、 没有道路和榜样, 也没有政策和方法来指引我们之前, 探索我们该如何前进。 我们正处在一场剧变之中, 必须要找到过渡性的工作, 来帮助我们走出眼前的困境。 过渡性工作就是我们 同时在做的事情。 当我们试图搞清 下一步该怎么走时, 同时要去做的事情就是 过渡性的工作。 过渡性工作,也是让 我们放弃下面的观念: 我们的意义和价值取决于收入, 取决于我们的头衔和工作。 过渡性工作可能看起来 很疯狂,也可能很酷, 这取决于当个人财务危机 来袭时,你会如何应对。 我有一些博士朋友 就在集装箱商店工作, 或者开网约车。 还有一些朋友 与其他婴儿潮的人一起, 合伙做一些很酷的创业投资。 过渡性工作,并不意味着 我们不想在过去的 职业基础上构建生活, 或者我们不想做有意义的工作。 我们当然想! 过渡性工作是指在我们 想出如何迈出下一步前, 同时在做的事情。
I've also learned to think strategy not failure when I'm sort of processing all these things that I don't want to do. And I say that that's an approach that I would invite you to consider as well.
当我在处理这些 自己不想做的事情时, 我学会了让自己认为 这只是一项策略而已,并不是失败。 我要说,这是一种方法, 我想请你们也考虑这种方法。
So if you need to move in with your brother to make ends meet, call him. If you need to take in a boarder to help you pay your mortgage or pay your rent, do it. If you need to get food stamps, get the darn food stamps. AARP says only a third of older adults who are eligible actually get them. Do what you need to do to go another round. Know that there are millions of us. Come out of the shadows. Cut back, small up; think strategy, not failure; get off your throne and find the bridgework to get your through the lean times.
所以,如果你需要搬去 跟兄弟同住以节省开支, 那就给他打个电话; 如果需要找个房客 来帮你还房贷, 或支付你的租金, 直接去做好了。 如果需要领食品券, 就去拿那些该死的食品券。 美国退休协会说,只有 1/3 符合条件的老年人领取了食品券。 为渡过这段艰难日子, 需要做什么就去做, 要知道,像我们这样的人有几百万。 所以,要从阴影中走出来, 削减开支, 过简约生活, 把这当成策略,而非失败; 放低身段, 找到过渡性工作 去熬过艰难的时光。
As a country, we have achieved longevity, investing billions of dollars in the diagnosis, treatment and management of disease. It's not enough to just live a long time. We want to live well. We haven't invested nearly as much in the physical infrastructure to ensure that that happens. We need now a new way of thinking about what it means to be old in America. And we need guidance and ideas about how to live a richly textured life on a much more modest income.
作为一个国家, 我们已经实现了长寿, 这是通过投资数十亿美元 用于疾病诊断、治疗 和管理实现的。 然而单纯活得久还远远不够, 我们还想活得精彩。 我们没有像在基础建设上那样 投入足够资金去确保梦想成真。 现在,我们需要一种全新的思维, 想想在美国成为老人 意味着什么。 我们需要指引和建议, 如何在收入适当的基础上, 过更丰富多彩的生活。
So I am calling on change agents and social entrepreneurs, artists and elders and impact investors. I'm calling on developers and disrupters of the status quo. We need you to help us imagine how to invest in the services and products and infrastructure that will support our dignity, our independence and our well-being in these many, many decades that we're going to live.
所以,我呼吁变革推动者 和社会企业家们、 艺术家、尊长们 和有影响力的投资者们, 我呼吁发展者们 和现状争论者们, 所有的人帮忙设想一下, 在我们生命余下的几十年中, 如何在服务、产品 和基础设施方面投资, 去托起我们的尊严、 独立和福祉。
My journey has taken me from a place of fear and shame to one of humility and understanding. I'm ready now to link shields with others, to fight this fight, and I'm inviting you to join me.
我的旅程把我从充满 恐惧和羞耻的状态, 带到了谦逊和理解的状态。 我现在已做好准备 与其他人肩并肩, 迎接这场经济之战, 现在,我诚邀你们 加入我们的队伍!
Thank you.
谢谢!
(Applause)
(鼓掌)