华盛顿邮报 全美房租暴涨，拜登政府能做什么？ (2)

 

    Rachel, what are some of the actionable results that the Biden administration hopes to see with these plans?

    蕾切尔，拜登政府希望在这些计划中看到哪些切实可行的结果?

    Well, it depends who you ask. So, there has been some frustration¹ that these plans are not mandated².

    这要看你问谁了。有些沮丧，这些计划并不是强制性的。

    They don't require things of local governments or federal agencies or landlords.

    这些计划没有要求地方政府、联邦机构或房东提供任何东西。

    In many cases, there are ways to say, "Here's how you can improve this thing that is under your control. Will you commit to it? Will you join us in this fight?"大多数，可以发声的方式很多: “这就是你如何改进你所控制的事情。你会对此作出承诺吗? 你愿意加入我们的这个战斗吗？”

    But it remains³ to be seen whether or not that goes far enough and how tangibly⁴ it brings down rent for people who are really burdened by that share of their budget.

    但这个计划是否能走得远，对那些真正为那部分预算所累的人来说，这个计划真的能切实地降低租金吗？这些还有待观察。

    The White House says that it can't control rent prices directly, it can't do something to lower that payment for a family, so this is what they're doing instead.

    白宫表示它不能直接控制租金价格，也无法采取措施降低家庭租金，这就是他们正在做的事情。

    But for many tenants⁶, community organizers, activists⁷, that answer has not been good enough.

    但对许多租户、社区组织者和活动人士来说，这个答案还不够好。

    So, to step back, can you give us some context for what the state of the current housing market looks like for renters?

    退一步说，你能给我们介绍一下当前租房市场的状况吗?

    And why is the administration launching this push now?

    为什么拜登政府现在要推动这项工作?

    The White House has been under quite a bit of pressure from a coalition⁸ of tenant⁵ unions, renters, activists to treat rent costs as an urgent economic crisis.

    白宫一直承受着来自租户、租户联盟以及活动人士联合起来的巨大压力，他们要求将高房租视为一场紧急的经济危机。

    And the way that we got here is that the COVID economy has really sent many parts of the housing market into a bit of a tailspin.

    新冠经济真的让不少房地产市场陷入了混乱，我们才走到了这一步。

    So, earlier in the pandemic, when interest rates were very low, that meant that mortgage rates were also very low.

    在疫情早期，当利率很低时，这意味着抵押贷款利率也很低。

    You had some people who were reconsidering moving, where they could live, if they could work remotely, and that was really one of the fundamental factors in putting supply of housing and demand for housing out of whack⁹.

    你会看到一些可以远程办公的人，在重新考虑可以搬到哪里、住在哪里，这确实是导致住房供需失衡的一个基本因素。

    Now, if you took Econ 101, you might know that when you have supply and demand out of whack like that, home prices explode, which is exactly what they did.

    如果你学过经济学入门，你会知道当供需失衡时，房价会暴涨，这也正是它们运行的方式。

    And that helped to bring up rent prices, which are still, still very, very high, even though other parts of the housing market have cooled off.

    这帮助推高了租金价格，尽管房地产市场的其他部分已经冷却，但租金仍然非常高昂。

    So what you have is really high rent, which has become a huge part of high inflation in this country.

    你面临的是高租金，这已经成为这个国家高通胀的一个重要组成部分。

    It's also one of the things that tends to make up the largest share of people's budgets, especially on the lower-income spectrum¹⁰.

    这也在人们预算中占最大份额，特别是在低收入人群中。

    And people want the White House to respond to it in the way that they responded to high gas prices or other parts of high inflation.

    人们希望白宫以应对高油价或高通胀的其他部分的方式来应对房租问题。

1 frustration   

n.挫折，失败，失效，落空

参考例句：

• He had to fight back tears of frustration.他不得不强忍住失意的泪水。
• He beat his hands on the steering wheel in frustration.他沮丧地用手打了几下方向盘。

2 mandated   

adj. 委托统治的

参考例句：

• Mandated desegregation of public schools. 命令解除公立学校中的种族隔离
• Britain was mandated to govern the former colony of German East Africa. 英国受权代管德国在东非的前殖民地。

3 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

4 tangibly   

adv.可触摸的，可触知地，明白地

参考例句：

• Suddenly the problem of future loomed tangibly for me. 突然，前途的问题明确地出现在我眼前。 来自辞典例句
• Virtue is tangibly rewarded. 善行得到具体的报答。 来自互联网

5 tenant   

n.承租人；房客；佃户；v.租借，租用

参考例句：

• The tenant was dispossessed for not paying his rent.那名房客因未付房租而被赶走。
• The tenant is responsible for all repairs to the building.租户负责对房屋的所有修理。

6 tenants   

n.房客( tenant的名词复数 )；佃户；占用者；占有者

参考例句：

• A number of tenants have been evicted for not paying the rent. 许多房客因不付房租被赶了出来。
• Tenants are jointly and severally liable for payment of the rent. 租金由承租人共同且分别承担。

7 activists   

n.（政治活动的）积极分子，活动家( activist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• His research work was attacked by animal rights activists . 他的研究受到了动物权益维护者的抨击。
• Party activists with lower middle class pedigrees are numerous. 党的激进分子中有很多出身于中产阶级下层。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 coalition   

n.结合体，同盟，结合，联合

参考例句：

• The several parties formed a coalition.这几个政党组成了政治联盟。
• Coalition forces take great care to avoid civilian casualties.联盟军队竭尽全力避免造成平民伤亡。

9 whack   

v.敲击，重打，瓜分；n.重击，重打，尝试，一份

参考例句：

• After years of dieting,Carol's metabolism was completely out of whack.经过数年的节食，卡罗尔的新陈代谢完全紊乱了。
• He gave me a whack on the back to wake me up.他为把我弄醒，在我背上猛拍一下。

10 spectrum   

n.谱，光谱，频谱；范围，幅度，系列

参考例句：

• This is a kind of atomic spectrum.这是一种原子光谱。
• We have known much of the constitution of the solar spectrum.关于太阳光谱的构成，我们已了解不少。