我们许多人都会给自己讲述一些故事，关于我们生而拥有什么、能够获得什么、理应得到什么——关于我们在社会中位置的主叙事。父母为我牺牲，让我接受良好教育，如今我理应拥有通过努力争取来的孩子、房子、生活。又或者我刚升了职；那份成功本该消解我一部分的忧虑。我们讲这些故事，是为了向自己解释人生，为了理解自己的轨迹。
There are stories many of us tell ourselves about what we were given from birth, what we can attain and what we deserve — master narratives of our place in society. My parents sacrificed so I could get a good education, and now I should be able to have the kids, the house, the life I’ve worked hard for. Or I just got a promotion; that success should erase some of my worry. We tell these stories to help explain our lives to ourselves, and in order to understand our own trajectories.
但这个故事越来越难讲了。虽然按某些衡量标准，中产阶层成员的收入现在比上一代人更高，布鲁金斯学会最近发现，三分之一的美国中产阶级仍然负担不起基本生活必需品。而对其余中产而言，育儿、住房、医疗等刚需的高昂成本，让他们的收入显得微不足道。于是他们开始缩减开支，收紧曾经对自己寄予期望的生活。
But that story is getting harder to tell. While by some measures, members of the middle class now earn more than those of prior generations, the Brookings Institution recently found that one-third of the American middle class still can’t afford essentials. And for the rest, the high costs of child care, housing, medical care and other necessities make their incomes feel paltry. So they are trimming, reining in the lives they once expected for themselves.
两个孩子变成一个；首套房变成终身房。人们开始为能否买得起新冬靴、修得起车、买得起下一副隐形眼镜而焦虑。这些并非大多数美国中产在人生剧本中预想的烦恼。
Two kids become one; a starter home becomes a forever home. People start fretting over whether they can get new winter boots or repair their cars or buy that next pair of contact lenses. These were not the preoccupations most middle-class Americans expected in the scripts of their lives.
不断上涨的成本常被笼统归为一个问题——“负担能力”，但实际上它们是多种汇聚力量的结果：医疗保险费用上涨；关税突然让服装和电脑更贵；中东冲突推高油价；通胀和高昂的食品杂货价格。
Rising costs are often lumped together into a single issue — “affordability” — when they are in fact the result of many converging forces: the increased cost of medical plans; tariffs that suddenly make clothes and computers more expensive; conflict in the Middle East driving up the cost of oil; inflation and high grocery prices.
这些因素大多超出了普通美国人的掌控范围，这也是为什么越来越多人感到自己被迫在力所能及的地方削减开支。
Most of these factors are out of everyday Americans’ control, which is why more and more feel that they have been forced to make cuts where they can.
放弃曾经买得起的东西，会带来一场生存危机。你或许曾感受到的在世间行走的从容与随性？荡然无存。取而代之的是一种更广泛的不确定性，我称之为“动荡之地”：脚下的地基不再稳固。
There’s an existential crisis that comes with forgoing what you could once afford. Any ease or casualness you may have felt moving through the world? Gone. In its place is a much broader uncertainty, what I call a terra infirma: unstable ground.
失去的——好面包、定期理发、宠物、外卖、保姆、昂贵面霜——不只是物质。它是抱负。它是无需时刻忧虑的奢侈生活。它是失去了过去对未来的设想。它是对一个曾为自己构想却永远不会实现的生活的怀念。
What’s lost — good bread, regular haircuts, pets, food delivery, babysitters, fancy face creams — isn’t just stuff. It’s ambition. It’s the luxury of living a life without the constant hum of worry. It’s losing the idea of the future you had in the past. It’s nostalgia for a life that you imagined for yourself that will never come to fruition.
我们对中产阶级生活的期待并非凭空而来。二战后，数百万人——尤其是非白人家庭明显较少——从慷慨的住房政策中受益，特别是首个《退伍军人权利法案》，其中包括低息贷款和大学助学金。一些人搬到了郊区，沿着新修的高速公路抵达。当时的电视和文学作品塑造了美国中产阶级家庭的形象：拥有房子、汽车和齐全厨房的家庭，从《布兰迪一家》到小说《革命之路》。延伸至90年代，大众娱乐——从《辛普森一家》到《成长的烦恼》——都围绕中产阶级家庭展开。
We didn’t get our expectations about middle-class life from nowhere. After World War II, millions of people — though notably fewer nonwhite households — benefited from generous housing policies, particularly the first G.I. Bill, with its low-interest loans and college grants. Some moved to the suburbs, arriving there by newly built highways. The television and literature of the time gave shape to an image of American middle-class families with homes and cars and full kitchens, from “The Brady Bunch” to the novel “Revolutionary Road.”Extending into the 1990s, mass entertainment — everything from “The Simpsons” to “Growing Pains” — centered on families in the middle.
过去的中产阶级类型，在杂货店并不像今天这样经历价格冲击。相反，约翰·契弗式的白领陈词滥调是过于舒适：可预测生活的厌倦。
The middle-class type of the past did not experience the same sticker shock in grocery stores that we do today. Rather, the John Cheever white-collar cliché was one of too much comfort: the ennui of a predictable life.
但今天许多美国人比较的对象，不仅仅是流行文化人物。还有他们自己的父母，以及一种渐渐显现的认识：他们可能永远无法达到父母那一代所拥有的经济保障。
But it isn’t just pop cultural figures that many Americans today compare themselves to. It’s also their own parents, and the creeping realization that they may never reach the financial security that their mothers and fathers had.
而正是他们在社交媒体上关注的人。能够看到朋友和邻居生活中的亲密细节，只会放大并凸显竞争感。人们放弃外卖或冬季度假，然后打开手机，看到网红或朋友两者都在享受。布朗大学心理学学者奥里尔·费尔德曼霍尔理论认为，“一切都通过点赞和分享来量化，因此对自己的地位没有不确定性。”这种全知感让人们更容易将周围的人视为更加安稳，而将自己视为不那么安稳。
And it’s the people they follow on social media. Being able to see the intimate details of the lives of your friends and neighbors only exaggerates and highlights a sense of competition. People give up food deliveries or their winter vacations, and then open their phones to see an influencer or a friend enjoying both. Oriel FeldmanHall, a Brown University psychology scholar, theorizes that “everything is quantified through likes and shares, so there is no uncertainty about standing.”That sense of omniscience makes it easier to perceive those around us as more secure, and ourselves as less so.
将经济不安全感这个麻烦的精灵重新装回瓶子里并不容易。乐观，或者至少是稳定，会随着时间的推移而流失，随着人们必须做出的众多决定而流失。这些受挫的小小野心累积起来。美国人不再觉得自己的人生故事还有意义。
Putting the troubled genie of economic insecurity back in the bottle is difficult. Optimism, or at the very least stability, is lost over time, over the many decisions that people have to make. These stymied small ambitions add up. Americans no longer feel as if the stories of their lives makes sense anymore.
艾丽莎·夸特是经济困难报道项目的编辑主任。她最近的著作是《靠自己：摆脱美国梦的束缚》。朱莉·何和登津·D·措贡对此报道有贡献。
Alissa Quart is the editorial director of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project. She is the author, most recently, of “Bootstrapped: Liberating Ourselves From the American Dream.”Additional reporting by Julie Ho and Tenzin D. Tsagong.
特约摄影由蒂姆·戴维斯拍摄，他是一位居住在纽约州蒂沃利的摄影师和教育工作者。他的书《正常镇》由秋线出版社出版。插图摄影由安·阮拍摄，她是一位居住在布鲁克林的摄影师，也是《纽约时报》观点版摄影编辑研究员。
Featured photographs by Tim Davis, a photographer and educator based in Tivoli, N.Y. His book “Normaltown” was published by Fall Line Press. Inset photographs by Anh Nguyen, a photographer based in Brooklyn and a New York Times Opinion photo editing fellow.
由梅赫尔·艾哈迈德、安娜·贝克、丽贝卡·周和杰西·温德制作。亚当·费里斯负责额外开发工作。
Produced by Meher Ahmad, Ana Becker, Rebecca Chew and Jessie Wender. Additional development by Adam Ferriss.