據美國《財富》雜志網站8日報道，高通脹導致房租和食品價格持續上漲，加之學生貸款債務沉重，美國Z世代（1997-2012年出生）正面臨前所未有的經濟挑戰。文章指出，房租已成為影響Z世代可支配收入的最重要因素之一，美國多數大城市的房租漲幅遠超工資增長，而食品價格上漲以及高昂的學生貸款讓Z世代的財務狀況雪上加霜。

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.
隨著房租飆升，Z世代的可支配收入越來越少，他們的生活水平可能越來越落后于上一代人，在自己挖掘的財務陷阱中越陷越深。

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.
美國征信機構環聯最新數據顯示，生活成本不斷上漲，卻只拿著入門級薪資，Z世代年輕人不得不更頻繁地依賴信用卡等昂貴的循環債務方式來維持生計。

“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.
環聯全球研究負責人查理·懷斯告訴《華爾街日報》：“這一代美國人比十年前的千禧一代感受到了更為沉重的財務壓力。”

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世代消費者的美國信用卡平均未結余額增至2834美元，而十年前為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.
在美國銀行去年10月發布的年度“更好的金錢習慣”調查中，近四分之三的人表示，他們已經改變了消費習慣，通過更頻繁地在家做飯、非必要不購買食品雜貨以及減少衣服支出等方式來抵消更高的生活開支。

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.
如果這種情況持續下去，他們的財務狀況可能會對美國長期的經濟增長造成結構性障礙。無法建立有保障的經濟基礎往往是推遲組建家庭計劃的原因，這也無意間導致了美國生育率的進一步下降。目前美國生育率處于有記錄的一個世紀以來的最低水平。

來源：Fortune

編輯：董靜

審校：萬月英 陳丹妮