移民對英國薪資的影響微不足道
From pub rants to government policy planning, the question of immigration is not going away. That is as it should be: wanting to reduce immigration was a prime motivation for those who voted for the UK’s exit from the EU, and how to satisfy that motive is a crucial policy challenge for the years ahead.
從酒吧鬧事到政府的政策規劃，移民問題依然突出。理應如此：想要減少移民是那些投票支持退歐的選民的首要動機，而如何滿足選民的這一願望是未來幾年關鍵的政治挑戰。
The latest contribution is a report from the Resolution Foundation. It mostly confirms what previous studies have found. The facts it documents are, however, so little known and so crucial to the Brexit policy challenge that it deserves widespread attention.
這方面最新的貢獻是一份來自“決議基金會”(Resolution Foundation)的報告。它在很大程度上證實了此前研究的發現。然而，它所記錄的情況如此鮮爲人知、對英國退歐政策挑戰又如此至關重要，理應得到廣泛關注。
The key finding is that high immigration has had little effect on wages or employment, with two notable exceptions.
關鍵發現是，移民數量多對薪資和就業幾乎沒什麼影響，只有兩個明顯的例外。
First, the post-2004 immigrants from eastern Europe have markedly lower wages on average than other groups, including pre-2004 immigrants from the same countries. That has changed the composition of earnings among the lower paid and in the economy overall: a reserve army of low-paid workers has had a clear impact on some British industries that rely heavily on them.
第一，2004年以後涌入英國的東歐移民的平均薪資明顯低於其他羣體（包括2004年之前來自相同國家的移民）。這改變了低收入羣體、乃至整個經濟的收入構成。一支低收入勞動者後備軍，對英國那些嚴重依賴於移民的行業產生了明顯影響。
Second, the lowest-paid natives have seen a slight downward pressure on their wages as a result of immigration. But, again, the report confirms previous findings that the effect is very small — in the order of a few pence per year. And the Resolution Foundation makes the important observation that any negative effect on wages from immigration is dwarfed by the overall wage squeeze following the financial crisis.
第二，由於移民涌入，收入最低的那些英國本地人的薪資水平受到了輕微的下行壓力。但是，這份報告再次證實了此前的發現，即這種影響非常小——大概每年減少幾便士。同時，決議基金會提出了重要發現——與金融危機帶來的收入整體縮水相比，移民對薪資水平的負面影響微不足道。
That point is enlightening and frustrating. It means that some workers — those already paid the least — have indeed been undercut by immigration. But that harm is slight compared with the much bigger one the same people have suffered as a result of the real wage squeeze brought on by the crisis and the policies chosen to deal with its aftermath.
這一點具有啓發性但又令人沮喪。這意味着一些勞動者——其收入已經處於最低之列——確實因移民而收入減少。但是，移民帶來的傷害微乎其微——金融危機和危機後的應對政策導致的實際工資縮水帶來的傷害要大得多。
That makes the scapegoating of EU free-movement rules in the referendum campaign unsurprising, to say the least. It also means that curtailing free movement will do little for the people who feel it works against their interest. The Resolution Foundation usefully compares how much wages could improve if net immigration was sharply cut today with the real wage squeeze implied by the Bank of England’s latest two-year forecasts.
這樣看來，歐盟的自由流動規則成了英國退歐公投運動中的替罪羊至少可以說不令人意外。這也意味着，限制自由流動對那些認爲該規則有損於其權益的人不會有多大幫助。決議基金會做了一項有用的工作，把現在移民淨流入大幅減少可能帶來的工資漲幅與英國央行(Bank of England)最近的兩年預測暗示的實際工資縮水幅度進行了對比。
The result: some workers may see wages a fraction of a per cent higher by 2018 than they would otherwise. But that gain would be more than wiped out by the wage loss that the Brexit vote may cause.
結果是，到2018年，減少移民或許能讓部分工人的工資比不控制移民的情況下增多不到1%。但是，英國退歐可能造成的工資損失超過了這一增幅。
