“不值得”：为什么在英国全职工作不再划算

‘It’s just not worth it’: why full-time work no longer pays in the UK

2023-02-20 jiangye111 7199 5 0 收藏纠错&举报

译文简介

“税收等级早就应该转变为与通货膨胀水平挂钩。”——《卫报》报道。

正文翻译

‘It’s just not worth it’: why full-time work no longer pays in the UK
-Britain has a shrinking economy and a worker shortage – so why aren’t part-time workers increasing their hours?

“不值得”：为什么在英国全职工作不再划算
——英国经济正在萎缩，工人短缺——那么为什么兼职工人不增加他们的工作时间呢？

(An Elizabeth Line train en route to Paddington from Slough. Commuting has been named one of the unaffordable elements of full-time work, in addition to childcare and other costs.)

（从斯劳开往帕丁顿的伊丽莎白线列车。除了育儿和其他费用外，通勤被认为是全职工作中负担不起的因素之一。）
新闻：

Tougher benefit rules have boosted employment in the UK, but have also trapped workers in dead-end jobs and weakened incentives to move from part to full-time work, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS).

英国财政研究所表示，更严格的福利规定促进了英国的就业，但也将工人困在没有前途的工作中，削弱了他们从兼职转向全职的动力。
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As Britain is expected to be the only major industrialised country to see its economy shrink this year, amid rising interest rates and higher taxes, the government is frantically trying to find ways to boost economic growth.

由于利率上升、税收增加，预计英国将是今年唯一一个经济出现萎缩的主要工业国家，政府正在疯狂地寻找刺激经济增长的方法。

With the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, having launched an inquiry into why hundreds of thousands of people have left the workforce recently, and the Treasury keen to get more people into full-time work, the question of why more people aren’t increasing their hours amid a persistent shortage of workers has once more moved centre stage.

随着财政大臣杰里米·亨特发起“为什么最近有数十万人离开了劳动力市场”的调查，并且财政部渴望于让更多的人找到全职工作，在劳动力持续短缺的情况下，为什么没有更多的人增加工作时间的问题再次成为了焦点。

More than 8 million people – a quarter of the UK workforce – are in part-time work now, the latest official figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show.

英国国家统计局的最新官方数据显示，目前有超过800万人（占英国劳动力的四分之一）在做兼职。
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Influential Tory backbenchers are putting pressure on the chancellor to introduce a range of measures to help make childcare more affordable so parents can get back to work.

有影响力的保守党后座议员正在向财政大臣施加压力，要求他出台一系列措施，使儿童保育费用更低，以便父母能够重返工作岗位。
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In a keynote speech at Bloomberg last month, Hunt urged early retirees and those struggling to find a new job to rejoin the workforce. “We need you, and we will look at the conditions necessary to make it worth your while,” he said.

亨特上个月在彭博社发表主题演讲时，敦促提前退休的人和那些努力寻找新工作的人重新加入劳动力大军。他说：“我们需要你，我们会考虑必要的条件，让你的付出值得。”

But for more than a decade now, due to a range of Conservative policies, families working full-time across the income spectrum have been finding themselves earning less money than if they worked part-time.

但十多年来，由于保守党的一系列政策，各个收入阶层的全职家庭发现自己的收入比兼职家庭要少。

William, 58, a single father from Bedfordshire, is one of several people who told the Guardian that they would like to work more, but are financially better off for reducing their hours.

58岁的威廉是来自贝德福德郡的一位单身父亲，他和其他几个人一样告诉《卫报》，他们想多工作，但减少工作时间会让他们的经济状况更好。
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He works 11 hours a week as a community care worker, visiting elderly clients in their own homes.

他是一名社区护理员，每周工作11个小时，到老年客户家中看望他们。
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“I’ve reduced my hours because I’m receiving universal credit. If I work over a certain number of hours or earn over £334 a month, my award is reduced. This means that I don’t get paid for some of the hours worked in real terms.

“我减少了工作时间，因为我正在获得通用福利金。如果我工作超过一定小时数或每月收入超过334英镑，我的福利金就会减少。这意味着我的一些工作时间是没有实际报酬的。

“My job requires that I use my car and although I receive a mileage allowance, this gets added to my take-home pay and again my UC award is reduced, so effectively I don’t receive the money I lay out for fuel.”

“我的工作要求我开车，虽然我有里程补贴，但这被计入了我的实得工资，于是我的通用福利金又减少了，所以实际上我没有拿回我的油钱。”
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William has calculated that he would have to nearly triple his hours to 32 a week to be better off by £100 a month. “Believe me, I’d love to work more hours, but it’s just not worth it.”

威廉计算过，他必须将每周工作时间增加近两倍，达到32个小时，每月才能多赚100英镑。“相信我，我很想多工作几个小时，但这不值得。”
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He expects that he will have to quit care work and find a different job when new rules requiring some universal credit claimants to work more hours come into effect.

他预计，当要求一些通用福利金申请人工作更长时间的新规定生效时，他将不得不辞掉护理工作，找一份不同的工作。

“If this affects me I’ll be forced to leave the care profession and work in a shop or factory instead, without fuel costs. It’s those kinds of things that prevent people from staying in the care sector and other fields of work.”

“如果这影响到我，我将被迫离开护理行业，在商店或工厂工作，不需要汽油成本。正是这些事情阻碍了人们留在护理部门和其他领域的工作。”

Kate Mitchell, 39, a mother of two from Guildford, who used to earn a £40,000 annual salary in a private consultancy, said unaffordable childcare as well as commuting costs to London led her to reduce her hours.

39岁的凯特·米切尔来自吉尔福德是两个孩子的母亲，她曾在一家私人咨询公司工作，年薪4万英镑。她说，负担不起的托儿费用和往返伦敦的通勤费用导致她减少了工作时间。

Mitchell now works 25 hours, remotely, earning £1,100 a month. She pays nursery costs of about £700 a month, which would rise to £1,595 for a full-time place, including 15 free hours of government-funded childcare a week.

米切尔现在远程工作25小时，每月收入1100英镑。她每月支付约700英镑的托儿所费用，如果是全职托儿所，费用将增加到1595英镑，其中包括政府资助的每周15小时免费托儿服务。

“Together with after-school club fees and around £400 commuting costs I’d have to spend more on going to work than I’d be earning full-time in a London office, we’d be financially worse off than if I didn’t work at all.

“再加上课外社团费和大约400英镑的通勤费，我上班要花的钱比我在伦敦全职工作挣的钱还要多，我们的经济状况比我不工作更差了。
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“I’m now making a profit of around £350 a month. I’d love to work more, to get back into the career I spent a decade building. I’ve put any kind of ambition on hold, there is just zero incentive to try and earn more.”

“我现在每月能赚350英镑左右。我想做更多的工作，回到我花了十年建立起来的事业中。我把所有的抱负都搁置了，根本没有动力去挣更多的钱。”

A number of middle and higher earner couples told the Guardian that punitive childcare costs and income taxation meant that going part-time and generating income through property ownership was financially more lucrative than full-time employment.

一些中高收入夫妇在接受《卫报》采访时表示，惩罚性的育儿成本和所得税意味着，兼职工作和通过拥有房产获得收入在经济上比全职工作更有利可图。

A couple from Cheshire, a primary school teacher and an engineer, said they had both reduced their hours to save about £2,000 monthly in childcare fees, resulting in roughly the same financial circumstances as when they were working full-time.

一对来自柴郡的夫妇，一个是小学教师，一个是工程师，他们表示，为了每月节省约2000英镑的托儿费，他们都减少了工作时间，结果他们的经济状况与全职工作时大致相同。

“I can’t see us ever going back to full-time work as our better work-life balance is priceless, so I do worry about our pension contributions,” one of them said. “I’ve increased mine to counter the reduction in pay and we’re looking into getting a rental property to make up the difference.”

其中一人说：“我觉得我们再也不可能回到全职工作了，因为更好的工作与生活平衡是无价的，所以我确实担心我们的养老金缴款。我已经提高了缴款，以弥补工资的减少，我们正在考虑租房子来弥补差额。”

Between July 2021 and July 2022, the average UK house price increased by £39,000, meaning many homeowners earned more money with their house than in their job, as the current average salary for full-time UK employees is £33,000 as of November 2022, according to ONS.

根据国家统计局的数据，在2021年7月至2022年7月期间，英国平均房价上涨了3.9万英镑，这意味着许多房主靠房子赚的钱比他们的工作赚的钱还要多，因为截至2022年11月，英国全职员工的平均工资是3.3万英镑。

EasyJet pilot McKenzie, a father of three, has similar plans: he will soon trade his full-time contract for a part-time one and flip properties on the side.

易捷航空的飞行员麦肯齐是三个孩子的父亲，他也有类似的计划：他很快就会把全职合同换成兼职合同，并在业余时间卖房子。
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“I’m a captain, and the only reason I’m still working full-time is because my pension pot is small, due to time abroad. I currently contribute the maximum £40,000 to my pension, but in a few years I’ll absolutely go part-time, like a significant number of my colleagues already have, to avoid paying an effective tax rate of 62% [including 2% national insurance, on income between £100,000 and £125,140 due to the loss of the personal tax-free allowance].

“我是一名机长，我仍然全职工作的唯一原因是因为我的养老金很少，因为我在国外工作了一段时间。我目前缴纳的养老金上限为4万英镑，但几年后，我绝对会做兼职，就像我的很多同事已经做的那样，以避免为收入支付62%的实际税率（由于失去个人免税免税额，包括收入在10万英镑至125140英镑之间的2%的国民保险）。

“It’s just not worth it to wake up every day at 3am to work in the job I trained for: I’ll have the same take-home pay as I do now – £5,000 a month – by going part-time and reducing my pension contributions.

“每天凌晨3点起床从事我为之而培训的工作是不值得的：通过做兼职和减少养老金缴纳，我将获得和现在一样的实得工资——每月5000英镑。”

“This government has given us 12 years of fiscal drag and asset price bubbles, and people no longer see that work pays. It’s crackers.”

“本届政府给我们带来了12年的财政拖累和资产价格泡沫，人们不再认为（全职）工作是划算的。这太疯狂了。”

评论翻译

Downside190
For myself if my wife worked full time and we paid childcare she'd be working 37 hours a week for about £100 take home. Makes no sense to slave away for that pitiful amount so someone else can look after your kids. Might as well drop out of the workforce claim universal credit and spend that time with the child instead.

对我来说，如果我妻子全职工作，我们支付托儿费，她每周工作37个小时，带回家的钱大约是100英镑。为了这么少的钱而拼命工作，让别人来照顾你的孩子，这毫无意义。还不如放弃工作，把时间花在带孩子身上。

Salty-Huckleberry-71
I agree completely with how impossible the situation is, but having children is now a luxury same as owning any high maintenance asset and people must consider if they can afford it in the same way. I am a single parent and have struggled immensely so I feel your pain.

我完全同意这种情况是多么不可能，但现在有孩子是一种奢侈品，就像拥有任何高维护资产一样，人们必须考虑他们是否能以同样的方式负担得起。我是一个单亲妈妈，一直在煎熬，所以我能感受到你的痛苦。

Downside190
Kids being a luxury is definitely starting to feel that way. We could afford our second at the time as we had a free childcare day with my parents and the wife's parents. Then my wife's parents had to move away for financial reasons, my mum had to change work days and my wife got made redundant after her mat leave ended.

孩子是一种奢侈品，现在肯定开始有这种感觉了。当时我们可以负担得起第二个孩子，因为我们和我的父母以及岳父母有一个免费的托儿日。后来，我岳父母因为经济原因不得不搬走，我母亲不得不改变工作时间，我妻子在休假结束后被解雇了。

Complete_Taro5093
Although this doesn't discredit at all what you're saying, there is also the value of continued professional development for your wife by going back to work, you're essentially paying for that, not just working for nothing but the £100 net.

虽然这并不能完全否定你所说的，但回去（全职）工作对你妻子的持续职业发展也是有价值的，你本质上是在为你的职业生涯付出，而不仅仅是为了那100英镑的净收入而工作。

audigexLancashire
This really depends on circumstances, though, and also age
With people having kids later it has much less of an impact - in your early 20s your career and experience is advancing quickly and a year or two out is significant. Eg at 24, 2 years out is 1/3 of your career
But once you're in your 30s, you've already got 10 years of experience and career trajectory is probably starting to slow after the first couple of promotions. Plus 2 years out is now only 1/6th of your career, so half the experience impact
But at the end of the day it's simpler than that: Money you definitely have (or rather, don't have) in the bank today is 10x more valuable than money you might have in 10 years time if your career goes well
Your point makes some sense for people who could justify working but choose not to, but makes no sense for people who simply don't have £1k/mo for childcare... they just don't have a choice to put their future career before their right-now finances. Low-Average (and many Above-Average) earners are pretty much all gonna fall into this category whereby it's simply not a decision to be made
Plus, of course, there's the question of working 40 hours a week for £300 in your pocket but paying someone else to look after your kids 45 hours a week, or stopping working and spending that time with your child yourself.... that has value of its own
Childcare is FAR too expensive in this country, and until it's fixed we're going to see fewer people working full time.

不过，这真的取决于环境，也取决于年龄
对于晚育的人来说，这种影响要小得多——在你20岁出头的时候，你的事业和经验都在迅速发展，一两年的时间很重要。24岁时，2年时间占了你职业生涯的1/3
但一旦你到了30多岁，你已经有了10年的工作经验，在第一次晋升之后，你的职业轨迹可能会开始放缓。再加上2年的时间现在只占你职业生涯的1/6，所以一半的经验会产生影响
但说到底，事情比这简单得多：如果你的事业发展顺利，你今天在银行里确定有的钱（或者说，没有的钱）比你10年后可能有的钱有10倍的价值
你的观点对那些有理由工作但选择不工作的人来说有一定意义，但对那些没有1000英镑/月照顾孩子的人来说毫无意义……他们只是无法选择将未来的事业置于当前的财务状况之前。低收入（和许多高于平均水平）的人几乎都属于这一类，因此这根本不是一个可以做出的决定
当然，还有一个问题是，你每周工作40个小时，只挣300英镑，但要付钱给别人每周照顾你的孩子45个小时，或者停止工作，自己带孩子……这也有它自己的价值
在这个国家，儿童保育太昂贵了，在这个问题解决之前，我们会看到更少的人全职工作。

KharenisYorkshire
The tax brackets are long overdue a shift to account for inflation.

税收等级早就应该转变为与通货膨胀水平挂钩。
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Snowchugger
The highest rate of tax just targets the wrong people. It's a huge tax on "middle class bloke who got a promotion" but the ultra wealthy person with 19 yachts is comparatively paying nothing.

最高税率针对错了人。这对“获得晋升的中产阶级家伙们”来说是一笔巨大的税收，但拥有19艘游艇的超级富豪相对来说什么都不用付。

LeonicholGeordie in exile (Surrey)
What I thought was interesting here is the Guardian picks three sets of anecdotes;
A low earner that has uated the UC threshold
A middle earner that has uated the cost of childcare
A high earner that has uated the decreasing effective hourly rate as he progresses into an income which makes it difficult for him to mitigate higher tax bands
I'd ignore the bit about asset investment as bait. But all three are evidence of a tax system which people are reacting to with economic rationality, rather than a consequence of overall national economic health.
Unfortunately I fear any proposed solution that addresses them will not be publically palatable.
The real concern is just how many people have left the workforce and not returned post-COVID that is not true of other comparable countries. They have done this successfully. This is cause for celebration really - people are 'rich enough' to have that choice. Great.
But. In such a system, with supply of workers plummeting to these levels, we should see demand increase salaries for existing workers. This in turn would intice said leavers back into the workforce, or salary inflating leading to general inflation would make their 'part time' economically fragile, forcing them back (as yet our actual inflation might).
However salaries are not increasing, despite these people leaving. Making more and more people able to make these rational choices. That is cause for concern - the system is not rebalancing. Why is that?

我觉得有趣的是《卫报》挑选了三组故事；
一个低收入者评估了同理福利金的门槛；
一个中等收入者评估了儿童保育的成本；
高收入者评估了随着收入的增加而减少的有效时薪，这使得他难以减轻更高的税率；
我会忽略资产投资的诱惑。但这三件事都证明，人们对税收制度的反应是经济理性的，而不是整体国民经济健康的结果。
不幸的是，我担心任何针对这些问题的解决方案都不会受到公众的欢迎。
真正令人担忧的是，有多少人在新冠疫情后离开了劳动力市场，并且没有回来，这与其他可比国家的情况不同。后者成功地让人们重返劳动力市场。这真的是值得庆祝的事情——人们“足够富有”（不需要全职工作），有这样的选择。太棒了。
但是。在这样一个体系中，随着工人供应骤降到这样的水平，我们应该看到需求会提高现有工人的工资。这反过来又会促使这些离职者重新回到劳动力市场，或者导致普遍通胀的工资上涨将使他们的“兼职”在经济上变得脆弱，迫使他们回到全职（目前我们的实际通胀可能会这样）。
然而，尽管这些人离开了，工资却没有增长。让越来越多的人能够做出理性的选择。这是令人担忧的原因——金融体系没有实现再平衡。为什么呢？

YouCanJustSayNewYork
I dunno. US is also struggling with getting people back into employment, that’s why they just posted insane jobs numbers which unsteadied the stock market. I don’t think this is a unique problem necessarily but it speaks to the need for more social support.
Childcare should be supported with more parental leave rights and more substantial support childcare supplements that don’t sunset at any income level.
People should not be forced in this country to bear the brunt of the war in Ukraine, with gas prices expected to remain high for years. It should be supplemented better with the government covering the cost for both people and businesses.
Salaries are staying low with the expectation that inflation will decrease, but it won’t unless the government takes over a greater proportion of the cost for energy prices.
The system is not rebalancing because the government is leading the way in refusing to increase salaries with government employees. If they were more willing to negotiate then it would be a clearer sign to businesses that they need to get with the program and stop trying to screw their employees with pay decreases in real terms.

我不知道。美国也在努力让人们重新就业，这就是为什么他们刚刚发布了让股市动荡的疯狂的就业数据。我不认为这是一个独特的问题，但它说明需要更多的社会支持。
儿童保育应该得到更多育儿假权利的支持，以及在任何收入水平都不会下降的更实质性的支持性儿童保育补充。
人们不应该被迫在这个国家承受乌克兰战争的冲击，因为天然气价格预计将在未来几年保持在高位。它应该以政府支出更好地补充，覆盖个人和企业的成本。
由于预期通胀将会下降，薪资水平仍保持在低位，但除非政府补贴在能源价格成本中占据更大比例，否则通胀不会下降。
体系没有重新平衡，因为政府带头拒绝与政府雇员一起加薪。如果他们更愿意谈判，那么对企业来说，这将是一个更清晰的信号，他们需要接受这个计划，停止试图用实际减薪来压榨员工。

liquidio
The irony of this article is strong, given that the Guardian spends most of its time lobbying for: - higher and more progressive tax levels at one end, which is the problem for the high earner - higher social benefits at the other end, which is the ‘problem’ for the low earner - high government regulation, which is one of the main reasons childcare is so expensive here given our minimum child:staff ratio is lower than most other European countries.

这篇文章具有强烈的讽刺意味，因为《卫报》花了大部分时间游说：一端是更高和更累进的税收水平，这是高收入者的问题；另一端是更高的社会福利，这是低收入者的“问题”；政府监管严格，考虑到我们最低限度数量的孩子，这是儿童保育如此昂贵的主要原因之一——以上是我们员工比例低于大多数欧洲国家的原因。

apointyspoon
If you earn over 50k with a student loan your marginal rate probably just means that the extra effort / responsibility you have to take on to get a pay rise isn't worth it, and if you need more money taking a second job is also not worth it as you'll lose more than half to tax. It's almost like you hit an income ceiling where extra effort/work is no longer rewarded.

如果你用学生贷款赚了超过5万美元，你的边际利率可能只是意味着你为了加薪而付出的额外努力/责任是不值得的，如果你需要更多的钱，做第二份工作也是不值得的，因为你会失去一半以上用来缴税。这几乎就像你达到了额外的努力/工作不再有回报的收入上限。

TheAlbinoAmigo
Holy cow are you describing me? I'm right at the boundary to move to the higher rate tax bracket and I've never felt less motivated to grow professionally. I'd only keep 42p for every £1 extra I'd earn if I tried to move up the ladder. My job is already taking up enough of my life, I very legitimately don't think the extra money is worth my extra time and effort.
It means I'm just kind of... Stuck where I am. I am not developing professionally because there's nothing really in it for me. I do all my learning and growing outside of my job, because at least then I get the benefit of learning about something that genuinely interests me.

我的天，你在说我吗？我正处于向更高税率等级转移的边界，我从未像现在这样缺乏职业发展的动力。如果我想往上爬，每多挣1英镑，我只能得到42便士。我的工作已经占据了我生活中足够多的时间，我理所当然地认为额外的钱不值得我额外的时间和努力。
意思是我只是有点…被困在原地。我没有在职业上发展，因为这对我来说真没什么价值。我所有的学习和成长都是在工作之外进行的，因为至少这样我就能从学习真正让我感兴趣的东西中获益。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

UnlikeTea42
Even without a student loan, a parent of two hits a 62% marginal tax rate at £50k, as child benefit gets clawed back. With three kids it's 69%! Lord knows where this leaves you if you've got a student loan too. No-one's going to take on more work or responsibility to move beyond that, unless it's to leapfrog it by some considerable margin. It's basically a hard upper limit for a lot of people. With inflation running at 10% and the government deliberately keeping tax thresholds fixed to take advantage of this, more and more people who are not exactly comfortably well off are starting to hit this limit. It's a crazy policy.

即使没有学生贷款，两个孩子的父母在5万英镑的时候也要缴纳62%的边际税率，因为儿童津贴会被收回。如果有三个孩子，这个数字是69%！如果你也有学生贷款，天知道这会给你带来什么后果。没有人会承担更多的工作或责任来超越这个门槛，除非是在很大程度上超越它。对很多人来说，这基本上是一个严格的上限。随着通货膨胀率达到10%，政府故意保持固定的税收起征点以利用这一点，越来越多的不太富裕的人开始触及这个上限。这是一个疯狂的政策。

caspian_sycamore
Those incentives are in place mostly to decease inequalities and its a political choice. Lowering the inequality with discouraging people to work and keeping a welfare state alive by keeping people from leaving benefits it's also a political choice.
Conservatives are not party of free market ideals but more like a social democratic one nowadays. And the alternative is labour. This can work in a not so global economic systems but when people are allowed to move to other countries, or even to work for overseas this is not a sustainable model. So the system that keeps people from creating so much value, nudging them to work less instead of produce more value is what the government wants. Its a feature not a bug

这些激励措施主要是为了减少不平等，这是一种政治选择。通过阻止人们工作来降低不平等，通过让人们不放弃福利来维持福利国家的存在这也是一种政治选择。
如今的保守党不是自由市场理想的政党，而更像是一个社会民主党派。另一种选择是工党。这在一个不那么全球化的经济体系中是可行的，但当人们被允许移居到其他国家，甚至在海外工作时，这就不是一个可持续的模式了。因此，阻止人们创造如此多价值，促使他们减少工作，而不是创造更多价值的体制正是政府想要的。这就是一个功能而不是一个bug

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