Many Americans are in a sour mood about the economy for one main reason： Prices feel too high.
许多美国人对经济情况感到不满，一个主要原因是物价太高了。
Maybe they’re not rising as fast as they had been， but average prices are still painfully above where they were three years ago. And they’re mostly heading higher still.
或许物价上涨的速度没有之前那么快，但其平均价格依然远超2021年的水平，而且大多数商品价格仍在持续上涨。
Consider a 2-liter bottle of soda： In February 2021， before inflation began heating up， it cost an average of $1.67 in supermarkets across America. Three years later？ That bottle is going for $2.25—a 35% increase.
以一瓶2升装苏打水为例：在通货膨胀升温前的2021年2月，它在美国各地超市的平均售价为1.67美元。而三年后呢？这瓶苏打水的价格为2.25美元——上涨了35%。
Or egg prices. They soared in 2022， then fell back down. Yet they’re still 43% higher than they were three years ago.
再看看鸡蛋的价格。鸡蛋的售价于2022年飙升，随后回落，但其价格较三年前仍高出43%。
Likewise， the average used-car price： It rocketed from roughly $23，000 in February 2021 to $31，000 in April 2022. By last month， the average was down to $26，752. But that’s still up 16% from February 2021.
二手车的均价也是如此：从2021年2月的约2.3万美元飙升至2022年4月的3.1万美元。截至上个月，二手车均价降至2.6752万美元，相较于2021年2月仍高出16%。
Wouldn’t it be great if prices actually fell—what economists call deflation？ Who wouldn’t want to fire up a time machine and return to the days before the economy rocketed out of the pandemic recession and sent prices soaring？
如果物价真的下跌——也就是发生经济学家所说的通货紧缩——那该多好啊？谁不想坐上时光机，回到经济从疫情中强势复苏导致物价飙升之前的日子呢？
At least prices are now rising more slowly—what’s called disinflation. On Friday， for example， the government said a key price gauge rose 0.3% in February， down from a 0.4% gain in January. And compared with a year earlier， prices were up 2.5%， way down from a peak of 7.1% in mid-2022.
至少当前物价上涨的速度放缓了，即出现反通货膨胀。例如上周五，政府称某关键价格指标于2月份上涨了0.3%，低于1月份0.4%的涨幅。相较于2023年，物价同比上涨了2.5%，远低于2022年中期7.1%的峰值。
But those incremental improvements are hardly enough to please the public.
然而这些缓慢的改善不足以让大众满意。
“Most Americans are not just looking for disinflation，’’ Lisa Cook， a member of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors， said last year. “They’re looking for deflation. They want these prices to be back where they were before the pandemic.’’
“大多数美国人不仅盼着反通货膨胀，”美联储理事会成员丽莎·库克去年表示，“他们想看到通货紧缩，希望物价回归疫情之前的水平。
