奥巴马：千禧一代促进美国经济转型

Cross Campus

You’re part of the first generation to grow up in the digital age. Some of you grew up with cell phones tucked into your book bags, while others can remember the early days of landline, dial-up internet. You’ve gone from renting movies on VHS tapes to purchasing and downloading them in a matter of minutes.

Today, more of you are earning college degrees than ever before — and more young people from low-income families are getting a shot at higher education than previous generations. Along with having higher education levels, you’ve got a lower gender pay gap than other generations — and we’re working to close it even further. Take all those things together, and it’s no surprise that entrepreneurship is in your DNA. One survey found that more than half of Millennials expressed interest in starting (or have already started) their own business.

So here’s something we know for certain: Your rising generation of Americans isn’t just adapting to a 21st-century economy. You’re actively changing it.

And we know that when we invest in your potential, rather than stack the deck in favor of the folks who are already at the top, our entire economy does better. It’s the reason we’ve expanded grants, tax credits, and loans to help more families afford college. It’s why we’re giving nearly 5 million Americans the chance to cap student loan payments at 10 percent of their income. And thanks to the Affordable Care Act, the number of uninsured young adults has fallen by nearly 40 percent over the past four years.

You may have graduated into the worst recession since the Great Depression, but today — for all the challenges you’ve already faced, and after all the grueling work it’s taken to bounce back — you’re in the best position to break into the newest sectors of the new American economy.

Your generation is going to continue to shape that economy for decades to come — and that’s exactly why we know we have more work to do to address the challenges you still face. That means making student loan payments even more affordable. It means investing in the kind of basic research that led to the internet and GPS technology to help our next generation of American companies succeed. And at a time when increased investments in education have meant that young women are making the strongest start in the workforce of any generation before them, it means fighting to make sure they get the equal pay for equal work they deserve.

Let’s talk for a second about this new American economy — one marked by new industry and commerce, humming with new energy and new technology, and being driven forward by highly skilled, higher-wage workers. Our medical professionals are part of a workforce that also includes folks who are developing cutting-edge software to help us diagnose diseases. We’re not just punching in and pounding rivets — we’re coding computers and guiding robots. In this new economy, an entrepreneur can start a new business and succeed, an older worker who sees opportunity in a new field has resources available to retool for that new job, and a student can graduate from college with the chance to advance through a vibrant job market.

Today, I’m heading to a place that’s helping to shape that economy. It’s called Cross Campus — a collaborative space in Los Angeles that brings together folks at the cutting edge of a technology revolution, from investors and entrepreneurs to designers and engineers. Because their drive and talent don’t just boost their businesses, they boost our entire economy — and the innovative ideas that they’re coming up with are helping to power our recovery.

Think about this: Last month, our businesses created 236,000 new jobs. Over the past 55 months, they’ve created 10.3 million new jobs — the longest uninterrupted stretch of private-sector job creation in our history. That’s why, for the first time in more than six years, the unemployment rate is below 6 percent. We’re on pace for the strongest year of job growth since the 1990s. Since we emerged from the crisis, America has put more people back to work than Europe, Japan, and every other advanced economy combined.

So for all the challenges in the world, there are some really good things going on here at home. And the reason I’m heading to Cross Campus today is because innovation is one of them. Technologies that didn’t exist 20 years ago, from mobile apps to streaming video to social networks, support millions of American jobs today. Today, our tech sector is the envy of the world.

And the innovation fueling this economy isn’t just happening in Silicon Valley. From Kansas City to Colorado to L.A.’s “Silicon Beach,” entrepreneurs are turning great ideas into great companies.

I saw this new economy at Pittsburgh’s TechShop, one in a chain of community centers where members get access to professional tools, equipment, and software, as well as the space they need to make or design or prototype almost anything — for the same price you’d pay for a gym membership.

I saw this new economy at a factory in Austin, where workers are building the equipment that makes cutting-edge microchips. It was just a few years ago that the very first iPhone was introduced, and we were all marveling over touch screens. Now, even our coffee shops have touch-screen ordering systems, and there are American workers punching in every day to manufacture the hardware for our smartphones and tablets.

And I saw this new economy only a few miles from that factory, at Manor New Tech High School. Students there focus on STEM subjects, and I got to see some of their work up close — from using mathematical equations to build musical instruments, to running bungee-jumping tests using rubber bands and weights, to building robots. At Manor New Tech, nearly all of the students graduate, and along with their diploma, they’ve earned real-world skills they need to fill the jobs we know are available right now.

I’ve seen what your generation is capable of firsthand. And one of the reasons I’m so confident about America’s future is that I’m confident in you — a generation that’s more educated, diverse, and digitally fluent than any before you.

Throughout my time in office, my Administration has bet on American innovation. We’ve bet on America’s young people. And today, I’m betting that you’ll continue unleashing new ideas and new enterprises for decades to come.

奥巴马总统2017年10月9日在新媒体Medium网站发布文章，畅谈在互联网中成长的新一代年轻人将如何塑造美国未来的经济模式，全文如下：

你们是在数字时代成长起来的第一代人的一部分。你们很多人从小书包里就装着手机，有些人可能还记得以前的拨号上网。你们经历了从租录像带到仅仅花上几分钟就买下或下载好这些影片。

如今，你们中取得大学学历的比以往要多很多——并且相对于前几代人，更多的来自低收入的年轻人拿到了高学历。你们这个年代性别收入差距也比其他年代低——且我们致力于进一步的缩小。综上所述，你们的基因里充满着企业家精神并不奇怪。调查显示超过一半的千禧一代有兴趣或已经开始创业。

因此目前我们已明确知道：你们这一代美国人不是去适应21世纪的经济。你们将积极的改变它。我们知道与其暗中布局支持那些已经处于顶端的人，不如挖掘你们的潜力，为我们开创更好的经济局面效果来得好。这也是为什么我们提高津贴、抵税额和贷款，帮助更多的家庭的孩子上大学。这也是为什么我们为什么给予近500万的美国人机会，以他们收入的10%缴纳学生贷款。多亏了《平价医疗法案》

你们可能慢慢进入自美国大萧条时期起最萧条的一个阶段，但是今天你们处于最佳位置挤进美国新经济的最新部门——由于你们已然面对的种种挑战，以及劳累工作后的是该到重新振作的时候。

在未来的几十年，你们这一代将继续塑造着我们的经济——这也是我们为什么清楚的知道我们还需付出更多的努力解决当下面对的种种挑战。这就意味着让更多的人负担得起学生助学贷款。这意味着投资基础研究可以促进互联网和GPS技术帮助美国下一代公司取得成功。并且当我们增加教育方面的投入，这就意味着如今的年轻女性正比以往任何一代更具实力地开始投入工作。这也意味着我们要正确确保她们得到自己应有的公平收入。

我们谈一谈美国的新经济——一个重要特征就是新型工商业，涵盖新能源和新技术，在高技能的高新员工驱动下不断发展。我们的医疗职业技术人员也包括发明前沿技术软件的工作人员，帮助我们诊断疾病。我们不只是上班打卡，然后敲打铆钉——我们是在电脑里编码，指挥机器人。在这新经济发展过程中，一名企业家能够创业并取得成功；一名能看到这新领域的机会的老员工，有资源进行重组以适应新工作；一名大学毕业生能挤进充满活力的就业市场。

今天，我将要去一个能够塑造新经济的地方。它名叫十字校园——这是一个云集着来自各技术革命前沿技术人员的位于洛杉矶的合作机构，人员有投资者和企业家，也有设计家和工程师。他们的推进力和才能不仅仅促进他们各自的企业，而是促进我们整个经济发展——并且他们想出的创新理念也能为我们经济复苏提供支撑。

思考一下以下现象：九月份，我们的企业创造了23.6万个就业职位。在过去的55个月里，他们已经创造了1030万就业职位——我们历史上延续时间最长的私营企业创造就业岗位。这也是为什么超过六年来我们的失业率能够首次低于6%。我们也将步入20世纪90年代以来就业岗位创造最快年代。自经济危机出现后，美国公民重新就业的人数比欧洲、日本以及其他发达经济联合体要多得多。

尽管当今世界存在种种挑战，但是国内还是上演着许多好事。今天我要去十字校园的原因之一是创新。20年前，没有科技。从移动应用软件到流媒体再到社交网络，支撑了当今美国千千万万的工作。如今我们的高科技板块令世人羡慕不已。

创新推动经济不仅仅局限于硅谷

我在奥斯丁

我就在那家工厂的几英里之外的马诺新技术高中看到这种新经济。那里的学生专注于STEM科目学习，我看到他们的一些工作逐渐发展紧密——从运用数学方程式建造乐器，到使用橡皮筋和砝码进行顶端测验，再到制造机器人。在马诺新技术高中，几乎所有学生可以顺利毕业，他们不但可以获得毕业证书，更可以学到满足目前工作需要的技能。

我已看到你们这一代实践能力。我对美国未来如此自信的原因之一是我对你们这一代充满自信——一个比以往任何一带更有学识、更多样化和更数字流利的一代。

在我在职期间，政府以创新为依托。我们将希望寄托在美国年轻人身上。今天，我打赌你们在未来的几十年将继续不断想出新思路并成就更多的企业。