Dozens of delivery drivers in yellow and blue uniforms crowded around a snack street in downtown Shanghai, on standby for their next order. The work was temporary, many said, a gig to help pay off a debt or fill the gap before a better paying job.

在上海市中心一条小吃街周围，数十名身穿黄蓝制服的外卖骑手正等着下一个订单。许多人说，他们做这份工作是临时的，是为了帮助偿还债务，或者在找到薪水更高的工作之前填补空缺。

For China’s workers, financial security is further out of reach than ever. They are stuck in China’s deflation loop. Stubbornly low prices on everything from eggs to a hot delivered meal have cut into the profits that businesses make, gnawing at the money workers earn. Everyone has become tighter with money, pushing down prices even more.

对中国的劳动者而言，经济保障比以往任何时候都遥不可及。他们陷入了中国的通缩循环。从鸡蛋到一顿热腾腾的外卖，各种商品价格持续走低，压缩了企业的利润，蚕食了工人的收入。每个人都变得更拮据，这进一步压低了物价。

A bruising trade fight with the United States is the last thing anyone wanted, especially policymakers who have floundered to stop prices falling. It threatens to make things harder than they already were for China’s hundreds of millions of workers.

与美国进行一场激烈的贸易战是所有人都最不愿意看到的，尤其是那些努力阻止物价下跌的政策制定者。对于中国数以亿计的工人来说，这有可能使他们的生活变得更加艰难。

Cao Zhi, 27, left his low-paying job selling car insurance to join the food delivery platform Ele.me four years ago in Shanghai. He said he has to work at least one extra hour each day to take home the same amount of pay that he was making when he started.

27岁的曹志（音）在四年前辞去了销售汽车保险的低薪工作，加入了外卖平台饿了么。他说，他每天至少要多工作一个小时，才能拿到和刚开始工作时一样的薪水。

He said many of his friends have experienced a similar earnings erosion.

他说他的许多朋友都经历了类似的收入下降。

“I feel that it is universal,” said Mr. Cao, who is trying to pay off a car loan he owes in his hometown in the central province of Shanxi.

“我感觉是普遍（现象），”曹志说，他正在努力偿还他在中部省份山西的老家欠下的车贷。

The Chinese government has for several years been dealing with deflation, the pernicious side effect of a property crisis crawling through the economy and putting a freeze on much economic activity. The big exception has been in manufacturing, where factories are making far more than Chinese consumers can buy. Those goods, including electronics and clothes, are sent overseas to countries like the United States. Exports accounted for nearly a third of China’s economic growth last year.

中国政府几年来一直在应对通货紧缩的问题，这是房地产危机在经济中蔓延的恶性副作用，使许多经济活动陷入停滞。最大的例外是制造业，工厂生产的产品远超中国消费者的购买力。包括电子产品和服装在内的这些商品被运往美国等海外国家。去年，出口在中国经济增长中所占的比例接近三分之一。

Now, Beijing must go toe-to-toe with the United States, which is the biggest buyer of its goods and is aggrieved at how little China buys from it. The row escalated last week when President Trump placed a minimum tariff of 145 percent on all Chinese goods, making it all but impossible for China to export its goods to the United States.

现在，北京必须与美国正面交锋，美国是中国商品的最大买家，并且它对于中国从美国购买的商品太少感到不满。上周，特朗普总统对所有中国商品征收145%的最低关税，使中国几乎不可能向美国出口商品，争端随之升级。

“It makes a fairly bad situation worse,” said Christopher Beddor, deputy director of China research at Gavekal Dragonomics. “The economy has been grinding through one deflationary shock for several years now, and there is another shock that is imminent.”

“这让本来就很糟糕的情况雪上加霜，”佳富龙洲中国研究部副主任克里斯托弗·贝多表示。“几年来，经济一直在经历一场通缩冲击，而另一场冲击也即将到来。”

China’s economy grew steadily at the start of the year, propelled by a surge in exports ahead of trade restrictions. But economists estimate that exports will soon drop to the lowest level since the 2008 financial crisis.

今年年初，在贸易限制出台前出口激增的推动下，中国经济稳步增长。但经济学家估计，出口将很快降至2008年金融危机以来的最低水平。

“The trade war is going to leave some sort of hole in the economy,” Mr. Beddor said.

“贸易战会给中国经济留下某种缺口，”贝多说。

位于中国南部城市广州的一家生产烤箱和其他餐饮设备的小工厂。

Consumer prices fell by 0.1 percent in March compared with the same period a year earlier, the second consecutive month that happened, and producer prices dipped by 2.5 percent. While there were some months of exception, prices have fallen for six consecutive quarters.

3月，中国的居民消费价格指数同比下降0.1%，这是连续第二个月出现这种情况，而生产者价格指数下降2.5%。尽管有几个月例外，物价已连续六个季度下跌。

One way to tackle deflationary forces would be to fire up domestic spending, which accounts for around 39 percent of China’s growth, significantly less than the average for most major economies. But measures taken by Beijing so far to do this — mostly in the form of subsidies like the trading in of old goods — have barely moved the needle. This week two of China’s most popular e-commerce platforms, Tencent and Douyin, said they would help export-oriented businesses market themselves to consumers in China.

解决通货紧缩的一种方法是刺激国内消费，它占中国经济增长的39%左右，远低于大多数主要经济体的平均水平。但迄今为止，中国政府为此采取的措施——主要是以旧换新等补贴形式——收效甚微。本周，中国最受欢迎的两家电子商务平台腾讯和抖音表示，它们将帮助出口导向型企业向中国消费者推销自己。

Beijing has been battling the pressures of deflation since its “zero Covid” policy, which dampened business outlook and consumer appetite to spend. And the property meltdown has erased much of the net worth of many Chinese families, which traditionally placed most of their savings into real estate. The job losses in the real estate sector, which at its peak accounted for a third of the economy, are staggering.

自“清零”政策以来，中国政府一直在与通缩压力作斗争，这抑制了企业发展前景和消费者的消费意愿。传统上，许多中国家庭将大部分积蓄都投入房地产，而房地产的崩盘使这些家庭的净资产大打折扣。房地产业在高峰时期曾占到中国经济总量的三分之一，但现在房地产业的失业率却十分惊人。

Wang Longhe, a construction worker and plumbing specialist from China’s northeast Liaoning Province, recently traveled some 1,600 miles to the southern city of Zhongshan for a two-day job helping to build an aquarium. Nearly all construction projects in the northeast of China had been mothballed, he said.

王龙河（音）是来自中国东北辽宁的建筑工人和管道师傅，他最近长途跋涉约2500公里，来到中国南部城市中山，做一份为期两天的水族馆建设工作。他说，在中国东北，几乎所有的建设项目都已停工。

When times were good, Mr. Wang said he could make as much as $13,600 a year. Now he’s lucky if he can make half that, he said.

王龙河说，在景气的时候，他一年能赚大约十万元。他说，现在能赚到这一半就不错了。

“There are not many jobs, basically no work and now in our hometown in the northeast, people who worked in our industry are staying at home,” Mr. Wang said while taking a break from his work.

“活不多了，基本上没活了，现在我们老家东北那边，就说干我们的行业的，在家呆着的多了，”王龙河在工作间隙说。

“I take it one step at a time,” said Mr. Wang, who is 56. “Life is tight, making money is hard, and you can’t think about the future.”

“走一步看一步，”56岁的王龙河说。“生活比较紧的，挣钱费劲，不能往后想。”

房地产曾占中国经济的三分之一。现在，很多地产项目已经停工。

The number of people choosing to work as delivery and ride share drivers has grown rapidly in recent years, as people were laid off from their jobs and small businesses went bankrupt. There were already 200 million people in the gig economy in 2020, according to data cited by former premier Li Keqiang at the time. The trade war could accelerate the trend. As many as 20 million workers could lose their jobs because of the sudden plunge in exports from China to the United States, according to an estimate from Goldman Sachs.

近年来，随着人们失业和小企业破产，选择从事快递和开网约车的人数迅速增长。据前总理李克强当时引用的数据，2020年已有2亿人从事“零工经济”。贸易战可能会加速这一趋势。据高盛估计，由于中国对美国出口的骤减，多达2000万工人可能会失去工作。

As more workers crowd into the gig economy, making jobs harder to find and forcing wages lower, the government is leaning on companies like JD.com and Meituan, whose apps provide the platform for delivery jobs, to provide pension benefits and insurance.

随着越来越多的工人涌入零工经济，工作越来越难找，工资也越来越低，政府开始敦促京东和美团等公司为外卖配送工作提供养老金和保险。这些公司的应用程序为外卖工作提供了平台。

Chen Xiaolan worked in a factory making air-conditioner compressors for a decade before eventually moving to Beijing to become a driver for China’s leading ride-hailing platform, Didi. Mr. Chen, 38, considers himself lucky because he owns the car that he drives for work. He usually puts in 12-hour days, six days a week. Those who rent a car usually must work seven days a week, he said.

陈晓岚（音）在一家生产空调压缩机的工厂工作了10年，最终来到北京，成为中国领先的网约车平台滴滴的司机。38岁的陈晓岚认为自己很幸运，因为他开的是自己的车。他通常每天工作12个小时，每周工作六天。他说，租车的人通常必须每周工作七天。

Recently work was slow, Mr. Chen said. “It’s not easy to do now; there are more cars and fewer orders.”

陈晓岚说，最近生意不大好。“现在也不好做，车子多单子少。”

But there aren’t a lot of alternatives to gig work these days.

但是现在除了零工，没有太多的选择。

Liu Mingdong, a driver for the food delivery platform Ele.me, tried running his own business selling hardware online for three years. But he found more competitors and fewer buyers.

刘明东（音）是外卖平台饿了么的一名骑手。他曾经试着在网上经营自己的五金件生意，坚持了三年。但他发现竞争对手越来越多，买家却越来越少。

“Who knows if I made any money,” said Mr. Liu, 36, who arrived in Shanghai in March and started working for the takeout delivery platform, Ele.me, two days later.

“本来想开网店自己赚钱，谁知道有没有赚到钱，”36岁的刘明东说。他今年3月来到上海，两天后开始为外卖配送平台饿了吗工作。

“I guess,” he added, “I’m unlucky.”

“我估计，”他还说，“我做了运气不好。”