The K-shaped recovery just keeps getting more K-shaped — better for those at the top and worse at the bottom

Juliana Kaplan

Nov 25, 2020, 23:35 IST

The K-shaped recovery just keeps getting more K-shaped — better for those at the top and worse at the bottom

Residents line up to receive food distributed by the National Guard at Chelsea City Hall on April 17, 2020 in Chelsea, Massachusetts.Scott Eisen/Getty Images

For some Americans, the future is finally starting to look bright: a vaccine is on its way, the Dow has reached record highs, and savings have spiked.
Those are the ones at the top of our "K-shaped recovery," where higher-income Americans are seeing jobs recover in their typical industries — like tech, software, and retail — and their incomes grow.
But the K-shaped recovery is much more jagged than the more desirable "V" shaped recovery — or even the "U" shape. That's because the bottom of the "K" just keeps pointing downward.
Weekly job claims just rose to 778,000, and from October 28 to November 9, 12% of all American adults reported that their households sometimes or often didn't have enough to eat in the past week, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
The US has been breaking records for coronavirus cases, and could reach 1 million new daily cases by the end of the year.
On the upside of the "K," billionaires have seen their net worths grow up by almost $1 trillion during the pandemic, while their frontline workers have foregone hazard pay and fallen ill.
From October 28 to November 9, almost one in five American renters weren't caught up on rent.
As The Washington Post reports: "This is a humanitarian crisis in America. It's also an alarm bell."
Across the board, the report said, Americans of color — particularly Black Americans — have felt the economic fallout more acutely.

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