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Has the economy gone C-shaped? September 8, 20266:30 AM ET
Nuthawut Somsuk/Getty Images Today's economy is brought to you by… the letter K! Or is it C? Or … well, it depends on who you talk to about how the rich and poor are doing these days.
You've probably heard about "the K-shaped economy." When people talk about it, they generally mean that inequality is widening (and the fortunes of the rich and poor are diverging, so it looks like the right side of the K). Recently, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he was "sick of hearing about this K-shaped economy." And, he said, he believed the better letter to describe it was a C, which is, shall we say, a more optimistic letter for how lower- and middle-class Americans are faring in today's economy.
This desire to Sesame Street the economy isn't a surprise: we're always looking for ways to shorthand or telegraph the essence of what's going on in the economy at any given time. But assigning something as basic as a letter to something as complicated as the economy seems way too reductive. Even for Planet Money! So how did we get here?
