How a ‘K-Shaped’ Recovery Is Widening U.S. Inequality

The wildly uneven recovery in the U.S. economy since Covid-19 began wreaking havoc in early 2020 has given inequality a new shape: K. While nearly 11 million people were unemployed as of November, many other Americans had grown wealthier thanks to surging stock and house prices, spurring the term the “K-shaped recovery.”

The diverging strokes of the letter K represent the differing fortunes of the haves and have-nots following the deepest recession in decades. As joblessness surged and many households struggled to pay the bills, plenty of Americans were able to work from home and benefit from a sharp rise in asset values. Unprecedented stimulus from the Federal Reserve kept mortgage rates low and encouraged investors to buy equities. America’s richest people have seen their fortunes balloon.