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Inspired by America’s original Sears Homes, Groundwork Collaborative introduces a direct-to-consumer approach to affordable, accessible homeownership.
Although ticket-selling platforms take a chunk of the profit from increased prices, performers rarely earn more even if consumers are paying higher prices. Nashville native, economist and author Lindsay Owens told The Tennessean there's a term for this split. "We're increasingly seeing what people like me refer to as a K-shaped economy, which is really just a story of the lower end of the market bottoming out, but the higher end of the market continuing to have a rapacious spending profile," Owens said.
Trump’s war in Iran drags on with no end in sight, while new tariffs have already hit supply chains
The thinktank Groundwork Collaborative noted that in 2024 in the U.S. "...prices for consumers rose by 3.4% over the past year, but input costs for producers increased by just 1%, according to the author's calculations, which were based on data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis and National Income and Product Accounts."
The cost of a typical list of 21 basic school supplies rose 7.7 percent year over year, bringing the average basket total to $173.45 per student, according to a report by the Century Foundation and Groundwork Collaborative, both of them progressive economic and public policy think tanks.
"A K-shaped economy is generally described as one economy with two different experiences, depending on your income," Breyon Williams, chief economist at the progressive think tank Groundwork Collaborative, said in an email. "Top-income households pull away, seeing faster growth in spending, income and wealth, while lower-income households see slower growth in those areas."
Michael Strain, AEI Economic Policy Studies director, and Kitty Richards, Groundwork Collaborative senior fellow and former Biden Treasury official, join 'Squawk Box' to discuss July's CPI data, state of the economy, the Fed's rate outlook, and more.
"Today's report shows a patchwork economy that is fraying at the seams," said Breyon Williams, chief economist at Groundwork Collective. "Trump's economic mismanagement has injected so much uncertainty into the economy that employers are not confident enough to add more people, but also have not initiated massive layoffs, creating a frozen job market where those with jobs are afraid to leave them and those without are stuck on the sidelines."
Economy lost 23k jobs; Labor force participation drops to lowest level in five years.
“AI and data centers are going to be a flash point for the next presidential election, and it’s good to see the chief tax writer in the Democratic Party take on this issue,” said Alex Jacquez, senior vice president at the Groundwork Collaborative, a left-leaning think tank, and a former Biden administration economic official. “It can’t be a substitute for all the other things we need to do. But the data centers need to be paying their fair share: These guys are getting fabulously wealthy, and it’s very clear the public is against them.”