"Atwater credits Ivan the K for the coining the term, but said he was the first to run with it, publishing a series of pieces in 2020 about the growing gap between the haves and have-nots: White-collar employees could work remotely while blue-collar workers were outside the work-from-home bubble. While the tech industry more quickly recovered, the pandemic pummeled lower-income workers, such as service workers who were either laid off or deemed essential, leaving them stuck in their jobs."
""They're missing the feelings aspect to it," Atwater told Fortune. "They're missing what motivates us to act isn't the economy, but our feelings about the economy. "What we have today is a small group of individuals who feel intense certainty paired with relentless power control-and on the other, it is a sea of despair," he continued. "And that's the piece that never gets talked about.""
Post-pandemic recovery has followed a K-shaped pattern, with white-collar and tech workers recovering faster while lower-income and service workers suffered job loss or stagnation. Remote-work capability insulated higher-income employees while blue-collar workers remained exposed to workplace risk or unemployment. Quantitative indicators show widening wage and spending gaps between higher- and lower-income Americans. Emotional responses to economic conditions differ sharply, with a small group feeling intense certainty and control while many others experience despair. Divergent emotional states, rather than objective indicators alone, shape behavior and could produce significant social and economic consequences.
Read at Fortune
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