Ed Bastian stated that affluent customers are becoming more immune to economic headlines, indicating they are not delaying investments in the experience economy despite ongoing volatility.
"The wealthy who are at financial risk are high earners whose lack of budgeting and profligate spending has them overleveraged and exposed. While they appear to be doing well from the outside, they are only a step away from real financial trouble."
Top of mind for most investors may be overall economic growth, and that of AI. Indeed, the AI trade is driving most of the GDP growth we've seen in recent quarters, and that's a trend that's expectid to continue. And with most of the economic growth still coming from the top 10% of wage earners, the likelihood that we see the so-called "K-shaped" economy gather steam, this could become much more important to the overall investing narrative in 2026.
Something unusual is happening at Dollar Tree: The discount retailer said this week that of the 3 million new households that shopped its stores in the third quarter, approximately 60% of those new customers came from households earning more than $100,000 a year. The trend underscores a deepening split in the American economy. While cumulative inflation has pushed prices up roughly 25% since 2020, wage growth has not kept pace for most households, leaving consumers across the income spectrum hunting for deals.
On one end of the spectrum are glittering ads featuring the likes of Mariah Carey encouraging shoppers to splurge on beauty and influencers unboxing beauty advent calendars worth thousands of dollars. On the other are brands urging consumers to slow down, buy less or opt out of the frenzy entirely. To large audiences, some of the more ostentatious ads have come across as tone deaf in a season where news has centred around people missing paychecks and food assistance benefits.
Days before President Donald Trump was sworn in for his second term, he acknowledged the high prices Americans were seeing at the gas pump and grocery store, pledging to bring them down. "It's always hard to bring down prices when somebody else has screwed something up like [President Joe Biden] did," Trump said in a news conference in early January. "We're going to have prices down. I think you're going to see some pretty drastic price reductions."
A decade ago, low-income workers saw wages grow at the highest rate of any Americans. Now, the opposite is true, and the gap is widening between how quickly wages increase for wealthy and poorer U.S. households. In a Monday blog post titled "K-shaped economy," Apollo chief economist Torsten Slok warned the growing disparity is yet another sign of today's economy continuing to serve the rich, while poor Americans continue to struggle.
The economy is a tale of two halves at present, with wealthy consumers reporting confidence in their outlook, while those at the lower end of the income ladder reportedly feel they're living in a recession-albeit without widespread job losses. This is what economists are calling a 'K-shaped economy,' where the fortunes of two distinct sets of consumers are increasingly diverging over time.
