Mass. — When it comes to the economy today, many Americans feel like they’re falling further and further behind.
This feeling is growing despite the stock market hitting record highs and a relatively stable job market.
So why this sentiment that things aren’t “OK” these days?
You can blame it on something called the “K” economy.
“The K economy is where two things exist at the same time. So, we have the K, and the upper arm is one population that is doing well, and we have the lower leg, so to speak, going downward and they’re not doing so well,” explained Dr. Bertie Greer, Ph.D., Dean of the Manning School of Business at UMass Lowell.
She says much of this trend is tied to Wall Street.
In 2025, the S&P 500 was up 16.4% while the tech heavy Nasdaq climbed 20.4%.
“But the stock market is not an indicator of the economy,” said Greer. “The stock market and its success is an indicator for investors, people who have stocks, corporations, businesses, real estate, and usually you’re in a higher income population.”
Boston 25 News asked people at the Natick rest plaza on the Mass Pike their feelings about the K economy.
“The rich are getting richer nowadays and the middle class people are staying on the same straight line. They’re not getting more money,” said one man.
Another added, “I think things are not as bad as people think.”
A third said, “I think there’s a dual reality of what’s going on, because people who are economically more secure are actually doing A-OK, but people that are a little bit tighter, I think inflation is a very really thing.”
The increased wealth of the upper classes has coincided with persistent inflation which is felt more harshly by those people a few rungs down on the income ladder.
“There has been a hollowing out of the middle class in the sense of what’s been the number one complaint about the state of the US economy and continues to be the case even as we speak is essentially affordability issues,” said Mark Hamrick, a senior economic analyst and Washinton D.C bureau chief for www.bankrate.com.
“We also see, essentially the economic division driving the political divide, and we know that politically speaking, we do well when America’s middle class is robust. And essentially more people meet in the middle than are sort of lobbing grenades from the sidelines, but that’s where we are today”
Jerone Powell, chair of the Federal Reserve, is concerned about a society with a stark economic divide, saying “How sustainable it is, I don’t know” last December.
On a personal level, Hamrick says the state of today’s world requires everyone to make their financial well-being a priority – both to get ahead -- or at least hold their ground.
“How to get there is to live beneath your means, not to live on the cutting edge so to speak, where you’re just getting by, and we’re essentially spending first and saving later. We need to save first and spend second so that we are paying ourselves first thru our savings plans.”
With the threat of A.I taking jobs, and the price of housing increasingly out of reach, it can be hard to be positive about the economy.
But we found one optimistic man at that rest stop.
“Every economy has its ups and downs, so you can’t expect everything to be up all the time,” he told us. “Because what I know about America is, when you work hard, you get the money. If you don’t work, you’ll never get it.”
Dr. Greer said she will also be watching how A-I affects the workforce.
She says lower income workers are often the first to feel the consequences of a big shift in the labor market.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.
Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts.
Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW