🧩 BND Motif Index · M1713
K-shaped economy
The economy is said to have split like the arms of a K: those already doing well keep rising while workers lower down are left out and fall, so the averages hide two economies.
📜 Plots🗂️ Pocketbook🗂️ Money and power
- 2claims filed under it
- 2center shows it came up on
- 1right show it came up on
⚠️ A story people tell, not a claim that it's true.
A motif is the shape of a story as its tellers tell it, named the way a folklorist names a tale type, so the same story told about other people, by the other side or in another year lands in the same place. Some of the claims below are true, many are false. Arguing against a story is often a story of its own, its answer (Voter fraud is answered by Voter suppression, Lawfare by No one is above the law), and we file it there; where no answer has a motif yet, the arguments against a story sit with its tellings.
🪜 Its family
what it rests on, what rests on it, and the motifs that answer it
↔️ answers and mirrors:
- 🧩 Vibecession answers Vibecession
🎙️ Who it came up with
the shows we follow where its claims came up (0 left-leaning, 2 center, 1 right-leaning so far), colored by the show's lean; the bar is how many of its claims each one heard
- center
- right-leaning
"Came up on" means one of its claims was heard on the show: told, reported or argued against. We don't yet mark which. Show leans are our own grouping of the shows we transcribe.
🗣️ In so many words
the words that carry it
💬 the tellers' own words: “Carol Roth came on the show and described it this way as a K-shaped economy.” “I think it's symbolic of a labor market that matches the K-shaped economy.” “People who are doing well are still doing well.”
🧶 Its claims
what's been told in this shape, in our words, by who told it: newest first in each; a claim's dots are the shows it came up on, in their lean's color (point at them for their names)
Told on the left 0
claims heard on left-leaning shows, and no right-leaning one
🦗 No claim heard only on the left so far.
Told on the right 1
claims heard on right-leaning shows, and no left-leaning one
- 2026-11-07 “The current labor market reflects a K-shaped economy where certain groups are struggling more than others.” 2
Told in the center 1
claims heard only on center or crossover shows
- 2026-10-30 “Donald Trump is focused on renovating the White House, not on lowering prices for people, and his economic gains don't trickle down to workers.” 1
M1713 · first seen 2026-11-07 · what this is · how the index works