经济复苏有各种各样的形式——V型、W型和L型——在20世纪90年代的经济灾难中冠状病毒关于美国经济将如何复苏，已经有很多争论。
专家警告说，最近几个月越来越流行的一个更新、更麻烦的理论是K型复苏，即富人的情况变好，穷人的情况变坏。
“我称之为K型复苏，因为对一些人来说，这是一个急剧的反弹，对另一些人来说，这是一个持续的下降，”彼得阿特沃特，一个兼职讲师在经济系的威廉和玛丽，谁被认为是创造了“K型”理论，告诉美国广播公司新闻。
阿特沃特说，从许多方面来看，K型复苏凸显了冠状病毒感染者的不同经历，在许多情况下，白领可以在家工作，继续无缝地工作，并有可能避免暴露在病毒中，而关键员工(其中许多人没有福利和现金安全网)必须到一个具体地点报到。
在许多情况下，规模更大、现金更充裕的企业和个人似乎过得更好，而那些更穷的人不仅发现自己失业了，还不成比例地受到了病毒本身的影响。
对于少数已经陷入困境的零售商来说，COVID-19金融危机带来了倒闭和破产。最近几个月，布鲁克斯兄弟公司、J.C .彭尼公司、j .克鲁公司、1号码头公司、内曼·马库斯公司都申请了破产保护，随着大流行的肆虐，这一名单还在不断扩大。
2020年7月8日，芝加哥金融区一家关门的布鲁克斯兄弟商店的入口处悬挂着一个标志。
这些都是更大、更成熟的公司。四月报告来自纽约联邦储备银行的数据显示，如果面临两个月的收入损失，17%的小企业将不得不永久关闭。
美国银行(Bank of America)分析师在7月份的一份报告中也指出了复苏中的差异，他们写道，拥有资本优势的大型连锁企业“已基本恢复到去年的支出水平，而其行业的其他部门仍面临压力。”他们的数据显示，大型连锁店和小型独立公司之间的支出有20%的差距，建议投资者关注大型连锁店。
与此同时，对于全球商界的许多巨头来说，他们的复苏之路实际上已经带来了新的收益。包括亚马逊(Amazon)和特斯拉(Tesla)在内的一些股票已经创下新高，尽管经济的其他部分正在消退。股市总体上也与经济的其他部分不同步。
他说:“一些更极端的分歧，如果你看看像特斯拉这样的公司，其股票刚刚爆炸式上涨，所有方[脸谱网，亚马逊，网飞，谷歌]的股票都表现得非常好。”“似乎有一种感觉，这些公司已经完全接种了疫苗，无论这种流行病会带来什么。”
2020年7月14日，加州圣拉斐尔，一名行人走过一家关闭的星巴克咖啡店。
公司和个人的复苏不均衡
穆迪分析公司的高级经济学家丹特·迪安托尼奥在接受美国广播公司采访时表示，K型复苏“在这种情况下很有意义。”“你已经看到了。”
他说:“亚马逊、谷歌和脸谱网对世界的影响微乎其微。”“它们的影响已经小得多，可能会更快反弹。”
迪恩托尼奥指出，规模和可用现金“与适应这种新常态并驾齐驱”，并适应不断变化的流行病限制，即使重新开放发生。
阿特沃特补充说，在大流行期间表现良好的公司“往往非常庞大”，而且“直接或间接受益于美联储在3月份市场崩盘后立即实施的计划。”美联储已经竭尽全力为了改善经济，购买大量的证券来支持金融市场，将利率削减到接近零的水平，建立直接贷款给主要的公司雇主，等等。
尽管规模和获得现金的能力是企业能够抵御疫情的重要因素，但Zoom、Clorox和亚马逊等一些企业也有独特的优势，因为疫情爆发和在家办公的要求导致对其商品或服务的需求激增。
阿特沃特补充道:“在很大程度上，小企业一直非常依赖于政府自己采取的财政政策举措。”薪水保护计划贷款计划。“但你看到的是，尽管它们可能得以维持，但它们的基础业务，其中许多业务，仍处于高度危险之中。”
他说:“如果我们看看公司，大型跨国公司，特别是那些最接近美联储流动性的公司，他们都做得非常好，而较小的企业没有。”“我们看到公司和个人都有非常相似的经历。”
阿特沃特表示，最初，“3月中旬的恐慌”(即封锁和流感大流行对经济的首次冲击)是一种非常一致的经历。
他说:“每个人对疫情的感受都是相似的，你可以从许多指标上看到这一点，但在那之后我们开始看到的是非常不同的个人经历。”
他补充说:“在家工作的人，他们的信心水平恢复得非常快，从许多方面来说，我得到的感觉是，尽管人们对疫情感到担忧，但他们更为不便。”"生活一如既往地延续着他们之前的经历。"
他补充说:“但对于那些不在家工作的人来说，这是一次非常不同的经历，所以你看到的是，无论是小企业、餐馆，还是服务行业的人，疫情爆发都是一次非常创伤性的事件。”“事情并没有恢复，事实上情况还在继续恶化。”
除了经济困难，许多基本工人在大流行期间，当其他人能够远程工作的时候，仅仅是为了工作而出现，也有暴露于疾病的风险。
他说:“对许多人来说，他们担心的是，他们认为是三月份的一个临时事件，却有更大的持久性。”"因此，他们现在不打算休假，而是希望一起被解雇。"
2020年7月7日，纽约布鲁克林，人们排队等待食物援助卡
复苏应该集中在失业者身上
美国劳工部前首席经济学家、现任经济政策研究所高级经济学家海蒂·希尔霍尔兹(Heidi Shierholz)警告说，在预测经济复苏时，仍然存在很大的不确定性，但越来越明显的是，许多失去的工作不会很快回来。
希尔霍尔兹告诉美国广播公司新闻:“从来没有更大的不确定性，试图预测事情的发展方向，因为有这么多的移动部分。”
阿特沃特、迪安托尼奥和希尔霍尔兹都指出，许多人希望的“V型”复苏目前可能不在考虑范围内，而全面的经济复苏在很大程度上仍取决于疫苗或对COVID-19的有效治疗。
希尔霍尔兹指出，目前的裁员人数自3月底达到每周690万人失业的峰值以来一直在下降，但每周仍超过100万人，是“大萧条最糟糕的一周的两倍。”
她说:“企业认为他们可以留住员工，并试图这样做，因为他们也在用这些术语思考，现在他们意识到，‘哦，它不会回到原来的样子，它不会再像往常一样做生意了，’”
希尔霍尔兹补充道，历史上，在衰退中，大约70%的临时裁员最终都是永久性的。
自大流行开始以来，超过4700万美国人失去了工作，并在某个时候申请了失业保险。截至7月9日，约有1800万美国工人仍在领取失业保险根据劳工统计局的数据，但是专家提醒道这些数据可能无法捕捉到随着大流行的爆发，企业重新关门的痛苦。
她说，不同的复苏经历“在所有的衰退中都有发生”，虽然“现在肯定会发生”，但她说“不是两条平等的道路在分裂”，而是经济中的一小部分正在重新繁荣起来。
Shierholz认为，“K的顶部，也就是真正会出现过度V型复苏的地方，只是整个经济的“一小部分”。
Shierholz建议联邦政府的恢复工作应该集中在州和地方政府的援助和失业保险上。大衰退后复苏的最大障碍之一是消费者需求低——因此，数百万人需要现金流，他们因大流行而被迫失业。
她说，当需求低迷时，这就变成了一个“恶性循环”，导致企业生产更少的商品和服务，更多的二次裁员。
希尔霍尔兹补充说，国会如何实施下一轮经济救助和复苏计划，“将真正决定复苏的力度。”“这绝对关系到未来几年人们的真实生活。"
2020年6月18日，肯塔基州法兰克福市，数百人在肯塔基州职业中心外排队，希望找到失业救济。
对迪安托尼奥来说，不断增加的不确定性和如此多的活动部件意味着，在经济复苏方面，“任何小事都可能带来巨大的变化。”
他说:“我认为，我们需要确保资金继续流向仍在失业的1000万人，他们现在正在慢慢地花一些钱，因为他们正在获得援助。”他指的是大流行失业保险每周增加的600美元，该保险将于本月底到期。
他说:“如果这种情况被切断，你将看到消费者支出大幅下降，这有可能渗透进来，并在经济中造成更糟糕的反应，因为现在，如果消费者不得不进一步削减支出，那些在某种程度上处于困境的企业只会受到更大的伤害。”
As COVID-19 financial crisis wages on, some economists warn of a divergent 'K-shaped' economic recovery
Economic recoveries come in all sorts of shapes -- V, W and L -- and amid the economic devastation of thecoronaviruspandemic, there has been copious debate about how the U.S. economy will bounce back.
One of the newer and more troubling theories that has gained traction in recent months is the K-shaped recovery, where things get better for the haves, and worse for the have-nots, experts warn.
"I call it the K-shaped recovery because for some it’s been a sharp rebound for others it’s been a continuing decline," Peter Atwater, an adjunct lecturer in the economics department at William & Mary, who is credited for coining the "K-shape" theory, told ABC News.
In many ways, a K-shaped recovery highlights the divergent experiences of individuals with coronavirus, where white-collar workers are able to work from home in many cases, to continue seamlessly with their jobs and potentially avoiding exposure to the virus and essential workers, many of who do not have benefits and cash safety nets, have to report to a physical location, Atwater said.
The bigger and more cash-rich businesses and individuals appear to be faring better in many cases, while those who are poorer are not only finding themselves out of work but disproportionately affected by the virus itself.
For a handful of already-struggling retailers, the COVID-19 financial crisis brought closures and bankruptcy. Brooks Brothers, J.C. Penney, J. Crew, Pier 1, Neiman Marcus have all filed for bankruptcy in recent months, and the list is growing as the pandemic rages.
A sign hangs above the entrance of a shuttered Brooks Brothers store in the financial district, July 8, 2020, in Chicago.
And these are among the bigger, more established companies. An Aprilreportfrom the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that 17% of small businesses would have to permanently close if faced with a two-month revenue loss.
Bank of America analysts also noted divergences in recovery in a July report, writing that large chains with capital advantages have "largely recovered to prior year spending while the rest of their industry remains pressured." Their data shows a 20% gap in spending between large chains and smaller, independent firms -- recommending investors to look towards the larger chains.
Meanwhile, for many behemoths of the global business world, their recovery path has actually already brought new gains. Some stocks, including Amazon and Tesla, have reached new, record highs even as the rest of the economy recedes. The stock market at large has also been out of sync with the rest of the economy.
“Some of the more extreme divergences, if you look at a company like Tesla whose stock has just exploded higher and all of the FANG [Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google] stocks have done extremely well,” he said. “There seems to be a sense that these companies are completely inoculated from whatever the pandemic is bringing forth.”
A pedestrian walks by a closed Starbucks Coffee, July 14, 2020, in San Rafael, Calif.
Uneven recovery for both companies and individuals
The K-shape recovery "makes a lot of sense in this situation," Dante DeAntonio, a senior economist at Moody’s Analytics, told ABC News. "You’ve already seen that."
"The Amazon, the Googles and the Facebooks of the world felt very little impact," he said. "Their impact is much smaller already and they are likely to rebound more quickly."
DeAntonio noted that size and cash available "go hand-in-hand with adjusting to this new normal" and adjusting to the ever-changing pandemic restrictions even as re-openings happen.
Atwater added that firms that have done well during the pandemic "tend to be extremely large" and have "either directly or indirectly been beneficiaries of the programs that the Federal Reserve implemented immediately following the market crash in March," Atwater noted. The Fed haspulled out all the stopsto ameliorate the economy, purchasing massive amounts of securities to support financial markets, slashing interest rates to near-zero, and establishing direct-lending programs to major corporate employers, among other things.
While size and access to cash are big factors for which businesses are able to weather the pandemic, some businesses such as Zoom, Clorox and Amazon also had unique advantages in that demand for their goods or services soared as a result of the outbreak and stay-at-home mandates.
"Smaller businesses, for the most part, have been very reliant on the fiscal policy initiatives that the government itself did," Atwater added, referencing the problem-plaguedPaycheck Protection Program loan program. "But what you see is that while they may have been sustained, their underlying businesses, many of them remain highly jeopardized."
“If we look at companies, big multinational companies, particular those closest to the liquidity of the Federal Reserve, they have done extremely well, while smaller businesses have not,” he said. “We’re seeing for both companies and individuals a very similar experience.”
Initially, the "mid-March panic" -- when the first impacts of lockdowns and the pandemic on the economy took place -- "was a very uniform experience," according to Atwater.
"Everyone felt similarly about the outbreak and you saw that in any number of metrics, but what we started to see after that were very different individual experiences," he said.
“People who worked from home their level of confidence rebounded very quickly and in many ways the sense that I got was that while people were concerned by the outbreak, they were more inconvenienced by it," he added. "Life went on very consistently with what they had been experiencing earlier."
"For people who didn’t work from home though, it was a very different experience and so what you saw were whether it was small businesses, restaurants, people in the service industry, the outbreak was a very traumatic event," he added. "And things didn’t recover, in fact things continued to get worse."
In addition to the financial hardships, manyessential workersduring the pandemic also risked exposure to the disease just by showing up for their jobs while others were able to telework.
"For many people there is this concern that what they thought was a temporary event in March has a far greater amount of permanence to it," he said. "So instead of being furloughed they are now expecting to be laid off all together."
People wait in line for food assistance cards, July 7, 2020, in Brooklyn, N.Y.
Recovery should focus on the unemployed
Heidi Shierholz, the former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor and current senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, cautioned that there is still so much uncertainty when it comes to predicting the recovery, but what's starting to become apparent is that a lot of jobs that were lost are not coming back any time soon.
"There’s never been more uncertainty about trying to predict where things are going because there are so many more moving parts," Shierholz told ABC News.
Atwater, DeAntonio and Shierholz all noted that the "V-shape" recovery many were hoping for early on is likely not in the picture at this point, and a full economic recovery remains largely contingent on a vaccine or effective treatment for COVID-19.
Shierholz noted that the ongoing layoffs, which have decreased since peaking at 6.9 million unemployment claims one week at the end of March, are still over a million each week or "twice the worst week of the Great Recession."
"Businesses that thought they could hold onto their workers and tried to because they were also thinking in those terms are now realizing, 'Oh it's not coming back the way it was, it's not going to be business as normal again,'" she said.
Historically in recessions, about 70% of temporary layoffs end up being permanent, Shierholz added.
Since the pandemic began, more than 47 million Americans have lost their jobs and filed for unemployment insurance at some point. As of July 9, some 18 million U.S. workers arestill receiving unemployment insurance, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, butexperts cautionedthese figures might not capture the anguish of business re-closings as the pandemic wages on.
She said that divergent recovery experiences "happen in all recessions" and while it is "happening for sure now," she said that it's "not two equal paths that are splitting" but rather it's a much smaller share of the economy that is booming back.
"The top part of the K, the places that really will have the extravagant V-shape" recovery is just a "small share" of the economy as a whole, according to Shierholz.
Shierholz recommends that federal recovery efforts should focus on state and local government aid and unemployment insurance. One of the biggest barriers to recovery following the Great Recession was consumer demand was low -- hence the need for cash flow to the millions who have been forced out of work due to the pandemic.
When demand is low, it becomes a "vicious cycle" that leads to firms producing fewer goods and services and more secondary layoffs, she said.
How Congress acts with the next economic relief and recovery packages "will really dictate the strength of the recovery," Shierholz added. "It absolutely matters to real peoples' lives in the next several years."
Hundreds of people line up outside a Kentucky Career Center hoping to find assistance with their unemployment claim in Frankfort, Kentucky, June 18, 2020.
For DeAntonio, the mounting uncertainty and so many moving parts mean that "any little thing could make a big difference" when it comes to recovery.
"I think we need to make sure that money keeps flowing to the 10 million people who are still sitting around unemployed, who are slowly spending some money now because they're getting that assistance," he said, referencing the additional $600 a week in pandemic unemployment insurance, that is set to expire at the end of the month.
"Whereas if that gets cut off, you're gonna see a huge drop off in consumer spending, which has the potential to filter through and cause a worse reaction in the economy because businesses that are sort of hanging on by a thread now only be hurt more if consumers have to pull back even further on their spending," he said.
