Kimberly Adams

In Washington, D.C., I'm Kimberly Adams in for Kai Rizdal.

It's Friday, December 26th.

Good to have you with us.

This is the last Friday of 2025, meaning it's also the last weekly wrap of 2025.

So to look back and a little bit forward at the economic year that was, we've got Courtney Brown at Axios on the line and Rachel Siegel at The Washington Post.

Hey, you two.

Thank you for joining me this holiday week.

Courtney, I want to start with you because there were a bunch of big economic themes this year.

And one in particular that showed up in this week's GDP report is this ever resilient American consumer.

Doesn't matter if we've got tariffs, bad consumer sentiment, whatever.

People are still spending.

Courtney, you've been writing about this.

Why?

Rachel, what's your take?

Why do you think people are still spending and what might stop them?

Well, that ties to another one of the big themes of the economy this year.

So let me stick with you for a second, Rachel, about the K-shaped economy, as we call it.

And I mean, this was a big topic during the pandemic, but kind of receded into the background a bit because we did see a lot of that wage growth coming out of the pandemic, boosting lower wage workers.

Why is this coming back now, this big divide and what seems to be getting a bigger divide between higher and lower income consumers?

And Courtney, it's not just affecting consumers.