John and Theresa Anderson meandered through the sprawling Ralph Lauren clothing store on Rodeo Drive, shopping for holiday gifts.

They emerged carrying boxy blue bags. John scored quarter-zip sweaters for himself and his father-in-law, and his wife splurged on a tweed jacket for Christmas Day.

“I’m going for quality over quantity this year,” said John, an apparel company executive and Palos Verdes Estates resident.

They strolled through the world-famous Beverly Hills shopping mecca, where there was little evidence of any big sales.

One mile away, shoppers at a Ralphs grocery store in West Hollywood were hunting for bargains. The chain’s website has been advertising discounts on a wide variety of products, including wine and wrapping paper.

Massi Gharibian was there looking for cream cheese and ways to save money.

“I’m buying less this year,” she said. “Everything is expensive.”

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The tale of two Ralphs shows how Americans are experiencing radically different realities this holiday season. It represents the country’s K-shaped economy — the growing divide between those who are affluent and those trying to stretch their budgets.

Some Los Angeles residents are tightening their belts and prioritizing necessities such as groceries. Others are frequenting pricey stores such as Ralph Lauren, where doormen hand out hot chocolate and a cashmere-silk necktie sells for $250.

People shop at Ralphs in West Hollywood.

(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)

In the K-shaped economy, high-income households sit on the upward arm of the “K,” benefiting from rising pay as well as the value of their stock and property holdings. At the same time, lower-income families occupy the downward stroke, squeezed by inflation and lackluster income gains.

The model captures the country’s contradictions. Growth looks healthy on paper, yet hiring has slowed and unemployment is edging higher. Investment is booming in artificial intelligence data centers, while factories cut jobs and home sales stall.

The divide is most visible in affordability. Inflation remains a far heavier burden for households lower on the income distribution, a frustration that has spilled into politics. Voters are angry about expensive rents, groceries and imported goods.

“People in lower incomes are becoming more and more conservative in their spending patterns, and people in the upper incomes are actually driving spending and spending more,” said Kevin Klowden, an executive director at the Milken Institute, an economic think tank.

“Inflationary pressures have been much higher on lower- and middle-income people, and that has been adding up,” he said.

According to a Bank of America report released this month, higher-income employees saw their after-tax wages grow 4% from last year, while lower-income groups saw a jump of just 1.4%. Higher-income households also increased their spending year over year by 2.6%, while lower-income groups increased spending by 0.6%.

The executives at the companies behind the two Ralphs say they are seeing the trend nationwide.

Ralph Lauren reported better-than-expected quarterly sales last month and raised its forecasts, while Kroger, the grocery giant that owns Ralphs and Food 4 Less, said it sometimes struggles to attract cash-strapped customers.

“We’re seeing a split across income groups,” interim Kroger Chief Executive Ron Sargent said on a company earnings call early this month. “Middle-income customers are feeling increased pressure. They’re making smaller, more frequent trips to manage budgets, and they’re cutting back on discretionary purchases.”

People leave Ralphs with their groceries in West Hollywood.

(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)

Kroger lowered the top end of its full-year sales forecast after reporting mixed third-quarter earnings this month.

On a Ralph Lauren earnings call last month, CEO Patrice Louvet said its brand has benefited from targeting wealthy customers and avoiding discounts.

“Demand remains healthy, and our core consumer is resilient,” Louvet said, “especially as we continue … to shift our recruiting towards more full-price, less price-sensitive, higher-basket-size new customers.”

Investors have noticed the split as well.

The stock charts of the companies behind the two Ralphs also resemble a K. Shares of Ralph Lauren have jumped 37% in the last six months, while Kroger shares have fallen 13%.

To attract increasingly discerning consumers, Kroger has offered a precooked holiday meal for eight of turkey or ham, stuffing, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, cranberry and gravy for about $11 a person.

“Stretch your holiday dollars!” said the company’s weekly newspaper advertisement.

Signs advertising low prices are posted at Ralphs.

(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)

In the Ralph Lauren on Rodeo Drive, sunglasses and polo shirts were displayed without discounts. Twinkling lights adorned trees in the store’s entryway and employees offered shoppers free cookies for the holidays.

Ralph Lauren and other luxury stores are taking the opposite approach to retailers selling basics to the middle class.

They are boosting profits from sales of full-priced items. Stores that cater to high-end customers don’t offer promotions as frequently, Klowden of the Milken Institute said.

“When the luxury stores are having sales, that’s usually a larger structural symptom of how they’re doing,” he said. “They don’t need to be having sales right now.”

Jerry Nickelsburg, faculty director of the UCLA Anderson Forecast, said upper-income earners are less affected by inflation that has driven up the price of everyday goods, and are less likely to hunt for bargains.

“The low end of the income distribution is being squeezed by inflation and is consuming less,” he said. “The upper end of the income distribution has increasing wealth and increasing income, and so they are less affected, if affected at all.”

The Andersons on Rodeo Drive also picked up presents at Gucci and Dior.

“We’re spending around the same as last year,” John Anderson said.

At Ralphs, Beverly Grove resident Mel, who didn’t want to share her last name, said the grocery store needs to go further for its consumers.

“I am 100% trying to spend less this year,” she said.

Big Tech companies, including Apple, Google, Microsoft, and ServiceNow, have warned employees on visas to avoid leaving the country amid uncertainty about changing immigration policy and procedures.

Following an attack on National Guard members in Washington, the Trump administration expanded travel bans earlier this month, and beefed up vetting and data collection for visa applicants. The new policy now includes screening the social media history of some visa applicants and their dependents.

Soon after the announcement, U.S. consulates began rescheduling appointments for future dates, some as late as summer 2026, leaving employees who required appointments unable to return.

“Please be aware that some U.S. Embassies and Consulates are experiencing significant visa stamping appointment delays, currently reported as up to 12 months,” noted an email sent by Berry Appleman & Leiden LLC, the immigration firm that represents Google. The advisory also recommended “avoiding international travel at this time.”

Business Insider earlier reported on the travel advisories.

Microsoft’s memo noted that much of the rescheduling is occurring in India, in cities such as Chennai and Hyderabad, and that new stamping dates are as far out as June 2026.

The company advised employees with valid work authorization who were traveling outside the U.S. for stamping to return before their current visa expires. Those still in the U.S. scheduling upcoming travel for visa stamping should “strongly consider” changing their travel plans.

Apple’s immigration team also recommended that employees without a valid H1-B visa stamp avoid international travel for now.

ServiceNow, a business software company, similarly issued an advisory recommending that those with valid visa stamps return to the U.S.

Microsoft declined to comment on its memo. Apple, Google and ServiceNow did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Companies warned that delays due to enhanced screening is for H-1B, H-4, F, J and M visas.

H-1B is a high-skilled immigration visa program that allows employers to sponsor work visas for individuals with specialized skills. The program, capped at 85,000 new visas per year, is a channel for American tech giants to source skilled workers, such as software engineers.

Big Tech companies such as Amazon, Google, and Meta have consistently topped the charts in terms of the number of H-1B approvals, with Indian nationals as the largest beneficiaries of the program, accounting for 71% of approved H-1 B petitions.

H-1B visas are awarded through a lottery system, which its critics say has been exploited by companies to replace American workers with cheap foreign labor.

In September, the Trump administration announced a $100,000 fee for new H-1B employee hires. But after severe pushback, it clarified that it applied only to employers seeking to use the H-1B visa to hire foreign nationals not already in the U.S.

The H-1B program is an issue that has not only animated the right but also splintered it. Those on the tech-right, such as Elon Musk and David Sacks, are strongly in favor of strengthening skilled immigration, while the core MAGA base is vehemently opposed to it.

Proponents of the program often highlight that skilled worker immigration made the U.S a technological leader, and nearly half of the fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or their children, creating jobs for native-born Americans.

If it began to sound a lot like Christmas earlier than usual this year, it wasn’t your imagination.

Halloween wasn’t even over before Spotify users began curating songs about mistletoe, snow and presents under the tree.

Holiday playlists created on Spotify in the U.S. jumped 60% in October over last year, the Swedish audio company said. Some Spotify users started crafting holiday playlists as early as summer.

“It’s a combination of wanting to feel good and nostalgia, and these are testing times,” said Talia Kraines, editorial lead for pop at Spotify. “Somehow Christmas music brings comfort and I think that’s a real part of it.”

Indeed, eight of the top 10 songs on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart for the week that ended Saturday were Christmas songs, with the top five being familiar holiday classics, including Mariah Carey’s 1994 hit “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” Brenda Lee’s 1958 recording of “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” and Wham!’s “Last Christmas,” released in 1984.

On-demand streams for holiday music in the U.S. increased 27% to 8.3 billion this year, compared with a year ago, according to L.A.-based data firm Luminate.

The popularity of music streaming has helped to fuel a surge in users seeking out more holiday music, and earlier in the year.

The change has been driven by technology. In the pre-streaming era, consumers would play Christmas music through CDs and records or catch tunes on the radio during the winter months.

But the rise of Spotify, Apple Music and other streaming services opened the floodgates by offering large libraries of songs on demand.

The new platforms created and marketed holiday playlists, making it easier for consumers to discover seasonal songs and add new ones to their own song collections.

“You used to have a bunch of Christmas albums around and rotate them through as you’re decorating the house or wrapping the presents,” said Dave Bakula, vice president of analytics and data insights at Iconic Artists Group. “The availability of all the music, all the time is such an incredible gift that streaming services have given us.”

For musicians and record labels, holiday music also has taken on growing importance.

Vince Szydlowski, executive vice president of commerce at Universal Music Enterprises, the centralized global catalog division of Universal Music Group, said he starts planning the year’s campaign for holiday music in January.

“For UMG and many of the artists that you associate with holiday music, it will be the most important time of the year, without a doubt,” Szydlowski said. “In some cases, especially with certain legendary artists, it could make or break their year.”

One campaign Universal Music Enterprises worked on was promoting Elton John’s 1973 holiday song “Step Into Christmas.” The song was featured in Amazon Prime Video’s holiday movie “Oh. What. Fun,” starring Michelle Pfeiffer.

John posted viral social media videos with the song playing in the background that drew more than 100 million views.

Those efforts helped boost the track’s consumption by 44% this year compared with last year, according to Universal Music Group, citing data from Luminate.

“It’s a very comprehensive campaign in which to continue to boost that track visibility among the holiday perennials,” Szydlowski said.

Many of the popular Christmas songs in the U.S. date back decades, making it challenging for new, original holiday songs to break through.

Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” has been the longest-running No. 1 song in Billboard Hot 100 history at 21 weeks, according to Billboard.

The holidays are an important time for older artists like Brenda Lee, whose rendition of “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” remains a winter hit.

In November 2023, Lee’s version of the song topped Billboard’s Hot 100 chart for the first time, 65 years after the song’s debut, making Lee, then 79, the oldest woman to top the Hot 100, according to UMG.

Then there are artists like the late Nat King Cole, known for hits like the holiday classic “The Christmas Song,” and Dean Martin, who died in 1995 and whose rendition of “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!” is especially popular during winter months.

Nat King Cole in 1963. “The Christmas Song” became one of his enduring hits.

(Capitol Records Archives)

Another source of appeal for Christmas music is that it‘s timeless.

It isn’t really affected by trends and the songs highlight themes like love, hope, joy and family that remind us of our friends, family and past Christmases, said Jimmy Edwards, president of Iconic Artists Group.

“It’s the one music that you can share it together from any age. As Nat would say, from 1 to 92, right?” Edwards said, referencing a lyric from Cole’s “The Christmas Song.” “Those emotional bonds you have with that music stay with you forever … It promotes the best of us and all the good things. That’s why people love it so much.”

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