Business

Sustainable Energy

Sustainable Energy
TV Shows

Gothenburg-headquartered Volvo Trucks says refueling of the vehicles will take under 15 minutes.
While there is excitement in some quarters about the potential of hydrogen powered vehicles, there are hurdles when it comes to expanding the sector.
Competition to develop low and zero emission options within the trucking sector has increased in recent years.

According to Volvo Trucks, fuel cells for the vehicles will be provided by cellcentric, a joint venture with Daimler Truck that was established in March 2021.
Tomohiro Ohsumi | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Volvo Trucks said Monday that it had begun to test vehicles that use “fuel cells powered by hydrogen,” with the Swedish firm claiming their range could extend to as much as 1,000 kilometers, or a little over 621 miles.
In a statement, Gothenburg-headquartered Volvo Trucks said refueling of the vehicles would take under 15 minutes. Customer pilots are set to begin in the next few years, with commercialization “planned for the latter part of this decade.”

Fuel cells for the vehicles will be provided by cellcentric, a joint venture with Daimler Truck that was established in March 2021.
“Hydrogen-powered fuel cell electric trucks will be especially suitable for long distances and heavy, energy-demanding assignments,” Roger Alm, president of Volvo Trucks, said.
Alongside hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, Volvo Trucks — which is part of the Volvo Group — has also developed battery-electric trucks.

Read more about electric vehicles from CNBC Pro

The electrification of long-haul, heavy-duty trucks poses its own unique set of challenges. The International Energy Agency’s Global EV Outlook for 2021 has described long-haul trucking as needing “advanced technologies for high power charging and/or large batteries.”
Competition within the sector has increased in recent years. Volvo Trucks’ focus on zero-emission technologies will put it in competition with companies like Tesla and JV partner Daimler Truck, which are both developing electric trucks.

Like Volvo Trucks, Daimler Truck is focusing on both battery-electric and hydrogen vehicles.
In an interview with CNBC last year Martin Daum, chairman of the board of management at Daimler Truck, was asked about the debate between battery-electric and hydrogen fuel cell.
“We go for both because both … make sense,” he replied, before explaining how different technologies would be appropriate in different scenarios.
“In general, you can say: If you go to city delivery where you need lower amounts of energy in there, you can charge overnight in a depot, then it’s certainly battery electric,” he said.
“But the moment you’re on the road, the moment you go from Stockholm to Barcelona … in my opinion, you need something which you can transport better and where you can refuel better and that is ultimately H2.”
“The ruling is not out, but I think it’s too risky for a company our size to go with just one technology.”

Read more about energy from CNBC Pro

While there is excitement in some quarters about the potential of hydrogen-powered vehicles, there are hurdles when it comes to expanding the sector, a point acknowledged by Volvo Trucks on Monday.
It pointed to challenges including the “large-scale supply of green hydrogen” as well as “the fact that refueling infrastructure for heavy vehicles is yet to be developed.”
Described by the IEA as a “versatile energy carrier,” hydrogen has a diverse range of applications and can be deployed in a wide range of industries.
It can be produced in a number of ways. One method includes using electrolysis, with an electric current splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen.
If the electricity used in this process comes from a renewable source such as wind or solar then some call it “green” or “renewable” hydrogen. Today, the vast majority of hydrogen generation is based on fossil fuels.
Last week, Volvo Construction Equipment, which is also part of the Volvo Group, said it had commenced testing of a “fuel cell articulated hauler prototype.” More

The housing market has cooled off a bit after an incredibly hot stretch fueled by the pandemic. That doesn’t mean it’s about to be 2007 all over again.
America’s housing market is in far better health today. That’s thanks, in part, to new lending regulations that resulted from that meltdown.
There aren’t as many risky loans or mortgage delinquencies, although high home prices are forcing many people out of the market.

As quickly as mortgage rates are rising, the once red-hot housing market is cooling off. Home prices are still historically high, but there is concern now that they will ease up as well.
All of this has people asking: Is today’s housing market in the same predicament that it was over a decade ago, when the 2007-08 crash caused the Great Recession?

The short answer is: no. America’s housing market is in far better health today. That’s thanks, in part, to new lending regulations that resulted from that meltdown. Those rules put today’s borrowers on far firmer footing.
For the 53.5 million first lien home mortgages in America today, the average borrower FICO credit score is a record high 751. It was 699 in 2010, two years after the financial sector’s meltdown. Lenders have been much more strict about lending, much of that reflected in credit quality.
Home prices have soared, as well, due to pandemic-fueled demand over the past two years. That gives today’s homeowners record amounts of home equity. So-called tappable equity, which is the amount of cash a borrower can take out of their home while still leaving 20% equity on paper, hit a record high of $11 trillion collectively this year, according to Black Knight, a mortgage technology and data provider. That’s a 34% increase from a year ago.
At the same time, leverage, which is how much debt the homeowner has against the home’s value, has fallen dramatically.
Total mortgage debt in the United States is now less than 43% of current home values, the lowest on record. Negative equity, which is when a borrower owes more on the loan than the home is worth, is virtually nonexistent. Compare that to the more than 1 in 4 borrowers who were under water in 2011. Just 2.5% of borrowers have less than 10% equity in their homes. All of this provides a huge cushion should home prices actually fall.

Not as many risky loans

There are currently 2.5 million adjustable-rate mortgages, or ARMs, outstanding today, or about 8% of active mortgages. That is the lowest volume on record. ARMs can be fixed, usually for terms of five, seven or 10 years.
In 2007, just before the housing market crash, there were 13.1 million ARMs, representing 36% of all mortgages. Back then, the underwriting on those types of loans was sketchy, to say the least, but new regulations following the housing crash changed the rules.
ARMs today are not only underwritten to their fully indexed interest rate, but more than 80% of today’s ARM originations also operate under a fixed rate for the first seven to 10 years.

A “For Sale” outside a house in Hercules, California, US, on Tuesday, May 31, 2022. Homebuyers are facing a worsening affordability situation with mortgage rates hovering around the highest levels in more than a decade.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Today, 1.4 million ARMs are currently facing higher rate resets, so given higher rates, those borrowers will have to make higher monthly payments. That is unquestionably a risk. But, in 2007, about 10 million ARMs were facing higher resets.

Mortgage delinquencies are low

Mortgage delinquencies are now at a record low, with just under 3% of mortgages past due. Even with the sharp jump in delinquencies during the first year of the pandemic, there are fewer past-due mortgages than there were before the pandemic. Pandemic-related mortgage forbearance programs helped millions of borrowers recover, but there are still 645,000 borrowers in those programs.
“The mortgage market is on very historically strong footing,” said Andy Walden, vice president of enterprise research at Black Knight. “Even the millions of homeowners who availed themselves of forbearance during the pandemic have by and large been performing well since leaving their plans.”
There are, however, about 300,000 borrowers who have exhausted pandemic-related forbearance programs and are still delinquent. In addition, while mortgage delinquencies are still historically low, they have been trending higher lately, especially for more recent loan originations.
“We’ll want to keep an eye on this population moving forward,” Walden said.
Mortgage credit availability is well below where it was just before the pandemic, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association, suggesting still-tight standards. But lenders have lost about half their business since rates began rising, and that could mean they become more aggressive in lending to less credit-worthy borrowers.
The biggest problem in the housing market now is home affordability, which is at a record low in at least 44 major markets, according to Black Knight. While inventory is starting to rise, it is still about half of pre-pandemic levels.
“Rising inventory will eventually cool home price growth, but the double-digit pace has shown remarkable sticking power so far,” said Danielle Hale, chief economist at Realtor.com. “As higher housing costs begin to max out some buyers’ budgets, those who remain in the market can look forward to relatively less competitive conditions later in the year.”

WATCH LIVEWATCH IN THE APP More

Life Changes

You don’t have to be older and rich to start estate planning. In fact, the earlier you start, the better.
Estate planning “involves relatively simple documents, but I’ve seen some horror stories when people don’t address the situation adequately,” said certified financial planner Sheryl Garrett, founder of The Garrett Planning Network.
Key actions are drawing up a will and living will, as well as a health-care power of attorney, and designating your beneficiaries.

Jodi Jacobson | Getty Images

You don’t have to be older and rich to do some estate planning.
In fact, regardless of age and wealth, experts say virtually everyone should consider how they want their assets distributed upon their death and what decisions will be made by whom if they are unable to make those decisions later in life.

For the sake of yourself — and, more importantly, your loved ones — getting your estate and health-care directives in order can prevent a lot of emotional pain and suffering down the road.
“A lot of people think they can do their estate planning later, but that’s not always the case,” said Sheryl Garrett, a certified financial planner and founder of the Garrett Planning Network in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. “It involves relatively simple documents, but I’ve seen some horror stories when people don’t address the situation adequately.”

More from Life Changes:

Here’s a look at other stories offering a financial angle on important lifetime milestones.

Garrett detailed some of the key estate-planning issues to consider — sooner rather than later.

Drawing up your will

A will details how you wish your assets to be distributed after you die. Templates for this document and many others can be downloaded for free from websites such as LawDepot.com.
“A will is a simple slam dunk for most people,” Garrett said.

The form requires you to appoint an executor of your estate and an alternative executor if your first choice is unable to fulfill the role. It requires details of who is to receive which assets and whether there are any conditions that need to be met before beneficiaries receive their inheritance, such as minors reaching a certain age first.
“The most important thing is to name a guardian if you have dependent children,” Garrett explained. “It is easiest if one person is executor of the will and the guardian of dependents, but it doesn’t always make sense.

If you wanted all your assets to go to your spouse or children, other heirs may contest that wish if you don’t have a will.

Sheryl Garrett
founder of the Garrett Planning Network

“It may be better to have one person take care of dependents while another manages the resources to take care of them.”
A common misconception many married people have is that, absent a will, all assets and investments go to their spouse. That is often not the case, Garrett said.
“State law often dictates that if there is no will, the state will provide one and, in many cases, assets are evenly split among all heirs,” she explained. “If you wanted all your assets to go to your spouse or children, other heirs may contest that wish if you don’t have a will.”

Designating your beneficiaries

One cheap and simple alternative to the execution of a will in court is to set up beneficiary designations for your specific assets. You can do that with everything from bank accounts to investment accounts, personal property and real estate.
It removes those assets from the estate and reduces the cost of settling the estate in court. “Most middle-class Americans can cover almost everything of value with beneficiary designations,” Garrett said. “It’s cheaper and makes things go easier.”

Your health-care power of attorney

Choosing a person to make health-care decisions for you is critical if you become unable to do so. A health-care power of attorney allows someone to empower another person as agent to make those decisions. You can choose anyone, but make sure you trust them deeply.
The health-care power of attorney also enables you to detail health-care and medical treatments you may not want under different circumstances. Your health-care agent will be required to follow those wishes.
“Most people want to be in control instead of leaving these decisions to loved ones,” Garrett said. “Do them a favor and do it yourself with relatively simple documents to fill out.
“You can update them if you change your mind later about anything.”
It is crucial that your health-care agent, as well as your doctor, has a signed copy of the power of attorney document.

Specify your wishes in a living will

Similar to the health-care power of attorney, a living will provides directions for life-saving treatments you may or may not want under different circumstances. Your health-care agent will be tasked with ensuring that your wishes are followed.
A “do not resuscitate,” or DNR, order is a separate document that is part of a living will that describes under what conditions you would not want life-saving treatments.
It is important to be aware that health-care institutions often require that people fill out their own in-house forms regarding health-care directives. Also try to ensure that your health-care agent can in theory be present if you are admitted to a hospital emergency room so their authority is immediately recognized.
“In my opinion, health-care [powers of attorney] and living wills are the most important things to address because they kick in while you’re alive,” said Garrett, who lost her spouse six months ago. “The rest of the stuff applies when you’re dead.”

How much does it cost?

 Estate planning does not have to be expensive. In fact, you can download a basic will and other documents like a healthcare power of attorney for free at website lawdepot.com. The forms do not need to be notarized, only signed by the creator of the will and one or more witnesses depending on state law.
There are also online sites like Quicken and LegalZoom that offer templates for estate planning documents and guidance in filling them out, generally for less than $100.
Garrett says there’s nothing wrong with going the “doing it yourself” route, but suggests you have a lawyer eventually check things out particularly if you have a significant amount of assets and more than a few beneficiaries.
Lawyers will cost you anywhere from $100 to $400 per hour. Simple wills should not require more than a couple of hours to draft with complicated estates requiring a couple of hours more. More

Air travel is roaring back, but not without some significant hiccups.
Particularly in North America and Europe, travelers have described chaos at airports, with scores of flights canceled or delayed, luggage lost and wait times to board planes exceeding four hours.
IATA Director General Willie Walsh, speaking to CNBC from Doha, said airport chaos and delays are “isolated” and that not every airport is experiencing problems.

Air travel is roaring back, but not without some significant hiccups.
Particularly in North America and Europe, travelers have described chaos at airports, with scores of flights canceled or delayed, luggage lost and wait times to board planes exceeding four hours. That’s partly the result of labor shortages from the pandemic, as layoffs have put pressure on airports and airlines facing a surge of summer passengers eager to travel.

Qantas CEO Alan Joyce, speaking to CNBC’s Dan Murphy about the sector’s recovery, said that after nearly two years of dramatically reduced activity, it’s going to take some time to get the system up and running smoothly again.
“The entire industry everywhere is experiencing this, and we’re seeing some of it in Australia,” Joyce said at the International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) 78th Annual General Meeting in Doha, Qatar, on Sunday.
It’s “not as bad as you’re seeing in Europe or in the North American market,” the CEO said. “We saw during Easter long queues at airports; nothing like you’ve seen in London, Manchester and Dublin and other places around Europe.”

“And I think it does take a while. The system is rusty, everything was closed down for two years,” he added. “It is going to take awhile to get that system humming again. It’s a huge complicated business, there’s a lot of moving parts involved in it.”
IATA Director General Willie Walsh, in a separate interview from Doha, said airport chaos and delays are “isolated” and not every airport is experiencing problems.Nevertheless, he added that the airline industry isn’t yet “out of the woods” when it comes to recovery.

“Yes we want to do better, and yes we will do better. But I would strongly urge consumers looking at the opportunity to fly to reflect on the fact that this isn’t happening everywhere,” Walsh said. “And in the vast, vast majority of cases flights are operating on schedule, without disruption, without any problems at the airport, and I think you can look forward to enjoying the experience of flying again.” 
Those comments came as thousands more flights were canceled in the U.S. over the weekend and the prior Friday, which was so far the busiest air travel day for the country this year, according to the Transport Security Administration. By Friday afternoon, airlines had canceled more than 1,000 flights, after already canceling 1,700 on Thursday, the Associated Press reported.
On Saturday, some 6,300 flights into, from and within the U.S. were delayed and more than 800 were canceled, NBC News reported, citing flight tracking site FlightAware.

‘Demand is massive’

Still, for Qantas, Australia’s flagship carrier, the domestic comeback appears to be firing on all cylinders.
“It’s really good — in Australia, the domestic market, we’re seeing massive growth in demand, with demand for leisure over 120%, the corporate market and the SME markets back to 90% of pre-Covid levels, and so we have nearly full capacity restored in the domestic market,” Joyce said.
International flight recovery is “a little bit slower,” he said, at about 50% of pre-Covid levels. But he expects that by Christmas, international business will be at 85% of pre-Covid levels and that by “March next year we’ll get to 100%.”
“But demand is massive,” he added. “We’re having more demand internationally than, in some cases, we’ve seen before Covid, with less capacity, which is allowing us to recover fuels costs, get yields up.”

WATCH LIVEWATCH IN THE APP More

Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest economy, has abundant natural deposits of tin, copper, nickel, cobalt and bauxite, some of which are key materials for electric vehicle batteries.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo said the government has been in talks with electric carmaker Tesla as well as Ford and other car companies to set up manufacturing facilities, including a vehicle factory, in Indonesia.
Widodo, or Jokowi as he is popularly known at home, said he suggested to Elon Musk that Tesla could build base its entire supply chain in the country.

Elon Musk, here seen at an event in New York in early-May, is being aggressively courted to produce his electric vehicles “end to end” in resource-rich Indonesia.
Angela Weiss | AFP | Getty Images

President Joko Widodo denied that Indonesia has turned protectionist during his tenure, saying the gates remain open to all players — including Tesla — that want to use the country’s plentiful natural resources, if they set up plants that can add to the local economy.
Widodo, or Jokowi as he is popularly known at home, said the government has been in talks with electric carmaker Tesla as well as Ford and other car companies to set up manufacturing facilities, including a vehicle factory, in Indonesia.

The Indonesian president said he met Elon Musk, Tesla’s chief executive officer and the world’s richest man, in May after U.S. President Joe Biden hosted a summit for Southeast Asian leaders. Jokowi said he suggested that Tesla could base its entire supply chain in the country.
“We had a lot of discussions, particularly on how Tesla can build their industry from upstream to downstream, end-to end starting from smelter then build the cathode and precursor industry, build EV batteries, build lithium batteries [and] then the vehicle factory. Everything in Indonesia, because that’s very efficient. That’s what I offered,” Widodo told CNBC in an exclusive interview on Friday in Serang city in Banten province.
He said Musk sent a team to Indonesia six weeks ago “to check the potential of nickel, to check environmental aspects, but the car-related team has not come.”  
He said a team could visit in the “near future” to evaluate the potential. Jokowi, who has also invited Musk to the G-20 summit, which Indonesia is hosting this year in Bali, said there is “no decision yet” on Tesla’s plans to invest in Indonesia. 

We want to build an industrial ecosystem for lithium batteries.

Joko Widodo
President, Indonesia

Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest economy, has abundant natural deposits of tin, copper, nickel, cobalt and bauxite, some of which are key materials for electric vehicle batteries.

Under Jokowi, resource-rich Indonesia has banned the export of key commodities, including unprocessed nickel in 2020, coal in 2021 and edible oil in April. The last measure was aimed at stabilizing domestic prices.
“No, I think it’s not protectionism. But we want that added value to be in Indonesia … If we keep exporting the raw materials, the ones who get the added value are other countries,” he said.
In a bid to boost its economy and put its natural resources to use in domestic manufacturing, Indonesia wants to move away from exporting raw materials. It also wants to be a global player in EV batteries and a manufacturer of electric cars. 
“We want to build an industrial ecosystem for lithium batteries,” Jokowi said, arguing this would also create jobs and generate tax revenue.

WATCH LIVEWATCH IN THE APP More

Pixar’s “Lightyear” rocketed to a $51 million domestic opening, the best performance of an animated feature since the pandemic began.
Box office analysts had foreseen “Lightyear” bringing in between $70 million and $85 million domestically.
Internationally, the Disney film tallied $34.6 million in ticket sales, bringing its global haul to $85.6 million.

Chris Evans voices Buzz Lightyear in Pixar’s “Lightyear.”

Pixar’s “Lightyear” rocketed to a $51 million domestic opening, the best performance of an animated feature since the pandemic began.
Internationally, the Disney film tallied $34.6 million in ticket sales, bringing its global haul to $85.6 million.

The animated film’s performance, while strong for a pandemic release, falls short of expectations. Box office analysts had foreseen “Lightyear” bringing in between $70 million and $85 million domestically.
Expectations were high because the last two films in the Toy Story franchise both opened to more than $100 million in ticket sales, according to data from Comscore. “Toy Story 4” in 2019 topped $120 million in its domestic debut and “Toy Story 3” generated more than $110 million during its opening 2010.
“‘Lightyear” had a great deal of potential on paper, but a number of factors resulted in this very rare box office misfire for a Pixar release,” said Shawn Robbins, chief media analyst at BoxOffice.com.
It’s unclear if tough box office competition with Universal’s “Jurassic World: Dominion,” which generated $58.6 million over the weekend, and Paramount and Skydance’s “Top Gun: Maverick,” which secured another $44 million, was the reason for “Lightyear’s” smaller-than-expected opening or if consumers were confused about the film release.
After all, there has not been a theatrical release of a Pixar film since 2020’s “Onward.” The last three from the animation studio, “Soul,” “Luca” and “Turning Red,” were all released on streaming service Disney+.

“Did the film open in a market too crowded with male-driven films?” Robbins asked. “Was marketing ineffective at pitching the idea of this movie to both generations of Toy Story fans? Has Disney’s strategy of siphoning Pixar movies straight to streaming over the past two years backfired and hurt the brand’s value?”
“These are just some of the valid questions we, and especially Disney, have to consider,” he said.
Robbins noted that moviegoing has clearly rebounded in 2022, drawing in demographics that have been reticent to return previously. Yet, one of the most reliable franchises from pre-pandemic times missed expectations.
“This was a good old-fashioned summer holiday movie weekend that saw three films earning more than $40 million as the competition for the attention of moviegoers heats up,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore. “Newcomer ‘Lightyear’ will now rely on a longer trajectory in theaters in the wake of a debut that has left some underwhelmed.”
Dergarabedian said word of mouth should help draw families to the theaters in the coming weeks ahead of the release of Universal’s “Minions: The Rise of Gru.”
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC. NBCUniversal is the distributor of “Jurassic World: Dominion” and “Minions: The Rise of Gru.”

WATCH LIVEWATCH IN THE APP More

A new study finds that retirees spend down their 401(k) savings balances at an alarming speed.
Many older Americans could be at risk of emptying their accounts by 85, although half of them will live beyond then.

Elena Kurkutova | Istock | Getty Images

Older Americans may have a number of different goals with their retirement savings. But usually their main goal is the same: to make it last.
Unfortunately, many younger baby boomers and members of subsequent generations who don’t have access to a traditional pension could outlive the funds in their 401(k) accounts, a recent study from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College found.

The economists compared the drawdown speeds between those with traditional pensions and those with only 401(k) savings accounts. Although most research on how long retirees’ money lasts is based on the former category, the majority of people now fall into the latter.
More from Personal Finance:Inflation forces older Americans to make tough financial choicesRecord inflation threatens retirees the most, say advisorsTips for staying on track with retirement, near-term goals
“What most of people have had the chance to observe were people with traditional pensions,” said Gal Wettstein, a senior research economist at the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, pointing out that 401(k) workplace retirement plans only became widespread in the 1980s.
Those analyses based on retirees with pensions found that they often didn’t spend their savings at all. In fact, many saw their nest eggs continue to grow after they stopped working.
“This sanguine idea from the past might give a false sense of security though,” Wettstein said.

Retirees with 401(k)s often spend savings quickly

Access to traditional pensions has been rare for decades now. Workers have increasingly been tasked with saving for their later years on their own in investment accounts, the poster child for which has been the 401(k) plan offered through employers.

The researchers found that these plans deplete much faster than expected.
One example in the analysis looked at households who entered retirement with $200,000 in savings. By age 70, retirees who had a 401(k) plan but no pension had $28,000 less than retirees with a pension, according to their analysis — a difference that amounts to one-eighth of that initial balance. By age 75, 401(k) savers had $86,000 less than those who had had a pension.

“People spend a large share of what they have when they have a 401(k),” Wettstein said.
The fast drawdown of savings in 401(k) accounts means that many retirees depending on them may be at risk of exhausting their funds entirely by the age of 85, although around half of them will live beyond then, the study said.
Although they’ll still receive their monthly Social Security checks, Wettstein said, “that’s usually not a sufficient replacement for their career-level earnings.”

Pensions helped with ‘how much you could afford’

Because of the relatively new nature of 401(k) plans, more still needs to be known about why retirees spend down the accounts so quickly, Wettstein said.
Yet some of the reasons can be assumed. Those who had a traditional pension, which guarantee a fixed payment each month until death, likely needed to turn to their savings less because of that reliable income. They may have been able to keep their savings for inheritance purposes or in case of unexpected later-in-life costs.

We did this as a first look of whether we should be worried.

Gal Wettstein
a senior research economist at the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College

On the other hand, many retirees without a pension are reliant on their own nest egg to cover much of their monthly expenses. Without a pension, people are also responsible for making sure they’ve saved enough to get them through their post-working years, a task that requires decades of adequate earnings and discipline.
In addition, a challenge with 401(k) savings plans is that they charge retirees with figuring out how much to withdraw each month. This calculation can be hard to hit right, and although those with sizeable savings aim to live off their money’s earnings, the market is unpredictable and has periods — such as right now —where it takes more than it gives.

“One of the advantages of the pension system was that it reassured you how much you could afford to spend, practically, in that it would never run out, and in the advice-sense, too, because it says, ‘Here, you can spend this much, because next month, you’ll get the same amount again,'” Wettstein said. “A 401(k) doesn’t give you that.”
Wettstein stressed that it’s still early to get a full picture of how successful 401(k) accounts are at lasting people in their retirement.
“But we did this as a first look of whether we should be worried,” he said. “And the conclusion we took is, yes, we should.”
This article was written with the support of a journalism fellowship from The Gerontological Society of America, The Journalists Network on Generations and the Silver Century Foundation.

WATCH LIVEWATCH IN THE APP More

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has signed off on Covid vaccines for children 6 months through 5-years-old.
Doctor’s offices, pharmacies and other providers can now start administering the shots.
However, vaccinations likely won’t begin in earnest until Tuesday after the Juneteenth federal holiday.

A child is administered a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pediatric vaccine.
Mayela Lopez | Reuters

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Saturday backed Pfizer’s and Moderna’s Covid-19 shots for children as young as 6 months, with vaccinations expected to begin in earnest after the holiday weekend.
The CDC’s committee of independent vaccine experts voted unanimously to recommend the shots for infants through preschoolers after two days of public meetings. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky accepted the committee’s recommendation and gave the final go-ahead on Saturday.

The White House has said vaccinations for children under age 5 would begin in earnest on Tuesday, after the Juneteenth federal holiday. Appointment availability might be limited initially but every parent who wants to get their child vaccinated should be able to do so in the next few weeks, according to Dr. Ashish Jha, who oversees the Biden administration’s Covid response.
The federal government has initially made 10 million vaccine doses available to its local partners. There are nearly 20 million children 6 months through 5-years-old in the U.S.
The CDC is encouraging parents to reach out to their family doctor, local pharmacy, health department or visit vaccines.gov to find out where the shots are available for their kids.
Nearly everyone in the U.S. is now eligible for Covid vaccination less than two years after the first shots were authorized for the elderly in December 2020.
“I am fully confident that vaccines should be recommended,” said Dr. Grace Lee, chairperson of the CDC’s vaccine committee. “We can clearly prevent hospitalizations and deaths. And I believe we have the potential to prevent long-term complications of infections that we don’t yet understand.”

The American Academy of Pediatrics, in a statement Saturday, strongly recommended that parents get their kids vaccinated and bring any questions or concerns they may have to their family doctor.

Covid risk for kids

Although Covid is normally less severe in children than adults, the virus can be life threatening for some kids. Covid is the fifth leading cause of death for children ages 1 to 4, according to CDC data. More than 200 children ages 6 months to 4-years-old have died from Covid since January 2020.
More than 2 million children in this age group have been infected with Covid during the pandemic, and more than 20,000 have been hospitalized, according to CDC data.
Hospitalizations of children under age 5 with Covid spiked during the winter omicron wave, hitting the highest level of the pandemic for this age group. The overwhelming majority of them, 86%, were admitted primarily due to the impact of Covid on their health, according to CDC data. In other words, they were not picked up in the data because they tested positive for the virus after admission for another health reason.
More than 50% of kids under age 5 who were hospitalized had no underlying medical conditions, according to CDC data. Nearly a quarter of kids hospitalized in this age group ended up in the intensive care unit.
Nearly 2,000 kids under age 5 developed multisystem inflammatory syndrome, or MIS-C, after Covid infection. MIS-C is a condition in which multiple organ systems – the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, skin, eyes or digestive organs – become inflamed. Nine kids under age 5 have died from MIS-C.
“These very clear data just decimate the myth that this infection is not life threatening in this age group,” said Dr. Sarah Long, a committee member and pediatrician at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children in Philadelphia.

Pfizer, Moderna vaccine differences

Pfizer’s vaccine is administered in three doses for children 6 months to 4 years old. The shots are dosed at 3 micrograms, one-tenth the level of what adults receive. Three shots were about 75% effective at preventing mild illness from omicron in 6-month- to 2-year-olds and 82% effective in 2- to 4-year-olds.
However, the data on the vaccine’s effectiveness is preliminary and imprecise because it is based on a small population of 10 kids, with estimates ranging from 14% to 96% protection against omicron. Dr. Bill Gruber, head of Pfizer’s vaccine research, said the antibody response observed in children post dose three, which was higher than people ages 16 to 25 who received two shots, should provide reassurance that the vaccine is effective.
“In the interest of sort of full transparency to parents, it’s to me appropriate to acknowledge the uncertainty around that,” committee member Dr. Matthew Daley said of the vaccine efficacy estimate.
It is crucial that parents who opt for Pfizer make sure their kids get the third shot to have protection against the virus. Two doses were only about 14% effective at preventing infection for kids under age 2, and 33% effective for those ages 2 to 4.
“I don’t want parents to get the impression that two doses is sort of good enough,” said Daley, a pediatrician who investigates vaccine safety.
Moderna’s vaccine is administered in two doses for children 6 months to 5 years old. The shots are dosed at 25 micrograms, one-fourth the level that adults receive.
Moderna’s vaccine was about 51% effective at preventing mild illness from omicron for kids 6 months to 2 years old, and about 37% effective for kids ages 2 to 5 years old. However, the company expects the vaccine to provide strong protection against severe illness because the kids had higher antibody levels than adults who received two doses.
Moderna is studying a booster dose that targets omicron for children in this age group with data expected on the shot’s safety and immune response expected in the fall, according to Dr. Rituparna Das, who leads Moderna’s Covid vaccine development.
The most common side effects from the vaccines were pain at the injection site, irritability and crying, loss of appetite and sleepiness, according to the FDA. Few children who received either shot developed a fever higher than 102 degrees Fahrenheit, and there were no cases of myocarditis, a type of heart inflammation, in Pfizer’s or Moderna’s trials.

CNBC Health & Science

Read CNBC’s latest global coverage of the Covid pandemic:

WATCH LIVEWATCH IN THE APP More