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Donald Trump has said he will give Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a notorious vaccine skeptic and conspiracy theorist, a major health role if he wins the presidency.
Some health experts said elevating Kennedy, even in an informal Trump administration role, could potentially lead to severe consequences for patients, drugmakers and the nation’s public health overall. 
Experts said that could potentially look like lower vaccination rates, increases in preventable disease and greater distrust in federal health agencies.

Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump welcomes Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to the stage at a Turning Point Action campaign rally at the Gas South Arena on October 23, 2024 in Duluth, Georgia. 
Anna Moneymaker | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Donald Trump has made one clear promise about who could help take up the government’s health reins if he wins the presidency: notorious vaccine skeptic and conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 
The former president said last week that Kennedy, who ended his own independent White House campaign earlier this year and endorsed Trump, will have a “big role” in health care in his administration. Last month, Trump said he would let Kennedy “go wild” on health, food and drug regulation.

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It’s unclear what exactly Kennedy’s role would look like, but the possibility is already raising alarm bells in the broader health community. Some health experts said elevating Kennedy, even in an informal Trump administration position, could potentially lead to severe consequences for patients, drugmakers and the nation’s public health overall. 
“I think it would be a world turned upside down,” Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine expert at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia who has been an open critic of Kennedy, told CNBC. “Things would not be grounded in scientific truth, just grounded in whatever he or his acolytes believe. It would be a free-for-all. It would be uncertainty and instability. It would be chaos.” 
He said “chaos” could potentially look like lower vaccination rates, increases in preventable disease and greater distrust in federal health agencies, such as the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 
That could exacerbate the nation’s existing public health challenges, such as declining childhood vaccination rates for several preventable diseases, some experts say. The U.S. also has the lowest life expectancy at birth, the highest rate of people with multiple chronic diseases, and the highest maternal and infant death rate among other high-income nations, according to a 2023 report by the Commonwealth Fund, an independent research group. 
Kennedy, who does not have any medical or scientific credentials, believes drug companies and the federal health agencies that regulate them are making Americans less healthy. He has suggested that some vaccines should be taken off the market — a stance that Trump did not rule out Monday. 

The former environmental lawyer may also bring uncertainty to the pharmaceutical industry, which relies on federal health agencies to greenlight new products, keep old ones on the market, and, in some cases, fund research and development. It will likely be difficult for Kennedy to change the drug approval process, but experts said he could gain a new platform to politicize certain treatments he opposes and tout others that aren’t proven to be safe and effective.
Top leadership roles, such as the FDA commissioner, require confirmation by the Senate, which some experts noted could pose a hurdle for Kennedy. But Kennedy has met with Trump transition officials and could take a broad White House “health czar” position that would not need Senate confirmation, The Washington Post reported Saturday. 
Regardless of what the position looks like, Kennedy will likely gain a “new podium to spread his views,” said Drew Altman, president and CEO of health policy organization KFF. 
“It’s giving one of the chief architects for health misinformation a national podium backed by the president,” Altman told CNBC. “Many more people will hear what he has to say, believe it and act on it. That could pose a risk to their health.”
Kennedy’s team did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

Vaccine rhetoric and uptake

A second Trump term could allow Kennedy to elevate anti-vaccine rhetoric, regardless of whether he holds a major role at a federal health agency.
Health experts said that could deter more Americans from receiving Covid shots and routine immunizations against various diseases that have for decades saved millions of lives and prevented crippling illnesses.
“By elevating his message, it normalizes people, parents, opting out of the vaccination schedule,” said Genevieve Kanter, associate professor of public policy at the University of Southern California. “I think we could reasonably predict that there would be a decline in vaccination rates among children, and perhaps vaccination overall.” 

Cynthia Blancas, 42, of Lynwood, receives a Covid-19 vaccine by pharmacist Deep Patel, right, at CVS in Huntington Park on August 28, 2024.
Christina House | Los Angeles Times | Getty Images

Real-world data from the CDC indicates that routine vaccination rates for kindergarten children ticked down during the pandemic and have yet to rebound. If Kennedy manages to push those rates even lower, vaccine-preventable diseases like polio and measles could potentially make a comeback, experts noted. 
For the companies that manufacture shots, an increase in anti-vaccine rhetoric could potentially translate to lower revenue. Drugmakers such as Pfizer and Moderna are still recovering from falling Covid vaccination rates in the U.S., which have dented their profits over the last two years. 
Kennedy may also affect the pharmaceutical industry’s ability to respond to another pandemic if given the power to determine how much federal funding should go toward vaccine development, some experts say. He told NBC News last year that he wouldn’t prioritize the research, manufacturing or distribution of shots if faced with another pandemic, falsely adding that “vaccines have probably caused more deaths than they’ve averted.”
Kennedy’s track record as a vaccine skeptic is extensive: He has long made misleading and false statements about the safety of shots, such as claiming that they are linked to autism despite numerous studies going back decades that debunk the association. Kennedy is the founder of the nonprofit Children’s Health Defense, the most well-funded anti-vaccine organization in the country. 
“He misinforms to the point that children suffer or die, and also stands back and doesn’t take any responsibility for it,” Offit said.
He pointed to Kennedy’s misinformation about the safety of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, which was linked to a severe measles outbreak in Samoa in 2019 that left dozens of children dead.

Regulatory process at the FDA, CDC 

It would likely be harder for Kennedy to change how vaccines and other treatments are approved, recommended and regulated — even in a leadership role at the FDA, CDC or the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees both agencies.
That could be good news for both patients and drugmakers. 

Signage is seen outside the U.S. Food and Drug Administration headquarters in White Oak, Maryland, Aug. 29, 2020.
Andrew Kelly | Reuters

“Approval processes are very well specified and run by civil servants,” USC’s Kanter said. ” I don’t see, in terms of the day-to-day product approvals, that he would have a ton of influence because that’s not the way the FDA is organized, and that’s not the role of an FDA commissioner. And so this process, I think we can trust to stay constant.” 
Recommendations for vaccine approval, use and coverage under certain federal health plans are made by advisory panels to the FDA and CDC, which are composed of outside public health and medical experts. The same applies to other treatments and medical devices. 
Kennedy could try to stack those committees with people who hold similar views on vaccination or other treatments to disrupt the “traditional regulatory oversight that protects us,” Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, told CNBC. 
But members of those panels have to undergo a rigorous nomination process. Many states that rely on advisory committee recommendations for vaccination schedules and mandates could also choose to ignore them if people sympathetic to Kennedy’s views join the panels. 

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Kennedy’s other proposals for overhauling federal health agencies will likely be difficult to execute. He has proposed cutting funding or headcount at the FDA, but those changes could have to come from Congress. 
Last week, Kennedy warned in a post on X that the “FDA’s war on public health is about to end” and hinted at plans to gut the agency of workers who don’t agree with his views. 
He accused the agency of its “aggressive suppression of psychedelics, peptides, stem cells, raw milk, hyperbaric therapies, chelating compounds, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, vitamins, clean foods, sunshine, exercise, nutraceuticals and anything else that advances human health and can’t be patented by Pharma.”
Kennedy has previously claimed that hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin work against Covid, even though several studies say they do not. Hydroxychloroquine is an immunosuppressive drug, while ivermectin is used to treat infections caused by parasites.
“He has embraced a lot of therapies that have been unproven for certain uses and some have been discredited,” Kanter said. 

Chronic diseases

Both Kennedy and Trump have been vocal about tackling the root causes of chronic diseases rather than spending resources on treating those conditions with drugs from the pharmaceutical industry. There are few details on what that would look like and mean for drugmakers, but experts said Kennedy has pushed misleading claims about what factors drive chronic illnesses. 
The prevalence of chronic diseases, which last one year or more and require ongoing medical attention, is a real problem in the U.S. 
An increasing share of people in America are dealing with multiple chronic conditions, with roughly 42% having two or more, according to the CDC. More than 40% of school-aged children and adolescents have at least one. Chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes and obesity are also a major driver of health-care costs in the U.S., accounting for about 90% of the $4.1 trillion annual health-care expenditure, the CDC said. 
Kennedy could spearhead “Operation Warp Speed for childhood chronic disease” under a Trump administration, sources close to the former president’s campaign told NBC News last week. That refers to the title of the Covid vaccine development and distribution project during Trump’s first term. 
It’s unclear what the new program or Kennedy’s role would look like, but the focus on chronic illnesses aligns with his so-called Make America Healthy Again platform.
The initiative — a riff on Trump’s Make America Great Again slogan — aims to remove chemicals from food production, combat the “root” causes of chronic diseases and eliminate conflicts of interest in medical research, among other priorities that largely have bipartisan support. Environmental factors such as air pollution and diet contribute to chronic health conditions, but Kennedy has pushed unfounded claims around certain food ingredients and minerals. 
Last week, Kennedy also proposed advising all U.S. water systems to remove fluoride from drinking water, falsely claiming that it is “an industrial waste” linked to several medical conditions, such as thyroid disease and and neurodevelopmental disorders. Trump has since said that idea sounds “OK to me.”
But fluoride is a naturally occurring mineral found in soil, water and plants. Adding low levels of fluoride to drinking water is widely considered one of the greatest public health achievements of the 20th century for its role in preventing tooth decay. 
USC’s Kanter also said “there is a danger of oversimplifying complicated health problems” and attributing them to a few “root causes,” especially when they aren’t backed by science. Chronic diseases are complex conditions that can be caused by multiple factors, such as a patient’s genetics and socioeconomic status, according to Kanter. 
Kennedy’s nonprofit falsely links vaccines to chronic diseases, citing misleading articles and studies that show unvaccinated populations have fewer chronic conditions than their vaccinated peers. 

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When Huawei, the Chinese tech giant, releases its latest smartphone this month, techies will strip it down to figure out how it works. The semiconductors powering the Mate 70, as the device is called, will reveal how much progress China has made in building its own chips and breaking its reliance on foreign technology. But the software in the phone may prove more important than the hardware. Huawei is expected to install HarmonyOS NEXT, its new homemade operating system, on the devices. This would be China’s first clean break with the Western-backed systems on which it and the rest of the world rely. More

Restaurant Brands International reported quarterly earnings and revenue that fell short of Wall Street’s estimates.
The company’s four chains reported weaker-than-expected same-store sales in their home markets.
Canadian coffee chain Tim Hortons was the top performer of the quarter.

A new Burger King restaurant under construction in Tortosa, Spain, following the current expansion of Restaurant Brands International Inc. – the parent company of BK- in new and existing markets.
Joan Cros | NurPhoto | Getty Images

Restaurant Brands International on Tuesday reported quarterly earnings and revenue that missed analysts’ expectations as domestic same-store sales growth for all four of its chains fell short of Wall Street estimates.
Here’s what the company reported for the third quarter compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:

Earnings per share: 93 cents adjusted vs. 95 cents expected
Revenue: $2.29 billion vs. $2.31 billion expected

The company’s worldwide same-store sales grew just 0.3% in the quarter. Burger King, Firehouse Subs and Popeyes all reported same-store sales declines in their home markets.
But so far in the fourth quarter, same-store sales trends have improved.
“October now is, for the whole business, positive, low-single digits of same-store sales, which is an improvement from what we saw in [the third quarter],” CEO Josh Kobza told CNBC.
He credited more successful marketing promotions and better consumer sentiment in the U.S. for the improvement in sales.
“If you look at some of the things that really drive finances for our guests, everything from gas prices are down, interest rates are starting to go down, inflation has really started to moderate a fair bit,” Kobza said.

Burger King’s same-store sales fell 0.7% during the three-month period that ended Sept. 30. Analysts had expected the metric to be flat, according to StreetAccount estimates. The chain is in the middle of a turnaround in the U.S., but consumers are also spending less at restaurants, reigniting the value wars between Burger King and its rivals.
Popeyes reported same-store sales declines of 4%, well off the expected 0.2% gain, according to StreetAccount estimates. The chain has tried to step up its value offerings recently, first with promotion of three-piece bone-in chicken for $5 and then with the reintroduction of its Big Box deal at $6. In June, Popeyes launched boneless wings as a permanent menu item for the first time in its history.
Firehouse Subs saw its same-store sales shrink 4.8% in the quarter, compared with an expected decline of 0.4%, according to StreetAccount. The sandwich chain is the latest addition to Restaurant Brands’ portfolio, as of 2021, and the smallest brand by footprint with just 1,300 locations as of the end of the third quarter.
Tim Hortons was the top performer, with domestic same-store sales growth of 2.3%. Tims has been growing traffic and improving its speed of service, Kobza said. But the Canadian coffee chain still fell short of Wall Street’s same-store sales growth expectations of 4.1%.
Outside of the U.S. and Canada, Restaurant Brands’ international same-store sales rose 1.8% in the quarter, just shy of estimates of 2.2%.
Restaurant Brands reported third-quarter net income attributable to common shareholders of $252 million, or 79 cents per share, unchanged from a year earlier.
Excluding items, the company earned 93 cents per share.
Net sales climbed 24.7% to $2.29 billion, largely thanks to the company’s acquisitions of its largest U.S. Burger King franchisee and its Popeyes business in China earlier this year.
This story is developing. Please check back for updates. More

Yum Brands missed Wall Street’s expectations for its quarterly earnings and revenue.
Both KFC and Pizza Hut reported same-store sales declines of 4%.
Yum CEO David Gibbs said weak consumer sentiment and political conflicts weighed on the company’s results.

Budrul Chukrut | Lightrocket | Getty Images

Yum Brands on Tuesday reported quarterly earnings and revenue that missed Wall Street’s expectation as same-store sales at KFC and Pizza Hut slid more than expected.
Here’s what the company reported compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:

Earnings per share: $1.37 adjusted vs. $1.41 expected
Revenue: $1.83 billion vs. $1.90 billion expected

Yum reported third-quarter net income of $382 million, or $1.35 per share, down from $416 million, or $1.46 per share, a year earlier.
Excluding items, the company earned $1.37 per share.
Net sales rose 7% to $1.83 billion.
Yum’s worldwide same-store sales fell 2% in the quarter, dragged down by weaker performances at KFC and Pizza Hut, which both reported same-store sales declines of 4%.
The company’s sales have been hurt by pressures related to “political conflicts and challenged consumer sentiment,” CEO David Gibbs said in a statement. Conflict in the Middle East has weighed on Yum’s results since the fourth quarter of last year.

KFC’s U.S. same-store sales slid 5% this quarter. The market is KFC’s second-largest, trailing only China, but the chain has ceded market share to Popeyes in recent years. Last year, Popeyes overtook KFC as the number two chicken chain in the U.S.
Pizza Hut, on the other hand, saw a steeper decline in its international markets. The pizza chain saw its international same-store sales shrink 6%, while U.S. same-store sales fell just 1%.
Taco Bell, the gem of Yum’s portfolio, reported same-store sales growth of 4%. Executives have previously said that the chain has a strong perception of value from consumers, helping its sales even during an industry-wide slowdown.
This story is developing. Please check back for updates. More

For investors concerned that America’s tech giants are making recklessly large bets on generative artificial intelligence (AI), big tech’s latest quarterly results have offered some reassurance. The growth in demand from companies for the cloud services of Amazon, Microsoft and Google was red hot. Andy Jassy, boss of Amazon, put it most strikingly. He said that AI revenue for Amazon Web Services (AWS) was growing at triple-digit rates—three times faster than AWS itself grew in the early years after it pioneered cloud computing in 2006. More

In the third quarter of this year, mortgage holders withdrew $48 billion of home equity.
They are sitting on a little over $17 trillion in total equity collectively.
They took just 0.42% of all tappable equity, less than half the rate seen in the decade leading up to the Fed hikes.

U.S. homeowners are sitting on a record amount of equity, but higher interest rates over the past two years have made them reluctant to tap into it. That is finally starting to change.
In the third quarter of this year, mortgage holders withdrew $48 billion of home equity, according to ICE Mortgage Technology — the largest volume in the two years since the Federal Reserve started hiking its benchmark interest rate. While mortgage rates don’t exactly follow the Fed’s rate, home equity lines of credit, or HELOCs, are tied to it. The Fed cut its rate by a half percentage point in mid-September.

Despite the bump, homeowners are still being pretty cautious.
They are sitting on a little over $17 trillion in total equity collectively. Roughly $11 trillion of that is tappable, meaning homeowners could borrow on it as long as 20% equity would remain in the home, as most lenders require. The average homeowner now has $319,000 of equity in their home, of which $207,000 is tappable.

An aerial view of existing homes near new homes under construction (UPPER R) in the Chatsworth neighborhood on September 08, 2023 in Los Angeles, California. 
Mario Tama | Getty Images

In the third quarter, homeowners withdrew just 0.42% of all tappable equity, less than half the rate seen in the decade leading up to the Fed hikes.
“Over the past 10 quarters homeowners have extracted $476B in equity, exactly half the extraction we’d expect to see under more normal circumstances. That equates to nearly a half a trillion untapped dollars that hasn’t flowed back through the broader economy,” said Andy Walden, ICE vice president of research and analysis, in a release.
Homeowners tend to use equity for home repairs, renovation projects and large expenses, such as college tuition.

Walden ran the numbers for the change in costs over the past two years: The monthly payment needed to take out $50,000 in a HELOC more than doubled from as low as $167 in March 2022 to $413 in January of this year. The latest rate cut reduced that slightly.
“The market’s currently pricing in another 1.5 percentage points of cuts through the end of next year. If that comes to fruition, and current spreads hold, it’ll have positive implications for both new equity lending as well as for consumers with existing HELOCs, with the payment on a $50,000 withdrawal falling back down below $300 per month,” Walden calculated.
That cost is still above the 20-year average, but it represents a more than 25% reduction from recent highs, according to the calculations.
“Given borrowers’ recent sensitivity to even slight rate drops, this could serve to entice additional HELOC utilization, especially with mortgage holders sitting on record stockpiles of equity and locked into their current home values via low first lien rates,” Walden added.
Home equity growth has been moderating recently, as home prices ease. More supply is coming on the market, and primary mortgage rates are higher than they were over the summer. That gives sellers less pricing power. More

Ford reported a 15.2% increase in U.S. new vehicles sales in October compared with subdued levels during a union strike in October 2023.
Ford said its total U.S. market share increased 0.6 percentage points to 12.6% in October.
Sales of hybrid vehicles were up 38.5% in the month compared with October 2023, Ford said. Its EV sales were down by 8.3%.

The new Ford F-150 truck goes through the assembly line at the Ford Dearborn Plant on April 11, 2024 in Dearborn, Michigan.
Bill Pugliano | Getty Images

DETROIT — Ford Motor on Monday reported a 15.2% increase in U.S. new vehicles sales in October compared with subdued levels due to a union strike in October 2023.
The year-over-year sales increase was led by a 29.2% improvement in sales of Ford’s trucks, which were among the first vehicles affected by the United Auto Workers’ strike during contentious contract negotiations in 2023.

Ford said its total U.S. market share increased 0.6 percentage points to 12.6% in October. The automaker’s sales gain outpaced the industry’s estimated increase of 10% in October compared with a year earlier.
Sales of hybrid vehicles, which Ford has been emphasizing amid a slower-than-expected adoption of electric vehicles, were up 38.5% in October compared with October 2023, Ford said. Its EV sales were down by 8.3%, while sales of traditional vehicles with internal combustion engines were up 14.1%.
Ford’s EV sales remain up 38.2% for the year through October compared with the same time frame in 2023.
The October sales decline for EVs comes days after the company confirmed plans to idle production of its all-electric F-150 Lightning from Nov. 18 until Jan. 6, including previously planned holiday downtime at the end of the year.
Ford’s U.S. sales through October were up 3.8% to more than 1.7 million vehicles sold. More

Retailers are bracing for blowback related to DEI policies in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election and the critical holiday shopping season.
Some companies are concerned about attending public DEI events while others are strategizing on how to avoid criticism over their policies and programs.
“There’s a clear sentiment in the retail community that nobody wants to get Tractor Supply’d,” one retail industry insider told CNBC.

A sign disparaging Bud Light beer is seen along a country road on April 21, 2023 in Arco, Idaho. Anheuser-Busch, the brewer of Bud Light has faced backlash after the company sponsored two Instagram posts from a transgender woman.
Natalie Behring | Getty Images

Retailers are facing a tough equation as they head into the all-important holiday shopping season — this time over DEI initiatives.
Companies are bracing for blowback related to policies around diversity, equity and inclusion and are hoping to avoid alienating customers who may deem the brands too woke – or not woke enough. Some are tapping outside advisors for advice on how to avoid criticism, while others are opting out of public events on the topic as backlash against equity and inclusion programs grows in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election. 

CNBC spoke with a number of retail industry insiders, strategists and staffers who spoke on the condition of anonymity to do so candidly.
“There’s a clear sentiment in the retail community that nobody wants to get Tractor Supply’d,” said one retail industry insider, referring to that company’s decision to walk back a series of DEI initiatives after conservative activist Robby Starbuck criticized the policies online.
“Retailers left to their own devices would like to be very proactive on DEI,” said the person. “But now they don’t want any of their views to be public because they want to be able to sell stuff to everybody, and it’s become such a stupid political issue.” 
The retail industry’s concerns over DEI come after a number of high-profile, consumer-facing companies – including Lowe’s, Tractor Supply, Ford and Molson Coors – walked back some of their equity and inclusion policies in recent months. The changes included ending sponsorships for Pride festivals and cutting ties with the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group.
Across industries, some companies have also cut positions for DEI roles. Between 2019 and 2022, new jobs for chief diversity and inclusion officers spiked nearly 170%, according to a LinkedIn study, but over the last year, new jobs for such roles have fallen while companies like Google and Meta have cut staffers and downsized programs that fell under DEI.

When explaining their decisions to cut back on DEI, some companies, like Lowe’s, cited the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that outlawed affirmative action as a catalyst for reviewing their policies. Privately, many retailers are concerned about losing customers and becoming the subject of conservative backlash, industry insiders told CNBC.
Last year, Anheuser-Busch-owned Bud Light and Target faced severe blowback for marketing campaigns and product collections geared toward the LGBTQ community and saw sales fall as a result. As retailers prepare for a potentially less-than-stellar holiday shopping season, they want to ensure they don’t do or say anything that could end up having the same effect.

Concerns about public events

The growing concern around public DEI efforts, especially during a highly politicized election year, has cast a pall over certain industry events.
In late September, the Retail Industry Leaders Association hosted its annual summit for corporate communications professionals. This year, the event was tied together with RILA’s Diversity Equity & Inclusion Leaders Council, which led some retailers to be concerned about the optics of attending, according to a person who was present and spoke with participants who expressed reservations.
RILA declined to comment.
One former retail executive, who didn’t attend the event but frequently advises publicly traded retailers, said it makes sense that some companies would be concerned about attending because “the optics of it are maybe not so great.”
“The tide is definitely turning against DE&I initiatives,” said the former executive, who spoke on the condition of anonymity so they could do so candidly. “I do think it has a lot to do with the election. … If you’re a CEO and you’re looking at, is [Donald] Trump going to win, or is [Kamala] Harris going to win, and you’re self-serving … then I can see why you need to hedge your bets.”
The person called it a “no-win situation,” especially for major retailers with large customer bases that span both sides of the political spectrum. 

Preparing for backlash

At a top New York City advisory firm, one strategist recently told CNBC that a primary concern facing their retail clients is DEI and how they should be preparing for potential backlash, or how they can avoid it altogether by preemptively walking back certain policies and practices. Some of the discussions included whether to participate in annual gay pride parades and how to communicate any policy changes to staff. 
“Retailers are constantly concerned about what they put out there. I think there’s a higher pressure on them,” said Sonia Lapinsky, head of consulting firm AlixPartners’ global fashion practice. “If you think about the time of year, they’re going into their biggest selling season right now. If we look at a moment in time, the last thing they want to do is potentially upset consumers or generate some bad publicity about what they’re doing or not doing. So they’re highly sensitive and highly concerned.” 
Lapinsky pointed to a recent consumer sentiment survey that AlixPartners published, which showed less than half of millennial consumers considered it very important for a retailer to embody their values in messaging, interactions and marketing. 
“Then we go down from there. So 45% for millennials, less than 40% for Gen Z and Gen X, even though we think we hear Gen Z cares about this, and then boomers was 16%,” said Lapinsky. 
However, that doesn’t mean that retailers shouldn’t be thinking about DEI when it comes to their business strategies, said Lapinsky. 
“If I’m designing a product line or even a service or something like that, and I don’t have kind of a wide representation of people who have been creating that, I think I’m very quickly going to miss the pulse on what my consumer thinks about,” said Lapinsky. “So even if they’re saying they don’t need to see it coming through in messaging, they will need to see it coming through in product that resonates and experiences that resonate and service levels that resonate with them, and that’s going to differ based on who they are and where they come from.”

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