Complements or Substitutes? Young Germans' Experience and Expectations with Financing Sources for Long-Term Care.

Financing long-term care is a growing challenge in aging societies. To address this challenge, Germany created public long-term care insurance (DPV) more than 25 years ago. Germans still need to prepare for their own care throughout their life course to supplement public insurance. This study presents descriptive statistics and multivariate regression analysis to examine young Germans' experiences and expectations of the relationship between the DPV and private financing sources. We base our analysis on a proprietary data set of young Germans (16-39 years old) that oversamples those with caregiving experience and East Germans. We find that public long-term care insurance is a substitute for rather than a complement to other financing sources. Specifically, many young Germans do not count on public long-term care insurance to finance care. Instead, they see private funding sources as substitutes for long-term care insurance. Those who count on private long-term care insurance are between 48 and 70% less likely to count on DPV benefits. Experience with care increases the likelihood of young Germans expecting future public benefits by factor of six or 18, depending on the specific care familiarity. Young Germans are also more likely to count on future generations to support their own care than they expect themselves to support the care of their parents through the DPV. Given that the DPV provides basic universal insurance that requires some complementary private income sources, our findings suggest that young Germans, who will need to build some of these income sources throughout their careers, are underestimating the value of the DPV and overestimating their own ability to pay for long-term care. Policymakers will need to reduce the political risks to the DPV and increase young Germans' savings over the life-course to address this imbalance.

Economic Inequality, the Digital Divide, and Remote Learning During COVID-19.

Wealth and education establish a cycle of intergenerational inequality. Wealthier households can provide more educational opportunities for their children, who then will have more chances to build wealth for themselves. The digital divide may have emerged as a key reinforcing mechanism of education through wealth and of future wealth through education during the pandemic. The intergenerational transmission of racial wealth inequality likely played out at rapid speed during the pandemic. We analyze the link between wealth, reliable internet and electronic device availability, remote learning time, race, and ethnicity, using the U.S. Census Bureau's Household Pulse Survey. We conclude that Black and Hispanic/Latinx households have less reliable internet and devices available. This goes along with fewer hours children spend on remote learning. The lack of internet and devices correlates with less wealth, as reflected in lower homeownership rates and greater housing instability. Black and Hispanic/Latinx households, in particular, are more likely to be renters and face housing instability.

Determination of highly polar compounds in atmospheric aerosol particles at ultra-trace levels using ion chromatography Orbitrap mass spectrometry.

A method using ion chromatography coupled to high-resolution Orbitrap mass spectrometry was developed to quantify highly-polar organic compounds in aqueous filter extracts of atmospheric particles. In total, 43 compounds, including short-chain carboxylic acids, terpene-derived acids, organosulfates, and inorganic anions were separated within 33 min by a KOH gradient. Ionization by electrospray was maximized by adding 100 µL min-1 isopropanol as post-column solvent and optimizing the ion source settings. Detection limits (S/N ≥ 3) were in the range of 0.075-25 µg L-1 and better than previously reported for 22 compounds. Recoveries of extraction typically range from 85 to 117%. The developed method was applied to three ambient samples, including two arctic flight samples, and one sample from Melpitz, a continental backround research site. A total of 32 different compounds were identified for all samples. From the arctic flight samples, organic tracers could be quantified for the first time with concentrations ranging from 0.1 to 17.8 ng m-3 . Due to the minimal sample preparation, the beneficial figures of merit, and the broad range of accessible compounds, including very polar ones, the new method offers advantages over existing ones and enables a detailed analysis of organic marker compounds in atmospheric aerosol particles.

The Demographics and Economics of Direct Care Staff Highlight Their Vulnerabilities Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic.

An estimated 3.5 million direct care staff working in facilities and people's homes play a critical role during the COVID-19 pandemic. They allow vulnerable care recipients to stay at home and they provide necessary help in facilities. Direct care staff, on average, have decades of experience, often have certifications and licenses, and many have at least some college education to help them perform the myriad of responsibilities to properly care for care recipients. Yet, they are at heightened health and financial risks. They often receive low wages, limited benefits, and have few financial resources to fall back on when they get sick themselves and can no longer work. Furthermore, most direct care staff are parents with children in the house and almost one-fourth are single parents. If they fall ill, both they and their families are put into physical and financial risk.

Quantifying indium with ion chromatography in hydro- and biohydrometallurgical leaching solutions.

A methodology has been developed to chromatographically quantify indium in polymetallic (bio)hydrometallurgical processing solutions using the Dionex IonPac CS5A column and pyridine-2,6-dicarboxylic acid eluent. Cu(II) and In(III) could be separated by elevating the column temperature to 45°C. The comparatively low stability constant of the In-eluent complex (log K2  = 3.8) required typical leaching samples to be diluted in the eluent rather than acid or water to overcome ligand competition between components of the sample solution and the eluent. The methodology was applied to leachates from (bio)hydrometallurgical processing of oxidic flue dust residues and sulfidic zinc ores, where both are promising candidates for the recovery of indium from low grade ores and metallurgical wastes. Indium, ferrous iron, ferric iron, copper, zinc, nickel, and manganese concentrations could be simultaneously quantified. The method was found suitable for samples containing at least 0.25 mg/L indium and an iron to indium ratio of up to 100:1.

Policy responses during the Trump administration to older people's growing economic risk exposure.

Economic risk exposure through increased labor market volatility and growing caregiving responsibilities has risen for older Americans. At the same time, key protections such as unemployment insurance and Social Security have declined, while other protections-particularly in the private market-are limited or nonexistent. Social policy can lower the chance of risk exposure and the associated costs, especially with respect to unemployment and caregiving. In virtually all instances, however, the Trump administration has already moved to weaken existing protections. And it has offered either no proposals or very limited proposals to increase protections in the private sector As a result, an aging population will increasingly face rising economic risks on their own.

Aging With Rising Risk: Have Older Households Experienced Faster-Growing Risk Exposure Than Younger Ones Since the 1990s?

Financial markets have been characterized by boom and bust cycles since the 1980s, while the responsibility for managing retirement wealth has increasingly shifted onto individual households at the same time. Policy makers and experts have expressed concern over rising risk exposure among older householders, who appear to be increasingly exposed to the growing financial risks just as they near retirement. We consider household data from the Federal Reserve's Survey of Consumer Finances from 1989 to 2010 to analyze the correlation between age and risk exposure. We test whether older householders' risk exposure has indeed grown over time, whether it has increased more than that of younger householders, whether changes in the demographic composition of older householders have contributed to older households' rising risk exposure, and the degree to which increases in risk exposure can be traced to a growing concentration of household assets held in stocks and housing and to rising householder indebtedness. Our results indicate that risk exposure has grown more for older householders than for younger ones, that demographic changes among older householders have contributed to additional increases in older householders' risk exposure, and that the growth of older householders' risk exposure is driven more by rising risky asset concentration and less by greater indebtedness.

Emerging areas in atmospheric photochemistry.

Sunlight is a major driving force of atmospheric processes. A detailed knowledge of atmospheric photochemistry is therefore required in order to understand atmospheric chemistry and climate. Considerable progress has been made in this field in recent decades. This contribution will highlight a set of new and emerging ideas (and will therefore not provide a complete review of the field) mainly dealing with long wavelength photochemistry both in the gas phase and on a wide range of environmental surfaces. Besides this, some interesting bulk photochemistry processes are discussed. Altogether these processes have the potential to introduce new chemical pathways into tropospheric chemistry and may impact atmospheric radical formation.

Modeling the impact of iron-carboxylate photochemistry on radical budget and carboxylate degradation in cloud droplets and particles.

To quantify the effects of an advanced iron photochemistry scheme, the chemical aqueous-phase radical mechanism (CAPRAM 3.0i) has been updated with several new Fe(III)-carboxylate complex photolysis reactions. Newly introduced ligands are malonate, succinate, tartrate, tartronate, pyruvate, and glyoxalate. Model simulations show that more than 50% of the total Fe(III) is coordinated by oxalate and up to 20% of total Fe(III) is bound in the newly implemented 1:1 complexes with tartronate, malonate, and pyruvate. Up to 20% of the total Fe(III) is found in hydroxo and sulfato complexes. The fraction of [Fe(oxalate)2](-) and [Fe(pyruvate)](2+) is significantly higher during nighttime than during daytime, which points toward a strong influence of photochemistry on these species. Fe(III) complex photolysis is an important additional sink for tartronate, pyruvate, and oxalate, with a complex photolysis contribution to overall degradation of 46, 40, and 99%, respectively, compared to all possible sink reactions with atmospheric aqueous-phase radicals, such as (•)OH, NO3(•), and SO4(•) (-). Simulated aerosol particles have a much lower liquid water content than cloud droplets, thus leading to high concentrations of species and, consequently, an enhancement of the photolysis sink reactions in the aerosol particles. The simulations showed that Fe(III) photochemistry should not be neglected when considering the fate of carboxylic acids, which constitute a major part of aqueous secondary organic aerosol (aqSOA) in tropospheric cloud droplets and aqueous particles. Failure to consider this loss pathway has the potential to result in a significant overestimate of aqSOA production.

Atmospheric chemistry and environmental impact of the use of amines in carbon capture and storage (CCS).

This critical review addresses the atmospheric gas phase and aqueous phase amine chemistry that is relevant to potential emissions from amine-based carbon capture and storage (CCS). The focus is on amine, nitrosamine and nitramine degradation, and nitrosamine and nitramine formation processes. A comparison between the relative importance of the various atmospheric sinks for amines, nitrosamines and nitramines is presented.

Simulating How Large Policy Proposals Affect the Black-White Wealth Gap.

The wealth gap between African-American and White households has persisted for decades, prompting policymakers and experts to suggest several large-scale interventions. We evaluate the possible impact of five such proposals on the Black-White wealth gap. These interventions include debt-free college, baby bonds, civil rights enforcement in housing markets, credit market regulations enforcement, and a national retirement savings plan. Using simulations anchored in data and the existing literature, we conclude that baby bonds would have the single largest effect. But a large wealth gap would remain, even if all five proposals were promptly enacted. Only targeted cash or liquid asset transfers to African-Americans can overcome the persistent wealth difference with White households.

Did retirees save enough to compensate for the increase in individual risk exposure?

The United States experienced an unprecedented financial crisis after 2007. This paper analyzes whether retirees had enough wealth built up to weather the financial risks that materialized in the crisis. Financial risks associated with saving for retirement had increasingly shifted onto individuals and away from the public and employers during the decades before the crisis. This growing personal responsibility should have brought about more saving and less risk taking. I use data from the Federal Reserve's triennial Survey of Consumer Finances first to define an income threshold for retirees, specifically whether annuity income is greater than twice the poverty line: a common proxy for basic income needs. I then calculate the potential retirement income that retirees could expect if they translated all of their wealth into income and if the income is adjusted for market, idiosyncratic, and longevity risks. I compare the potential risk-adjusted income for retirees with annuity income above twice the poverty line to those retirees with annuity income below twice the poverty line. Both groups of retirees should have at least the same level of risk-adjusted potential retirement income. This comparison shows, however, that retirees with annuity income below twice the poverty line did not build up sufficient wealth to compensate for the rising financial risk exposure. Public policy thus should maintain existing sources of annuity income, promote greater annuitization of financial wealth, and encourage additional savings.

Push or Pull: Changes in the Relative Risk and Growth of Entrepreneurship Among Older Households.

Purpose of the study: Amid insufficient retirement savings and the growing need to work longer, it is important to understand why self-employment, especially entrepreneurship, has grown among older households. Older households may have been pushed into entrepreneurship by the growing risks of wage-and-salary employment as wages and jobs have become less stable. Alternatively, older households may have been pulled into entrepreneurship as the associated risks have declined, for instance, due to greater opportunities to diversify income away from risky business income. We examine the economic causes of the rise in entrepreneurship among older households. Design and Methods: We use summary statistics and multinomial logit regressions to analyze the link between economic pressures in wage-and-salary employment, financial strength of entrepreneurship, and the presence and change of entrepreneurship among older households-aged 50 years or older. We use household data from the Federal Reserve's Survey of Consumer Finances from 1989 to 2013. Results: We find little support for the claim that increased economic pressures are correlated with rising entrepreneurship. Instead, our results suggest that the growth of older entrepreneurship is coincident with increasing access to dividend and interest income. We also find some evidence that access to Social Security and other annuity benefits increases the likelihood of self-employment. Implications: Entrepreneurship among older households increasingly correlates with income diversification. Policymakers interested in encouraging more entrepreneurship among older households could consider increased access to income diversification through social insurance.

Boon or bane: 401(k) loans and employee contributions.

Economic and behavioral theories arrive at different conclusions about the effect of being allowed to borrow from one's defined-contribution (DC) retirement plan on people's contributions to DC plans. Traditional life-cycle models unambiguously suggest that the borrowing option makes people better off than not being able to borrow. Households consequently contribute more to their DC plans than they would absent the borrowing option. Previous research finds that the ability to borrow from a DC plan increases contemporaneous contributions, consistent with traditional models. Behavioral finance, in contrast, suggests that some workers may operate with nonlinear time discounting. They plan on saving more in the future but change their mind and save less than initially planned as time passes. These workers may enjoy higher lifetime utility if they have no loan option because DC plans serve as commitment devices for retirement saving. The money cannot be used prior to retirement. Absent this commitment device, contributions may be lower for some households than would be the case without a DC loan option. We study DC plan contributions for households with heterogeneous preferences about discounting. We separate households into those that demonstrate inconsistent (or paradoxical) borrowing behavior, which may reflect nonlinear time discounting, and those with more consistent borrowing behavior. We find that a DC loan option raises current savings, but does so more for households with consistent borrowing behavior than for those with inconsistent borrowing behavior.

What happens to defined contribution accounts when labor markets and financial markets move together?

The relationship among earnings, savings, and retirement is well known; however, the linkage between labor market outcomes and financial market performance is generally unacknowledged. We examine the implications of the link between labor markets and financial markets for workers who save money in individual retirement accounts. Specifically, differences in labor market outcomes across groups may imply differences in the timing of investments, which may reduce savings over time for these groups compared to their counterparts. Using monthly data from the Current Population Survey (1979-2002), we generate hypothetical investment portfolios using stock and bond indices. We exploit differences across demographic groups in unemployment and wage growth and use these differences to examine each group's investment outcomes. We then disaggregate the total effects into short-term and long-term components. We find some evidence of short-term market timing effects on investment, but we find much larger long-term effects for some groups. Our findings suggest that, for many people, the retirement savings losses associated with the timing of markets are similar to the costs of annuitizing savings upon retirement. The differences are especially pronounced by education and gender.

PURE: a proposal for more retirement income security.

Despite large public policy efforts over the past 30 years, a large minority of households remains consistently inadequately prepared for retirement. If policymakers want to address this shortcoming, public policy has to change from its current path. This paper suggests a system of mandatory private pensions funded by a minimum mandatory contribution of 3% of payroll. In addition, a number of institutional changes are suggested to reduce the costs and risks of individual accounts.

A prescription for more retirement income security: retiree health insurance coverage in an era of declining access to employer-sponsored insurance.

As health care costs have been rising, especially for prescription drugs, employers have curtailed access to employer-sponsored retiree health insurance, especially for future retirees. This paper studies the question whether declining access has already translated into measurable loss of coverage for retirees. Based on data from the Current Population Survey and the Medical Expenditures Panel Survey, we find that retirees have lost health insurance and prescription drug coverage since 1996. The declines are especially pronounced for men before age 65 and for all Medicare-eligible retirees between the ages of 65 and 74. Our results also suggest that coverage will decline in the future.