(NEW YORK) — This week, Skims, Kim Kardashian’s “solutions-oriented” brand of underwear, shapewear and loungewear, launched The Adaptive Collection for people with limited mobility.
The collection includes four pieces, all within the Fits Everybody wider range: an adaptive scoop bralette, thong, brief and boy short. Each piece comes in four different colors and sizes from XXS to 4X.
Moreover, these pieces all have added hook and eye closures “for added accessibility of dressing,” Skims explains on their website.
Stefanie Schaffer, 25, is one of the models featured in the Skims campaign for this collection. Schaffer lost both of her legs, sustained a spinal cord injury and paralysis, a traumatic brain injury, and suffered multiple broken bones and failing organs in a 2018 boating explosion, she says. She now has two prosthetic legs.
Since the accident, Shaffer says she has found new activities, like hand cycling and Nordic sit skiing, and has “been determined to make the most of what happened to me and live my best new life.”
She also recently signed a modeling contract which led her to “a dream” shoot with Skims, she says.
“From the moment that I was booked for the shoot, the entire Skims team was so professional, and so considerate, making sure they took all of our accessibility needs into consideration,” she adds. On set, “they made me feel beautiful and confident and worthy of being there.”
“A brand like Skims releasing an adaptive collection is so important!” Shaffer says, considering their influence on the industry. “So this was saying to us that being disabled doesn’t mean you have to compromise. You don’t have to miss out on shopping at your favorite brands because [Skims] can see that [you’re] valued and taken into consideration.”
Schaffer says her favorite pieces include the boy short and the briefs, and she adds that the hook and eye system on the sides of the underwear make them easy to take on and off.
People may not realize how tiring day-to-day tasks are for those with physical limitations, Schaffer says.
“Sometimes I’ll be exhausted just from getting clothes on for the day,” she notes. “So even just these basics of bras and underwear being easier, is like, such a relief. Serious props to Skims for this.”
In its launch email to customers, Skims says that this adaptive collection is “just the beginning,” and they “want to offer more solutions to more people.”
(NEW YORK) — In 2021, more than 47 million Americans quit their jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics – the most resignations on record. As resignation rates remain high in early 2022, in what has been since deemed by some as “The Great Resignation,” many are wondering if there is a shift in the way Americans are viewing work.
Desmond Dickerson, the Director of Future of Work Marketing at Microsoft, describes himself as a futurist. He said that pandemic remote work was just a “kickstart” to The Great Resignation.
“If you’re leaving the job previously [before the pandemic], that means uprooting,” said Dickerson. “But now all that needs to happen is that you toss one laptop to the side and then bring in a new one… So that barrier to entry for transitioning to jobs has changed.”
The pandemic radically changed how Americans work. Many turned homes into offices and some frontline workers began risking their lives for a paycheck. After the federal government spent nearly $2 trillion in a COVID-19 relief package, the economic rebound from the pandemic accelerated.
Although some businesses are now booming, they are having to fight hard to keep employees.
In late 2020, Anthony Klotz, an associate professor of business at Texas A&M, said he saw The Great Resignation coming. During the pandemic, he says he noticed four signals: a backlog of resignations, widespread burnout, people reevaluating their relationship with work and, finally, the opportunity of remote work.
“Once the threat of the pandemic started to lift, it made sense to me that many of these individuals would enact their plans to quit their jobs… People reevaluating what work meant to them,” said Klotz. “It seemed like there was a big disconnect there between what employees, what workers wanted and what organizational leaders were hoping would happen coming out of the pandemic.”
Dickerson said that the shift in mentality is evident in new job postings.
“Throughout the pandemic, we’ve seen remote work go from the margins into the mainstream, and the data on LinkedIn is showing us that one in seven jobs that are being posted right now have a remote or hybrid work component,” said Dickerson. “In March of 2020, that number was 1 in 67.”
While some are able to work from home, frontline workers continued to work in-person during the pandemic in order to keep grocery stories, restaurants and hospitals running. Overall frontline work pays less than the remote jobs from home and many frontline workers became fed-up because they felt like they were being unfairly treated, said Klotz.
“It’s really interesting for the individuals who have in-person work that are not able to switch to remote work,” said Klotz. “I think those individuals felt especially unfairly treated by the pandemic because not only did they have to work in-person, but they also saw another half of the population who are working remotely.”
From 1980 to 2019, according to the Economic Policy Institute, there has been a continual increase in pay rates of high earners, graduates and professionals but low earners remained flat.
Nicholas Bloom, an Economics professor at Stanford University, said that the job market has now shifted and front line workers have more of a say.
“For the first time, maybe in decades, [historically low earners] can say, ‘Look, I can quit my job easily, find another job and get a pay increase at the same time,” said Bloom. “And in fact, that’s why they’re quitting. People aren’t quitting, mainly because they’re dissatisfied with their current jobs, they’re generally quitting to get another job.”
Bloom said that the flexibility of finding a new job also applies to remote workers and employers are adding permanent remote work or hybrid options to hire and retain talent.
“Nobody I talk to is thinking of going back. I’m not aware of anyone who successfully got professionals back five days a week. I just don’t think it will happen,” said Bloom.
According to Microsoft’s Work Trend Index, 53% of people surveyed said that they are putting more focus on their own mental health and wellbeing.
Dickerson said remote work has allowed people to do so.
“Organizations and leaders need to be very intentional about how they’re building this new future of work,” said Dickerson.
Before the pandemic, it was assumed that remote work would lead to unproductive results, but since then critics have been proven wrong, according to Klotz. The tricky thing is that although people can still be productive from home, some companies can still argue the value of face-to-face interactions.
”We’re in a bit of a golden age of business experimentation,” said Klotz. “The exciting thing is that the nine-to-five work week is not going to be replaced by some other single type of work arrangement. What it’s being replaced by is an almost infinite number of work arrangements.”
As people begin to adjust to things like hybrid schedules – a mix between in-person and remote work – the pandemic has opened the door to a massive shift in how companies work with their people as individuals.
“I’m regularly cautioning companies to avoid making decisions just among senior executives,” said Bloom. “We see quite large variations in how much people want to work from home, by age, by gender, whether they have kids, by race, by commute, time, by disability status.”
Klotz said he believes that even before “The Great Resignation,” a conversation of work-life balance was already happening just below the surface.
“It gives us this opportunity to really question the fundamental way that we were working with employees in 2019 and say, ‘How do we fix this to hopefully lower these turnover rates back down to where they were maybe 10 years ago or so?’” said Klotz.
(NEW YORK) — New Mexico is expanding a program that waives the cost of child care, an initiative that could make child care free for many families in the southwestern state.
The announcement from Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham last Thursday said the state’s Early Childhood Education and Care Department estimates that over 30,000 more families will be able to take advantage of New Mexico’s Childcare Assistance Program starting this May, doubling the number of families who were already participating.
“Beginning May 1, 2022, all families enrolled in the state’s Childcare Assistance Program will no longer owe copays for child care services, making child care cost-free,” the announcement said.
The New Mexico Early Childhood Education and Care Department announcement notes that the expansion will run until June 30, 2023.
Families earning up to 400% of the federal poverty level, or $111,000 for a family of four, qualify to have their child care copayments waived. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services determines poverty levels, and for 2022, the federal department set the poverty guideline in the District of Columbia and the 48 contiguous states as $27,750 for a family of four.
The cost of child care in the U.S. is a significant burden for American families.
New survey data from 2019 from the HHS’s Administration for Children and Families shows that many families spend anywhere between 10% to 20% of their household budget on child care, including early child education. Amid the pandemic, many women also stopped working to take care of their kids at home, leading to a slowdown of employees returning to the national workforce.
In New Mexico specifically, think tank Economic Policy Institute estimates that the average cost of child care is approximately $8,617 a year.
Child care workers are also in short supply, and along with the expansion of copay waivers for families, New Mexico will also provide stipends to students who are pursuing higher education in early education.
Eligible students can apply for $2,000 each semester to help pay for their schooling at a New Mexico college or university.
The state is also pledging $10 million in grants to child care establishments to build or expand child care centers in underserved communities.
New Mexicans who are interested in joining the Childcare Assistance Program can visit the state’s “Am I Eligible?” site for more information.
(NEW YORK) — The U.S. economy shrank in the first three months of 2022, after years of growth, according to a new report.
Economists had expected consumer spending to accelerate in March, as rising wages prompted more American spending on services such as dining out and travel.
Watch the full report from ABC’s Good Morning America:
(NEW YORK) — A federal judge in New York on Wednesday rejected Elon Musk’s request to terminate a settlement agreement with the Securities and Exchange Commission that he claimed was being abused to silence his speech.
The 2018 deal required Musk’s tweets to be pre-approved by Tesla’s board after Musk mused on Twitter about taking Tesla private. The SEC is investigating whether Musk violated that term in November 2021 when he asked his sizeable Twitter following if he should sell 10% of his Tesla stock.
Musk argued the SEC lacked the authority to continue its investigation and was only out to harass him.
In rejecting the motion, Judge Lewis Liman cited the SEC’s “broad power” to make sure securities laws are followed.
“The mere fact that SEC brought an action against Musk and a related action against Tesla for Musk’s tweets in August 2018 does not waive the SEC’s sovereign immunity with respect to an investigation the SEC launched in late 2021 regarding conduct that occurred in late 2021, after the 2018 case was settled,” the decision said.
“The judgment against Musk expressly stated that it was to settle ‘only the claims asserted against [Musk] in th[e] civil proceeding.’ It did not give Musk any broader immunity from other SEC investigations or proceedings—including related ones. It thus preserved the SEC’s authority to investigate Musk for additional securities violations or to ask for documents and records from him in connection with an investigation of others should the SEC receive information that suggested he or others violated the securities laws again.”
Musk’s attorney Alex Spiro argued the SEC had misused the settlement as a pretext to launch an “endless, boundless investigation” of Musk’s speech, but the judge also rejected that argument.
“Musk, by entering into the consent decree in 2018, agreed to the provision requiring the pre-approval of any such written communications that contain, or reasonably could contain, information material to Tesla or its shareholders. He cannot now complain that this provision violates his First Amendment rights. Musk’s argument that the SEC has used the consent decree to harass him and to launch investigations of his speech is likewise meritless,” Liman said.
(NEW YORK) — Federal prosecutors in New York on Wednesday announced criminal charges against the founder of a private investment firm and its chief financial officer for alleged “manipulative trading” and “deceptive conduct” that led to a multibillion-dollar fraud.
Bill Hwang, the founder of Archegos Capital Management, and Patrick Halligan, the CFO, were charged with racketeering conspiracy, securities fraud and wire fraud.
According to the indictment, Hwang and Halligan “corrupted the operations and activities of the family office known as Archegos” and used it “as an instrument of market manipulation and fraud.” Family offices serve high-net-worth individuals and families.
Lawrence Lustberg, an attorney who represents Hwang, said he was “extremely disappointed” with the charges.
“We are extremely disappointed that the U.S. Attorney’s Office has seen fit to indict a case that has absolutely no factual or legal basis; a prosecution of this type, for open-market transactions, is unprecedented and threatens all investors,” Lustberg said in a statement. “As you will see when the facts unfold, Bill Hwang is entirely innocent of any wrongdoing; there is no evidence whatsoever that he committed any kind of crime, let alone the overblown allegations that pervade this indictment.”
Mary Mulligan, a lawyer for Halligan, said in a statement that her client is “innocent and will be exonerated.”
The consequences were far-reaching, prosecutors said. The stock prices of a number of companies were manipulated, employees’ savings were gambled and different banks were left with billions of dollars in losses. UBS alone lost $861 million, according to the indictment.
The criminal charges followed the spectacular implosion, in March 2021, of Archegos, which lost billions in mere days. Prosecutors said Hwang traded in a way that hid the true size of his positions from the rest of the investing public.
The alleged criminal conduct pumped Archegos’ portfolio – Hwang’s personal fortune – from $1.5 billion to $35 billion in one year, according to prosecutors.
(NEW YORK) — The road toward an all-electric vehicle future is long and filled with roadblocks concerning high costs and supply chain issues, according to automakers and motor vehicle experts.
However, the head of one of the world’s leading automakers said that motorists are hungry to shift into that new era.
Bill Ford, the chairman of the Ford Motor Company, spoke to ABC’s GMA 3 Tuesday about his company’s push into an all EV fleet. Ford touted that its electric offerings, such as the Mustang Mach-E and F-150 Lightning pickup truck, have been sold out.
“We are really betting the company,” he told GMA 3. “I’m so excited by the response that we’ve had to it.”
Ford Motor plans to have half of its fleet be EVs by 2030 and invested $5 billion in EVs this year, of 2021, Ford said.
Still, experts contend that the roadmap to a complete EV adoption has its roadblocks. Supply chain issues have made it harder for vehicle companies to produce the components for the vehicles as fast as other cars, motor vehicle experts said.
The nation’s budding charging infrastructure has left many communities, including those in rural areas, without any option to power an EV.
Ford said the company has been working its way through it, and insisted that the market for EVs would be stronger.
He noted that EVs have fewer moving parts than their gas-powered counterparts and that helps to lower the maintenance costs for customers.
Ford noted the F-150 Lightning’s starting price tag of $39,000.
“This is not a luxury vehicle at the high end of the market, where only a few people can do it. We’re bringing EVs into the range of the average person. We’re bringing EVs into the range of the average person,” he said.
Ford also talked about the concerns that some motorists have about the cost of powering EVs. While the vehicles can plug into a standard outlet, they can charge faster using an in home EV charging kit which can cost thousands of dollars to purchase and install.
President Joe Biden has touted EV infrastructure investments, including an expansion of the nation’s public charging grid, as part of his agenda and has pushed automakers to increase their EV output.
Last year he took a test drive in a F150 Lightning, flooring the truck in front of reporters.
(NEW YORK) — The funds to help states make transportation more sustainable have been promised, but will they be enough to propel the U.S. toward its emissions goals?
While it’s a step in the right direction, the $6.4 billion pledged by the Federal Highway Administration to help states fund projects to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will barely make a dent in the funds needed to help the U.S. meet its goal to be carbon neutral by 2050, experts said.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced last week that states would receive the money — part of a $1 trillion infrastructure package passed by Congress in November — over five years to create projects that support widespread use of electric vehicles and trail facilities for pedestrians and bicyclists.
“It’s a good start,” Tom Moerenhout, a research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, told ABC News. “But, it’s not a lot of money.”
It will likely require more than $100 billion “to really make a dent into road-based or transportation-based carbon emissions,” which are the largest source of carbon emissions in the U.S., Moerenhout said.
While roads, bridges and train lines have “really long lifespans,” the decisions states make on where to allocate the funding will need to be strategic, as they will “stick with us through 2050,” Elizabeth Irvin, a senior transportation analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told ABC News.
“That’s funding for states to work on transportation projects, where they’re explicitly taking into account both emission reductions and sustainability and also environmental justice,” Irvin said. “Those are all really important things.”
In the coming years, there will be a significant shift in the number of electric vehicles on the road, despite the war in Russia threatening to further disrupt the supply chain, Randy Bell, director of the Global Energy Center at the Atlantic Council, a nonpartisan think tank, told ABC News.
The changing market has been evident in the release of more electric crossover and SUVs, which is “what Americans want to drive,” Rawn said.
On Tuesday, Bill Ford, executive chairman of the Ford Motor Company, announced the first shipment of the F-150 Lightning, the first electric version of the top-selling truck in the U.S. for 45 years. Ford had to stop taking orders due to the “tremendous interest” in the Lightning, Ford said, adding that it sold out soon after the plans were announced last year.
The need for charging infrastructure to power these EVs will be “huge,” Bell said, echoing the need to spend money wisely.
“EV adoption is not uniform around the country,” Bell said.
The infrastructure for charging stations will also take the burden off families from having to install charging capabilities at home, Carol Lee Rawn, senior director of transportation at Ceres, a sustainability nonprofit, told ABC News.
“So you don’t have to worry about having a plug at your house,” she said. “You can plug when you go shopping, or when you go to work, and it’s also extremely helpful for businesses that are interested in transitioning to electrification.”
In addition, policymakers will need to consider infrastructure that allows people to walk and ride bikes and scooters safely, Rawn said, adding that E-bikes are becoming a viable alternative for many people.
Countries are now sprinting to meet the ambitious pledges made at COP26, the United Nations Climate Change Conference, in October 2021.
The Biden administration has continued to roll out a steady stream of initiatives to ease emissions from the transportation sector.
In December 2021, the Environmental Protection Agency announced its strictest vehicle emissions standards ever for cars and light trucks from model years 2023-2026. In February, the Transportation Department gave states the go-ahead to build electric car charging stations. And earlier this month, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued new standards for vehicles sold in the U.S., requiring the average fuel efficiency to be at least 40 miles per gallon starting in 2026 — up from the 28 mpg standard enacted under former President Donald Trump.
Currently, the U.S. is not on track to meet its 2030 or even 2050 goals, Moerenhout said, adding that it will be especially important for governments to incentivize the reduction of emissions.
“I think Europe has shown that with tightening fuel emission standards, you can move people into more sustainable practices and incentivize electrification,” Moerenhout said. “But in the U.S., it has just been far too sporadic.”
With the Russian-backed conflict in Ukraine now detracting from the sense of urgency toward climate change, it will be imperative that governments find a way to address energy security and climate action together, Bell said.
“So you may end up with a more pragmatic pathway towards climate action, which ultimately becomes more economic, becomes more politically palatable and becomes much more realizable in the short to medium term,” he said.
