Author: openjargon

• Ukraine is likely to lose the key eastern town of Chasiv Yar to Russia, a top intelligence official said.
• Chasiv Yar's loss could open the gates to further exhaustive, long-lasting battles.
• Russia is pushing for a big win ahead of its Victory Day military celebration.

Ukraine likely faces the approaching loss of a key eastern town to Russia, one of the country's top intelligence officials said.

"Not today or tomorrow, of course, but all depending on our reserves and supplies," Major-General Vadym Skibitsky, the deputy head of military intelligence, told The Economist.

Much of the town in question, Chasiv Yar, is little more than rubble after more than a year of bombardment.

But its natural hilltop position has helped it serve as a staging ground for Ukrainian skirmishes on the Russian advance, helping block Russia's path to the last free cities of the Donetsk region.

Chasiv Yar sits just to the west of Bakhmut, the doomed city that was pounded to nothing over almost a year of brutal siege until it finally fell in May 2023.

Bakhmut was considered of minimal strategic value.

By contrast, Chasiv Yar's high ground and proximity to important cities means huge potential gains for Russia.

The town, formerly of about 13,000 people, is the "key" that will "open the gate for exhaustive and long-lasting battles," military analyst Serhiy Hrabsky recently told The New York Times.

Its capture would put in reach of Russian forces the headquarters of Ukraine's eastern command, Kramatorsk, and the key supply hub of Kostiantynivka — both of which contain large civilian populations, the outlet reported.

As of last week, Russia had around 20,000-25,000 soldiers clustered around the assault on Chasiv Yar, the paper reported.

Russia needs a win in time for a national holiday

A year after the fall of Bakhmut, capturing all of the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions is still likely Russian President Vladimir Putin's most immediate goal, Skibitsky told The Economist.

And the line is buckling.

While Chasiv Yar holds, Russia has carved a salient about 25 miles to the southwest in the village of Ocheretyne.

Russia is throwing "everything" at trying to widen the breach there, Skibitsky said.

That's in addition to the loss of Avdiivka in February, a few miles further south of Chasiv Yar, which has allowed Russian forces to creep further west.

Pressure is likely to build to boiling point in the coming days, Skibitsky said.

Putin is probably seeking a victory he can trumpet on May 9, Russia's all-important Victory Day military celebration.

For last year's event, Ukrainian forces strained every nerve to hold onto Bakhmut through that date, while Russia redoubled its "human wave" and artillery attacks, soldiers there told Business Insider.

Soldiers in Chasiv Yar may well face the same onslaught in the coming days. If they hold on, another key date is Putin's planned visit to Beijing a week later, The Economist reported.

"Our problem is very simple: we have no weapons," Skibitsky said.

The Pentagon said some of its aid could arrive in Ukraine "within days" of the recent aid bill. But, The Economist reported, in reality much of it could take weeks to reach the front line.

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• Mark Zuckerberg is California's richest billionaire, with a net worth of $177 billion, per Forbes.
• The Meta CEO's wealth has grown notably this year as the company's stock has continued to rise.
• Zuckerberg owns multiple properties in California, per Architectural Digest.

Mark Zuckerberg is now the richest billionaire in California, with a net worth of $177 billion, a new Forbes report said.

The report, which maps out the richest billionaire in each state for 2024, said the Meta CEO overtook Google cofounder Larry Page as the Golden State's richest person.

Zuckerberg has a roughly 13% stake in Meta, which has helped see his fortune surge over the past year as the stock continued its gains from 2023, rising by around 23% so far this year.

The stock was buoyed in 2023 by the company's big cost cutting measures such as mass layoffs and also by its investments in AI and the metaverse.

Zuckerberg's net worth placed him behind Texas' richest person, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who took the title in Florida.

The 54 billionaires researched by Forbes for the report were together worth $1.6 trillion, $100 billion more than in 2023, the outlet said.

It added that 47 states were home to at least one billionaire.

Zuckerberg has built an extensive property portfolio in California.

Architectural Digest reported in 2022 that the tech billionaire had 10 homes across the state, including in San Francisco, Palo Alto, and Lake Tahoe.

He also has a number of other properties on Kauai, Hawaii, per Architectural Digest.

While he had a base salary of just $1 in 2023, the Meta boss also took home a huge $24.4 million in "other compensation" for the year.

Representatives for Zuckerberg did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, which was made outside normal working hours.

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• Lukas Walton is the grandson of Sam Walton, the American businessman who created the Walmart empire.
• After his father died in a plane crash in 2015, Lukas reportedly inherited a third of his fortune.
• The Bloomberg Billionaires Index lists Lukas as the world's 59th-richest person as of May 2024.

The Waltons are America's richest family but some of the Walmart heirs live pretty private lives.

Enter Lukas Walton, the 37-year-old grandson of Walmart and Sam's Club founder Sam Walton.

While his online presence is pretty limited, he's the richest person in the state of Illinois, runs an impact investing group called Builders Vision, and is chair of the Walton Family Foundation's environment program committee.

Here's what we know about him.

Lukas Walton is the grandson of Sam Walton, founder of Walmart and Sam's Club.

Lukas' father, John T. Walton, was Sam's second-oldest son. In 2005, John died while piloting an ultra-light, homemade aircraft that crashed shortly after takeoff.

Source: The New York Times, Business Insider, Bloomberg

Lukas grew up in National City in San Diego County.

Source: Intelligencer

When he was 3 years old, Lukas was diagnosed with a rare kidney cancer that spread to his lungs.

Source: Intelligencer

Within 5 months he had recovered, which his mother, Christy, attributed to a plant-based diet with produce sourced from her own garden.

Source: Intelligencer

Following John's death, Christy and Lukas moved to Jackson, Wyoming.

Source: Intelligencer, Forbes

John left about one-sixth of his fortune to his wife, Christy, one-third to his only son, Lukas, and the remaining half to charitable trusts.

Source: Bloomberg, Forbes

Lukas also inherited his father's 20% interest in Walton Enterprises, the family holding company that, together with a different family trust, owns around a 45% stake in Walmart.

Source: Business Insider, Bloomberg

Forbes lists Lukas as the 59th-richest American as of May 2024, but gave him a self-made score of one (out of 10), indicating that he inherited his fortune but is not actively increasing it.

Source: Forbes

Lukas attended Colorado College, where he created his own major focusing on environmentally sustainable business and later studied energy efficiency and hydrological and geothermal energy in Iceland.

Source: Forbes, Intelligencer, Walton Family Foundation

He has traveled extensively and has lived in places like Thailand and Mexico.

Source: Walton Family Foundation

Rob Walton, the eldest son of Sam Walton, believes that his family's "environmental focus really grew out of a family connection to the land."

Source: Walton Family Foundation

Sam and his wife, Helen, are said to have instilled a love for the environment in their children and grandchildren, with yearly outings to places like the Buffalo National River, Yellowstone, and the Grand Canyon.

Source: Walton Family Foundation

Lukas is involved with the Walton Family Foundation, the family's organization that awards grants toward education, environmental protection, and the family's home region of Northwest Arkansas and the Arkansas-Mississippi Delta.

Source: Walton Family Foundation

Lukas serves as the environment program committee chair and is also a board member of the organization. He is reported to have donated at least $150 million of his own fortune to the foundation.

Source: Walton Family Foundation, Forbes

Forbes reports that between 2014 and 2018, the Walton Family Foundation donated almost $1 billion to K-12 education programs and $441 million to environmental projects. More recently, the foundation awarded $566.5 million in grants in 2022, according to its website.

Source: Forbes, Walton Family Foundation

On the foundation's work, Lukas recalled that "one of the first grants that we did back in the day was help to develop a sustainable fisheries label. That to me, was a shooting star, was a golden emblem of what would be a successful marketplace development."

Source: Walton Family Foundation

In 2021, Lukas founded and publicly launched Builders Vision, an impact investing group working to tackle social and environmental problems. It's focused on "sustainable food and agriculture, healthy oceans, renewable energy and thriving communities," according to its website.

Source: Fast Company; Builders Vision

Lukas Walton is the richest person in Illinois, according to Forbes' 2024 list of the wealthiest people in every state. In July 2022, he and his wife, Samantha, sold their home in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood for $1.7 million, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Source: Forbes; Chicago Tribune

Lukas keeps a low public profile. He has no known social media profiles and other personal details are largely absent online.

Source: Business Insider

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• Ukrainian forces used drones to attack an airfield deep inside Russia last month. 
• Since then, Russia has removed its aircraft from the area and dispersed them elsewhere.
• Western intelligence says this will lead to more strain on Moscow's aircrews.

Russia has pulled dozens of aircraft away from the front lines in response to a massive Ukrainian drone attack on a military base deep behind enemy lines, according to new Western intelligence.

Ukrainian forces on April 27 fired dozens of attack drones at the Kushchyovskaya airfield, and at two oil refineries in southwest Russia, likely attempting to disrupt Moscow's highly destructive glide-bomb operations. The strikes marked Kyiv's latest long-range attacks targeting Moscow's military and energy facilities.

Britain's defense ministry said the attack on Kushchyovskaya has "likely contributed to approximately 40 aircraft of different types being removed from the area and dispersed to multiple airfields further from the front line" over the past week.

"The impact of this is unlikely to be immediately obvious or dramatic. However, Ukraine has already demonstrated the ability to strike much further into Russia than these dispersal locations," the UK wrote in a Friday intelligence update. It did not specify where these new locations were, though.

"Forcing such dispersal measures means that length of sorties will have to increase to maintain the same permanency over the battle space," the intelligence update continued. "This will in turn require more fuel, increasing cost, while also placing more strain on the aircrews."

Such results would be a win for Ukraine as it looks to alleviate the strain on its front line forces and its air-defense network, which has been under growing stress in recent months as it lacked critical interceptor munitions.

The late-April attack was not the first time Ukrainian deep strikes have forced Russia to relocate its vulnerable assets. Kyiv's fleet of exploding naval drones has wreaked havoc on Moscow's Black Sea Fleet, compelling it to disperse warships from its headquarters in the occupied Crimean peninsula to a port city along Russia's southwestern coast.

The Kushchyovskaya airfield is home to Russia's Su-34 and Su-35 fighter jets. It was not immediately clear if any aircraft were struck in the attack last weekend, but Britain's defense ministry, citing open-source video footage, said that a number of glide-bomb kits had been destroyed in a storage facility.

Glide bombs have flight control surfaces that allow them to soar toward a target rather than free fall and are a kind of standoff weapon, meaning Russian aircraft can release them at a distance beyond the range of Ukraine's air-defense systems.

These munitions are difficult to intercept because they have short flight times, small radar signatures, and non-ballistic trajectories. Destroying Moscow's warplanes before they can release the weapon or hitting them on the ground are really the only ways to defeat the threat.

Glide bombs have long been a headache for Ukraine, but Russia has increasingly relied on them this year to strike Kyiv's ground forces on the front lines and in positions in the rear to devastating effect. Experts have warned that these munitions could play a significant role in supporting Moscow's ground operations in the coming months.

Even before the Kushchyovskaya strike, Ukraine has tried going after Russia's airbases in an apparent bid to stomp out the glide-bomb threat. In April, for instance, Kyiv launched a large number of drones at the Morozovsk airbase, although the extent of the damage was ultimately unclear.

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• There are two weeks left for the public to comment on Biden's new student-debt relief plan.
• Once the public comment period ends, the administration will move toward final implementation.
• Still, legal challenges and the election pose threats to the debt cancellation.

The American people have just two weeks left to give President Joe Biden's administration input on its new student-loan forgiveness plan.

On April 17, the Education Department published its draft rules for a broader version of debt relief to the Federal Register. First unveiled in early April, the new plan is expected to benefit over 30 million borrowers through a range of provisions, including canceling unpaid interest for borrowers and providing debt relief to those who have made at least 20 years of payments.

This new plan is intended to replace Biden's first attempt at relief that the Supreme Court struck down last summer. In contrast to the first plan, this one requires the administration to undergo a process known as negotiated rulemaking, which entails a series of negotiations with stakeholders and an opportunity for the public to comment on the plans before final implementation.

The plan is now in the public comment period, and there are two weeks left for anyone who wishes to provide input on the administration's proposals. So far, according to the Federal Register, the plan has received 24,532 comments as of Friday morning.

The comments are available to be viewed publicly, and some of them were supportive of Biden's plan. One stated:

"The more student loan debt that can be forgiven the better. My mom's loans were forgiven last month, and it has changed her life. The period of time when my loans were paused allowed me to buy a home. My loans are currently in repayment, and if that burden could be lifted it would be life-changing for me."

Meanwhile, others were more critical:

"No if you borrow money you need to pay it back. why should people who are hard working pay for a lazy person school. student loans needs to be payed back by the borrower not by people who are working for a living."

Once the public comment period ends on May 17, the Education Department can choose to adjust its proposals based on the feedback it received or move ahead toward final implementation. In the coming months, the department also plans to unveil a separate proposal to get relief to borrowers experiencing financial hardship, which will also have a public comment period.

The department has said it plans to move as quickly as possible with the relief this fall, but not only does the presidential election bring uncertainty to the fate of the relief — it's highly likely legal challenges will once again attempt to block it from carrying out.

For example, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey wrote on X that he would see Biden in court after the release of new details for the debt relief, and he already filed a lawsuit to block the SAVE income-driven repayment plan, arguing it was an overreach of the administration's authority.

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• Wages for retail workers have been going up in recent years.
• SEC rules require publicly traded companies to disclose their workers' median annual pay.
• Here's the median wage for workers at 19 retail companies, from lowest to highest.

Retail workers' hourly wages have increased substantially in the last several years as major employers like Walmart, Target, Home Depot, Lowe's, and more have plowed billions of dollars into pay increases in a bid to get people to join — and stay.

Ever since Amazon set its minimum wage at $15 in 2018, more retailers have followed suit by offering starting wages that are more than double the national minimum of $7.25. The Federal minimum was last set in 2009.

But hourly wages are just one part of the pay equation. An employee's earnings also depend greatly on how many hours they work. That can vary considerably, especially in seasonal segments.

So, to get a picture of what the typical worker makes in a year at various retail brands, Business Insider used AlphaSense to find the data in the most recent proxy filings that publicly traded companies must file with the US Securities Exchange Commission.

Rules following the financial crisis of 2008 require public companies to calculate their median worker's annual salary to compare it to the CEO's compensation.

"Median" refers to the middle-most value in an ordered list. In terms of compensation, that means about half of a company's workers earn more and half earn less than its "median employee."

Scroll through below to see where 19 of the largest companies rank, from lowest to highest annual pay.

19. Gap: $7,573

The 2023 calculation is up from $7,348 in 2021, and the company says its typical median employee would be a part-time sales associate in Canada who did not work the full year.

18. Ulta: $13,193

Ulta identifies its median employee by ranking all 52,929 associates from high to low by total cash compensation and selecting the middlemost one. Its 2018 median was $27,235, but was calculated at that time including the value of employer-paid healthcare benefits.

17. Starbucks: $14,209

Starbucks says its median figure is calculated from its global workforce of baristas, which causes it to be lower than it might be for only its US employees. Still, the company considers its median employee a part-time barista in the United States.

16. TJX: $14,857

TJX Companies — which include TJ Maxx, Marshalls, and others — increased its median pay in 2023 by 32% from 2018's level of $11,243.

15. McDonald's: $15,802

The burger giant's median is more than double the 2018 level of $7,017, and it says the 2023 median worker is a restaurant crew employee located in Poland. About 95% of McDonald's restaurants are operated by franchisees whose workers aren't included in this report.

13. Chipotle: $16,595

Chipotle's median worker is an hourly part-time employee who works roughly 24 hours per week at one of its restaurants in Florida.

13. Foot Locker: $20,168

The shoe retailer's pay is up from 2018's median of $8,554, and the company says its median worker in 2023 averaged 27 hours per week in a store in Madrid, Spain.

12. Advance Auto Parts: $23,923

Advance Auto Parts includes all team members in their analysis of the median employee, including part-time, full-time, and seasonal team members. The 2023 level is up from $18,460 in 2018.

11. Target: $26,696

Target annualizes the pay of all full- and part-time employees, but takes only the actual earnings of seasonal and temporary workers to find the median for the whole workforce. The company says its median team member is employed part-time.

10. Walmart: $27,642

Walmart is the largest private employer in the world with 2.1 million workers around the world, of which 1.6 million are based in the US. The company uses statistical sampling to identify a group of associates paid within a range of .5% of the company's median earnings amount, and then chooses the median compensated associate from that group. Its 2023 median was up more than 40% from $19,177 in 2018.

9. Kroger: $28,644*

Kroger owns 19 grocery brands; its median employee is a part-time associate in the US Southeast.

*2022 figure as 2023 Proxy Statement not yet filed.

8. Albertsons: $31,781*

Albertsons owns 15 grocery store companies and says its median worker is a full-time hourly employee.

*2022 figure as 2023 Proxy Statement not yet filed.

7. Lowe's: $32,626

Lowe's includes full-time and part-time employees to determine the median employee and considers actual base salary, bonus or commission paid, and any overtime. Its 2023 rate is up roughly 36% from the 2018 level of $23,905.

6. Best Buy: $32,656

Best Buy employs roughly 95,000 workers, mostly in the US and Canada. The median employee was identified by annualizing the earnings of all part- and full-time workers except for the CEO.

5. Macy's: $34,438

More than half of Macy's workforce consists of part-time or seasonal employees, and the company estimates its median based on all employees other than the CEO. The 2023 median is more than double 2018's median of $13,810.

4. Home Depot: $35,131

Home Depot bases its data on its total workforce and says the median-paid associate was an hourly employee in the US. The 2023 median is up 66% from $21,095 in 2018.

3. Nordstrom: $35,636

Nordstrom includes full-time, part-time seasonal, and temporary employees to identify the median employee and says roughly half of its workforce is part-time or seasonal. The 2023 median is up 18% from $30,105 in 2018.

2. Amazon: $36,274

When calculating its median compensation, Amazon considers all full-time, part-time, and temporary employees worldwide, excluding CEO Andy Jassy. When considering only US full-time employees, the median annual compensation was $45,613.

1. Costco: $50,202

Costco's calculations include full-time, part-time, seasonal, and temporary employees, and use a combination of salary, bonus, equity compensation, and other measurable benefits paid during the year.

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• A Ukrainian unit is using century-old US guns to target Russian drones and planes.
• Ukraine is running low on missiles, which are far more expensive than drones and ammo.
• One unit is using cheaper M2 Brownings, which were developed in 1918, the last year of World War I.

Ukrainians are putting machine guns first designed in the US at the end of World War I on the back of pickup trucks to try to shoot down Russian drones and spy planes.

Soldiers in Ukraine's 117th Territorial Defense Brigade are using guns, including the M2 Browning, to try to take down Russia's Shahed drones, the Kyiv Independent reported.

The M2 was used by American forces in World War II, and is still used by some today, but it was initially developed in 1918, the last year of World War I.

The Kyiv Independent, which visited one Ukrainian unit, reported that they are often the first to confront drones that Russia fires north, toward the cities of Sumy and Kyiv.

Its members monitor the sky, watch their tracking equipment, and drive where needed, eager to shoot down whatever they can.

Russia has been firing drones and missiles at Ukrainian cities and infrastructure since it launched its full-scale invasion, often targeting places far from the front lines.

These attacks have killed civilians, destroyed residential buildings, and damaged Ukraine's energy network.

Ukraine faces a dilemma when it comes to shooting them down.

Shahed drones are estimated to cost around $20,000 each, but some of the air-defense missiles that Ukraine has in its arsenal have a price tag in the millions.

Ukraine's supply of air-defense missiles has also been running low after Republicans stalled billions in further aid for six months.

Soldiers often had to make difficult choices about when to use their precious stockpile.

That's where weapons like the M2 Browning come in.

Its predecessor, the M1917, was designed by American John Browning and first used in 1917, with the M2 coming the following year.

Both Russia and Ukraine have used decades-old equipment and weaponry in the war, sometimes because it is proven to be reliable and sometimes due to shortages of more modern supplies.

The unit's leader, call sign Dias, described the Browning to the Kyiv Independent as "reliable, user-friendly" and with a higher fire rate.

But he and other soldiers still said they desired more modern weapons: "We're eager to take down Shaheds. We could cut them with such weapons," he said.

Dias' unit is made up of 16 soldiers, who were all civilians before Russia's invasion, the outlet reported.

Dias, who had combat experience, said he "taught them to shoot and survive" and that they have downed six Shaheds and 12 reconnaissance aircraft.

He described the unit as protecting the city of Sumy, which is close to the border with Russia, and said that his unit works within range of Russian artillery, guided bombs, and first-person-view drones.

Another soldier described the wider region to the Kyiv Independent as "Ukraine's northern shield."

He called their group "the last defensive line" for the area.

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• Stocks are in a "late secular bull market," BofA's Michael Hartnett said in a Friday research note.
• That'll end in either a bubble or a recession, he warned.
• Equities have sputtered recently, with investors fretting about stubborn inflation and slow growth.

The bull market that's pushed stock prices higher for the past year and a half will probably end in tears, Bank of America's Michael Hartnett warned.

Equities are in a "late secular bull market" that likely "ends with [a] bubble and/or recession," the bank's chief investment strategist wrote in a Friday research note seen by Business Insider.

Hartnett's been warning for months that stocks are nearing bubble territory. Since October 2022, the S&P 500 has soared by more than 40%, powered higher by the AI investing craze and a better-than-expected economy.

That rally has stalled in recent months, though, with investors starting to fret about stubborn inflation and slowing growth.

The Federal Reserve has also signaled that it's likely to delay cutting interest rates until the second half of 2024, which has further weighed on valuations.

Hartnett also said the economy could be headed for a period of stagflation, pointing to Friday's April jobs report as a key data point.

Spring's GDP and consumer price index figures looked "stagflationary," he wrote, adding that the market would likely see a lower-than-expected monthly non-farm payrolls number as "a risk-off print." The 175,000 jobs added was considerably lower than the 238,000 forecast by economists.

JPMorgan also flagged stagflation — a combination of high inflation and sluggish growth — as a potential threat to the economy this week.

"While the worry for risk markets is overheating that jeopardizes rate cutting, in contrast to the overheating story, the recent GDP print heads in a stagflationary direction relative to market expectations," a team led by equity strategist Marko Kolanovic said in a research note.

Hartnett's bearish stance clashes with the view held by BofA's head of US equity and quantitative strategy, Savita Subramanian, who has predicted that stocks' bull market will last.

While chatter about the threat posed by stagflation is intensifying, the economy looks resilient enough to carry on powering equities higher, she said in a Thursday research note.

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• China has developed a large network of military satellites. 
• A Pentagon official warned they could be used to target US troops. 
• China is expanding its military presence in space. 

China has developed a network of hundreds of military satellites that could be used to target US troops, a Pentagon official warned.

Maj. Gen. Greg Gagnon, deputy chief of space operations for intelligence, told a conference on Thursday that China had developed a sophisticated military satellite program.

He said it could be used to track and target US troops moving to defend Taiwan, Defense One reported.

"It's to provide indications and warnings of sailors, marines, airmen, trying to move west, if directed, to defend freedom," Gagnon said.

"They will now—in a way that we're not comfortable talking about in America—they will be inside a rapidly expanding weapons engagement zone."

He went on to explain that means they can track their targets from a long-distance, even if those targets are mobile.

"Few countries have that advantage," he said.

The US has long deployed a network of satellites to monitor potential threats, but Gagnon said that China had ended the US monopoly on using satellite data to strike targets at very long distances.

He described it as an "architecture that's designed to go to war and sustain in war. And the purpose of reconnaissance and surveillance, from the ultimate high ground, is, of course, to inform decisions about fire control for militaries."

China has, in recent years, intensified its bid to establish itself as a major military force in space.

Military experts believe that if a war were to break out between major powers, the opening shots would likely be fired in space in a bid to disable the satellite systems militaries rely on for communications.

China has developed weapons capable of taking out US satellites, systems for monitoring US troops, and hypersonic weapons capable of evading air defense systems — and some are warning could be preparing to use the moon as a platform for attacks.

The number of Chinese crafts in orbit has risen by around 500% since its space military division was formed in 2015, said Gagnon, and of the 400 launched in the last two years around half are used to monitor Earth.

US military leaders are warning that the US must step up if it wants to avoid being beaten in the race for space dominance.

"We are at a pivotal moment in history," Troy Meink, principal deputy director of the National Reconnaissance Office, which builds and operates the US fleet of spy satellites, said at a recent event in Colorado, as quoted by Space.com.

"For the first time in decades, US leadership in space and space technology is being challenged," Meink added. "Our competitors are actively seeking ways to threaten our capabilities, and we see this every day."

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• David Kirsch, 64, worries he won't have enough money to retire comfortably in a few years.
• He's one of 30 million Americans known as "peak boomers," a group born between 1959 and 1964.
• Many of these boomers are worried about having enough to stop working and cover their expenses. 

David Kirsch is hoping he can retire at 70.

He's 64 years old, and his dream is to buy a gently used sailboat, sell most of his belongings, and spend his golden years traveling around the Caribbean and South America.

But Kirsch — a resident of Hill, New Hampshire — feels like his sailboat is drifting further and further away. He has an IT job and earns $64,805 a year, according to documents viewed by Business Insider. He said he maintains IRA accounts and puts money into his 401(k), but he still isn't confident he's saved enough to retire.

Kirsch is hoping to start collecting Social Security checks in a couple of years, just before his 67th birthday. That additional money would allow him to put more of his professional income into his retirement accounts during the last years of his career, he said.

"My biggest fear is finding myself at 75 standing at the door at Walmart greeting people as they come in," he told BI.

Kirsch isn't alone. He's one of 30 million Americans known as "peak boomers," a group of baby boomers born between 1959 and 1964 who will start turning 65 this year and are heading toward retirement. However, many of these boomers are worried about having enough money to fully stop working and cover their living expenses.

The Census Bureau's Current Population Survey found that more than half of Americans over 65 have an annual income of $30,000 or less. And, per an April report from the retirement research firm Alliance Lifetime Income's Retirement Income Institute, 52.5% of boomers have $250,000 or less in assets.

For many, Social Security won't be enough to fill the gaps. As of March 2024, the Social Security Administration said that its average monthly check sent to recipients is $1,774.83. And, if lawmakers don't intervene, the US Social Security fund is set to dry out by the late 2030s.

This group of boomers is feeling the consequences of the US' switch from an employer-funded pension to the employee-funded 401(k) system in the 1980s.

Even with aggressive saving, he's not sure about the future

Kirsch's anxiety about retirement has fluctuated throughout his career. He has experienced a few periods of unemployment that made saving money difficult, and his past employers didn't always offer retirement benefits. He has been in his current job for the past 12 years and is now using "highly aggressive" retirement contributions to reach his goals, he said.

He said his top expenses right now are his car payment, gas money, and the cost of housing and utilities. Kirsch is in good health, but worries about affording medical care if that changes.

He also said he isn't sure he would be able to return to work after retirement because of hiring discrimination for older adults.

"If I'm by myself, out-competed, in need for money, in my seventies, and having health problems — life's going suck, that's my fear," Kirsch said.

Kirsch wishes more people understood that some older adults aren't able to adequately prepare for retirement because of life circumstances. He also wishes government safety net programs for affordable housing and healthcare didn't wait for people to reach "critical status" and be "destitute" before they provide assistance.

Although he hasn't given up on his sailboat dream, Kirsch said he's anxious about having enough to live comfortably a decade from now. He often tells his young adult son to think about retirement early.

"Start saving and do it as aggressively as you can," he said. "And, when you can't be aggressive, still save something."

Are you worried about being financially ready for retirement? How are you preparing? Share your story with this reporter at allisonkelly@insider.com.

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