Business News

(NEW YORK) -- Homebuyers eager to forget this year's housing market may ring in 2025 with an extra dash of zeal.A rapid rise in home prices has coincided with stubbornly high mortgage rates, shutting out potential buyers with daunting costs.A burst of supply could have eased prices, but no such relief was forthcoming. Instead, homeowners have balked at swapping out their current mortgage rates for higher ones, and construction has […]

(NEW YORK) -- Nearly half of U.S. states are set to raise their minimum wage at the outset of 2025, boosting pay for millions of workers stretching from California to Maine.In all, 21 states will raise their wage floors on Jan. 1 in keeping with inflation-adjusted increases or as part of scheduled hikes that take effect at the beginning of each calendar year.The pay increases will affect about 9.2 million workers, who will gain […]

Jin Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images (NEW YORK) -- The fund disbursing money to the victims of Bernie Madoff’s legendary Ponzi scheme began its 10th and final distribution on Monday, putting another $131 million in the pockets of swindled investors.Twenty-three thousand victims worldwide are receiving payments, bringing their total recoveries to 94% of their losses. Most of these victims were small investors who lost less than $500,000 in the fraud, according […]

(NEW YORK) -- Shares of Boeing fell in early trading on Monday, one day after a Boeing model 737-800 was involved in the Jeju Air plane crash in South Korea that killed scores of passengers.The stock price dropped more than 4% at the open of trading on Monday morning. The slide came hours after South Korea's transportation ministry announced it would investigate the crash and conduct a full inspection of all Boeing 737-800 aircraft […]

(NEW YORK) -- Two weeks before the Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments over TikTok's future, President-elect Donald Trump has asked the justices to delay a Jan. 19 deadline for the app to be sold to a new owner or face a ban in the U.S.An amicus brief filed by Trump's nominee to be solicitor general, John Sauer, is asking the court to grant a stay delaying the […]

(NEW YORK) -- The stock market climbed to record highs in 2024, extending banner gains achieved the previous year.The S&P 500 -- the index that most people's 401(k)'s track -- climbed nearly 28% this year, as of Monday.The tech-heavy Nasdaq leapt a staggering 34% over that period; while the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 16%.Consecutive years of strong stock market performance have posed a quandary for forecasters: Will high stock […]

(NEW YORK) -- Holiday spending surged in 2024, blowing past expectations and outpacing customer purchases over the gift-buying season last year, according to data released on Thursday by Mastercard SpendingPulse, which gauges in-store and online retail sales.The end-of-year flex of consumer strength marks the latest indication of resilient U.S. buying power, which has kept the economy humming despite a prolonged stretch of high interest rates.Retail sales climbed 3.8% from Nov. 1 to Dec. […]

(NEW YORK) -- Thousands of Starbucks baristas are set to walk off the job on Tuesday, expanding the dayslong holiday strike to 300 stores in dozens of cities and towns nationwide, according to the union Starbucks Workers United.In all, 5,000 Starbucks employees will go on strike in more than 25 states on Tuesday, spanning from Maryland to Montana to California, Workers United said.Workers in Columbus, Ohio, Cheyenne, Wyoming, Buffalo, New York, and a host […]

Amazon delivery drivers and third-party workers for the nation's predominant shopping platform have walked off the job in the past week, seeking what they consider a fair labor agreement -- and triggering widespread concern among consumers about a potential disruption of deliveries amid a surge of last-minute shopping just before Christmas.But experts who spoke to ABC News -- all of whom study the e-commerce giant's vast distribution network -- said […]