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(NEW YORK) — An alliance of oil-producing countries on Wednesday announced a dramatic cut in oil output with major implications for U.S. gas prices, industry analysts told ABC News.

The group of nations known as OPEC+, led by Saudi Arabia and Russia, agreed on Wednesday to cut oil production by two million barrels per day starting in November.

The decision to slash oil supply arrives as crude oil prices stand at $93, well below a high in June of $123. Many forecasters are anticipating a global economic slowdown.

The move will cause a spike in U.S. gasoline prices that will last for months, analysts told ABC News. President Joe Biden can reduce some of the immediate price hike but lacks an effective option to mitigate the overall cost increase for U.S. drivers, they said.

Here’s what the OPEC+ oil cut means for U.S. gas prices and how Biden has responded:

The OPEC+ oil cut will significantly raise U.S. gas prices

The OPEC+ oil cut will hike U.S. gas prices because the price depends on a balance between supply and demand.

A reduction of two million barrels of oil a day amounts to a roughly 2% loss from the oil market, since the world consumed nearly 100 million barrels of oil each day in August, the most recent month on record, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The U.S. is set to produce an average of 11.8 million barrels oil per day in 2022, which stands 500,000 barrels short of a record set in 2019, according to the EIA. But oil prices are set on a global market, where the OPEC+ cuts cannot be offset by a comparable short-term increase in U.S. oil output.

“You’ll be looking at substantial upward pressure on gas prices,” Ramanan Krishnamoorti, a professor of petroleum engineering at the University of Houston, told ABC News.

The average price for a U.S. gallon of gas is $3.86, according to AAA data. That price marks a 2% rise from a month ago and a 20% rise from a year ago. In California, the state with the highest average gas price, a gallon costs $6.42.

After the OPEC+ oil cut, the price will rise even further. The price will increase as much as 40 cents, reaching as high as $4.26, analysts said. The price hike will begin within weeks and last for months, they said.

The move will impose a uniform impact on gas prices across all regions of the U.S., according to Krishnamoorti and Peter McNally, a global sector leader for industrial materials and energy at Third Bridge.

Patrick de Haan, the head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, disagreed. Prices have already begun to increase in the South and Northeast, where prices had been stable in recent weeks, he said.

Areas on the West Coast and some of the Great Lakes states, however, which have experienced massive price spikes over the last few weeks due to refinery issues, will likely continue to see prices drop, though by not as much as originally anticipated, he added.

The Biden administration response

The Biden administration sharply criticized the OPEC+ oil cut on Wednesday. In a statement, the White House said Biden “is disappointed by the shortsighted decision by OPEC+ to cut production quotas while the global economy is dealing with the continued negative impact of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.”

The Biden administration ordered the Department of Energy to release another 10 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in November.

The move continues an effort launched by the administration in March. The U.S. and its allies announced the collective release of 60 million barrels of oil from their strategic reserves over the following months, seeking to alleviate some of the supply shortage and blunt price increases.

The additional release next month from the strategic reserve could blunt some of the price increase in November but cannot mitigate the overall impact, analysts said. The administration lacks an effective tool to dial back the extended price hike, they added.

“There is no operation warp speed for the energy industry,” said McNally.

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(NEW YORK) — The Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays are shaping up to be the most expensive for travelers in recent years, and experts say the clock is ticking to find last minute deals on flights.

Domestic airfare for Thanksgiving is averaging $281 roundtrip — up 25% from last year, according to Hopper. Christmas will be even more expensive, with prices averaging $435 roundtrip, 55% more than what tickets cost during the 2021 holiday.

The jump in prices is fallout from the pandemic, as airlines continue to scale up their schedules.

“Airlines have not built back their networks to the size they were in 2019. So, over the holidays right now we’re going to see about 5,000 less flights scheduled per day headed into Thanksgiving and Christmas,” Haley Berg, economist at Hopper, said in an interview with ABC News. “Both of these factors are going to mean there are fewer flights available to book and higher prices for each of those flights.”

The best times to book flights for the holidays is typically four months before travel — but consumers can still lock in a good prices over the coming weeks, according to Scott Keyes, founder of Scott’s Cheap Flights.

“If you’re hoping to travel this upcoming winter holidays, you’re going to want to try to get those flights here booked here in the next couple weeks,” Keyes told ABC News. “In the second half of October and November, flights are likely to get significantly more expensive than they are today.”

Using tools such as Google Flights to track prices can be helpful, Keyes said. Also taking advantage of the lack of change fees among airlines can help save money if you’ve already bought your tickets.

“If the price goes down, that lets you again cancel your original ticket, get your full travel credit for whatever you’d paid, and then turn around and rebook the same flight using that travel credit and have some left over that for future for a future trip,” Keyes said.

The holidays can also be a good time to use points and miles accrued over the year, but Keyes says it’s important to make sure you’re using them wisely.

“If it’s at least $0.02 per point, you’ve got the green light for me. If it’s less than that, then it’s really kind of up to you,” Keyes said. “The best value is going to be getting at least $0.02 per point.”

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(NEW YORK) — A surge of women in the manufacturing industry in recent years has punctured the stereotypes of who is working in American factories, data shows.

During the 2010s, the share of women in the manufacturing industry grew among all age groups, according to a Census Bureau analysis released on Monday. The representation of women dipped during the early months of the pandemic but rose back up toward pre-pandemic levels last year, the analysis showed.

Despite their progress, women make up only about 30% of manufacturing workers, according to Census Data.

The surge of women in the field has coincided with a revival for the industry overall. As of August, the manufacturing sector had added 461,000 jobs in 2022, putting the industry hundreds of thousands of jobs above where it stood before the pandemic-induced recession.

The inroads for women in the industry can partly be attributed to the attractive pay and benefits in manufacturing as well as the industry’s shift toward automation, which has generated jobs that require more education and less heavy lifting, experts told ABC News. But the industry’s male-dominated culture remains a barrier to women, they said.

Here are two reasons why the share of women in the manufacturing industry has grown, according to experts:

Manufacturing jobs pay well

A key reason for the growth of women in manufacturing stems from strong compensation in the industry, especially when compared with sectors typically associated with women, such as care and service work, said Tameshia Bridges-Manfield, vice president of Workforce Innovation at Jobs for the Future, a nonprofit organization focused on equitable economic advancement.

“Wages are significantly higher,” Bridges-Manfield told ABC News. “Women are looking at their options and what’s available.”

The average annual wage in production occupations, which range from auto manufacturing to oil and gas extraction, stands at $43,070, according to Bureau of Labor statistics data. By comparison, the average yearly wage for waiters and waitresses is $29,010, the data showed.

Jessica Deming, an organizer with The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, a labor union, spent seven years working at a Boeing plant in Portland, Oregon before leaving in June.

Prior to joining Boeing, Deming worked as both a bartender and a front desk manager at a hotel, earning a total of roughly $40,000 a year, she said. Within a year of working at Boeing, Deming made $30 per hour, which amounts to about $62,000 per year, she said. At the end of her tenure at Boeing, she made $47 per hour or nearly $100,000 per year, she said.

“As women in manufacturing, we were told a lie and a truth,” Deming told ABC News. “We were told being a machinist is really, really hard and women can’t do it. The truth is it’s really hard and the lie is women can’t do it.”

“As women are being more empowered, they realize they are being sold a bill of goods,” she added. “They realize the opportunities that lay before them.”

Shift to skilled manufacturing

Another reason behind the growth of women in manufacturing is the growth of automation in the industry, which has given rise to some jobs that require higher education and incur less physical strain, experts said.

“Too many Americans think of manufacturing as something of yesteryear,” Carolyn Lee, the president and executive director of the Manufacturing Institute, told ABC News. “It’s not dingy, dark and dangerous. It’s full of technology and opportunities for collaboration.”

Perception of the manufacturing industry is catching up to the changes, studies show. Sixty-four percent of consumers view manufacturing as innovative, an increase from 39% of respondents five years ago, according to a study released by Deloitte in March.

A further revival of the manufacturing sector could add $1.5 million jobs to the economy, with most of those jobs concentrated at the middle-skill level, a McKinsey study in August found

“Manufacturing jobs look different – it’s not the dirty, dark shop floor,” Bridges-Manfield said. “The exposure to manufacturing and what it is in 2022 may make it more appealing to women and girls in the long term.”

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(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court agreed this week to hear a challenge to a fundamental legal protection enjoyed by social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Tik Tok. The ruling could dramatically change how those platforms operate, even affecting search engines like Google, legal experts told ABC News.

The case concerns Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which protects social media platforms and other sites from legal liability that could result from content posted by users.

The law has drawn criticism from elected officials across the political spectrum. In a rare point of agreement, President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump have both called for the repeal of Section 230 — but for different reasons.

Typically, Democrats argue that Section 230 allows platforms to evade accountability for permitting harmful or misleading content, claiming the rule lets platforms off the hook for policing too little speech.

While Republicans take issue with what they consider big tech censorship, saying the legal protection allows the platforms to police too much speech without facing consequences.

Some big tech companies, like Facebook and Google, have supported reform of Section 230 that would raise the standard that platforms would need to meet in order to qualify for immunity. But the companies largely support preserving the law in some form to protect them from legal liability tied to user-generated content.

The case, Gonzalez v. Google LLC, concerns a lawsuit brought by the family of Nohemi Gonzalez, an American woman who was killed in an ISIS terrorist attack in Paris in 2015. The lawsuit against Google, the parent company of YouTube, alleges that YouTube recommended ISIS recruitment videos to users.

The case centers on whether Section 230 protects online platforms from legal liability when it comes to their recommended content.

If the high court rules in favor of Google, it would formally extend legal immunity to the algorithms at the heart of many social media products and search engines; but if the Supreme Court rules in favor of the plaintiff, the decision could expose the platforms to a raft of new legal vulnerabilities and produce major changes, legal experts told ABC News.

“The Supreme Court could make Section 230 a little more speech friendly or it could functionally eliminate it as a defense for services, which would radically reshape the internet,” Eric Goldman, a Santa Clara University law professor who studies Section 230, told ABC News.

“The Supreme Court really does have the future of the internet in its hands,” he added.

Google has called on lower court judges to dismiss the case, saying its operations are protected under Section 230. In a response to the Supreme Court petition, Google noted that YouTube’s user rules prohibit material that promotes terrorism and that the platform employs moderators to review content around the clock. There is no evidence that any of the Paris attackers received recommendations for ISIS videos from YouTube, Google said in the brief.

Here are two major ways that social media platforms and other sites could change as a result of this case, according to experts:

Altered recommendation algorithms

The online tool at the heart of the case is the recommendation algorithm. Importantly, such algorithms are used not only by social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter but also video sites like YouTube and search engines like Google, Goldman said.

A high court decision that eliminates legal protection for recommended content could significantly alter the type of posts that appear before users on Facebook’s News Feed or Twitter’s timeline, said Eugene Volokh, a professor of law at the University of California, Los Angeles.

“Sites would be a lot more cautious about those types of recommendations,” Volokh told ABC News. “Whenever they see something that might be potentially dangerous for them, they’ll exclude it from recommendations.”

Posts that could concern social media sites after the ruling include libelous comments and instructions for committing criminal acts, not just the terrorist propaganda at issue in the Supreme Court case, he said.

For example, consider a post featuring a news story critical of the Church of Scientology, Volokh said. If the Church of Scientology writes a letter to a social media site warning that the news story is libelous, the site may stop recommending posts with the story out of caution, he added.

“The platforms might decide to recommend cat videos instead,” Volokh said.

While such decisions could provide an advantage for well-off or litigious actors, the moves could also benefit the public interest, he added.

“What if the story about Scientology really is libelous? It’s possible,” he said.

Online platforms may respond to the court’s decision by shifting their recommendation algorithms in a different direction, however, instead ceding greater control to users as a way to lessen their own liability, said Adam Candeub, a professor at the University of Michigan School of Law.

“If users could say that they’re making a conscious effort to seek out messages rather than Facebook forcing them onto you,” he told ABC News. “Facebook isn’t a speaker.”

More professionally-generated content

A more risk-averse recommendation algorithm, for fear of legal liability, could lead to the recommendation of a larger proportion of professionally-made content, some experts said.

“If a company is deciding what to include in its news feed or a recommendations feed, then including a traditional mainstream news article is a pretty safe bet,” said Volokh, of UCLA.

Goldman, of Santa Clara University, agreed. Twitter, he said, could prevent all users without blue verification checks from posting on the platform or prevent their posts from appearing on the timeline.

“It’s inevitable that services will move away from user-generated content and toward a model like Netflix,” he said. “It’ll be professionally produced, it won’t have the diversity it has, it won’t give speech platforms to as many people and to compensate professional producers, it’s more likely to be paywalled.”

Other experts contested the extent to which such a shift would take effect. User-generated content will still make its way into the recommendation algorithm and go viral, Volokh said. After a court decision that limits Section 230, however, that content will more likely be innocuous than controversial.

“People haven’t stopped selling cars just because they face liability for legal defects on cars,” Volokh said. “They may buy insurance for facing risks to liability or may adjust to it being the cost of doing business.”

Candeub, of the University of Michigan, said the court ruling wouldn’t affect the experience on social media for a typical user.

“I don’t think it would change much, actually,” he said. “Platforms already have tremendous ability to control how content is promoted. They will have to make wiser decisions and be held accountable for those decisions.”

One solution, Volokh said, would allow the social media platforms to preserve products centered on recommendations while policing them tightly: More employees.

“They may need to hire a lot more people,” he said.

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(NEW YORK) — On a sunny August day, Rachel Dos played with her kids at a park in Livonia, Michigan. As they played, Dos chatted with other moms about growing her own vegetables to save money on groceries and seeking out wholesale butchers to buy meat.

“I’m trying to cut those costs and save that extra money, because every little bit counts with its inflation going on,” she told ABC News.

Pushing her daughter on the swings nearby, Noelle Wylin shared her own recent cost-savings tactics.

Wylin said she started making granola and jam at home when prices shot up. She talked about all the hours she spent researching how to refurbish old furniture instead of buying new pieces for her daughter’s bedroom.

She added that she felt it was unfair that so much more time and effort on managing the family budget was landing on her and other women.

“I think whenever something happens with the economy and things aren’t as optimistic, and [things become] more expensive, a lot of the burden gets shifted onto the mom,” Wylin said.

“If I were to buy granola that used to be $3, but now is $7, I have a choice to make. Do I cut it out? And then my daughter’s exposed to less food groups,” she said.

“Do I take on that labor?” she continued. “Home-make the granola, look up the recipes — figure out, should I do hemp parts in there or chia seeds or flax seeds? What’s gonna give her the Omega-3s? … As a woman, it feels like, you know, all the thrifty things that you can do to make the budget work, it gets shifted onto me.”

The additional hours spent at home trying to save money has made Wylin rethink her part-time work situation. At what point, she wondered, is the answer taking on more hours?

Research has long shown that inflation hits women harder, as women are more likely to have accumulated less wealth and earn wages that do not keep pace with inflation.

From groceries to clothing, women today also do the lion’s share of shopping for the home in married, heterosexual couples. The result, experts say, is that women are often the first in the household to see price changes for everyday items and experience the sticker-shock and worry that comes with those changes.

“COVID really showed us what we know intimately, that even when women work full-time, they are still shouldering the bulk of unpaid labor at home,” Brigid Schulte, director of the Better Life Lab at New America, a public policy think tank, told ABC News over the phone.

Schulte pointed to research — such as this study from researchers at the University of California, Berkley and Boston College, published in the journal PNAS in May 2021 — that shows that women who do the family grocery shopping tend to be the more pessimistic about the economy and future inflation.

According to Pew Research, which cited data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, from 2014-2016, more than 80% of married women in households with kids said they did most of the grocery shopping and meal prep at home.

Kimberly Palmer, a personal finance expert at NerdWallet and author of Smart Mom, Rich Mom, said that, not only are women the first to see food prices go up, but they tend to take on additional, unpaid labor as a result.

“All of that labor — and it is labor — of saving money falls largely on women,” she told ABC News over the phone.

She said that, right now, amid record inflation, she sees women looking up recipes, forgoing pre-packed snacks, and spending hours on sites hunting for used clothing and toys for kids.

“People are coming together more, so nothing goes to waste, but that takes so much effort and time and largely it is [on] women,” she continued.

As for cost-saving tips, Palmer agreed it is a tradeoff between investing time and saving money. She recommended planning out meals ahead to save money while grocery shopping, downloading apps that search for coupons and having staples on hand like frozen fish and tomato sauce to help avoid last minute takeout orders.

Schulte argued women should also strive for more equity at home, noting that she had seen in her work how resentment, often over labor at home, can lead to break-ups and how important it is for couples to learn how to talk.

“We can take a page here from same sex couples. They can’t fall back on traditional gender roles. You have to develop standards both can agree to,” she said.

As for the workplace, she said women should continue to fight for better wages and family-friendly policies like paid time-off. But she said the stress women are feeling at home right now “begs a much larger conversation about public policy” around child care, health care and workplace conditions.

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(NEW YORK) — Tesla CEO Elon Musk proposed the completion of a deal to acquire Twitter on Tuesday, reversing a monthslong effort to terminate the agreement.

Musk — the richest person in the world, according to Forbes — put forward a proposal to Twitter that would complete the deal at Musk’s original offer price of $54.20 a share at a total cost of roughly $44 billion, a person familiar with the proposal told ABC News.

In a statement, Twitter said it plans to agree to a deal at the price proposed by Musk.

“We received the letter from the Musk parties which they have filed with the SEC,” the company said on Tuesday. “The intention of the Company is to close the transaction at $54.20 per share.”

Twitter filed a lawsuit against Musk in July over his effort to terminate an acquisition agreement. That trial is set to begin in less than two weeks.

Musk reached an acquisition deal with Twitter in April, but over the ensuing weeks, he raised concerns over spam accounts on the platform, claiming Twitter had not provided him with an accurate estimate of their number.

Twitter rebuked that claim, saying it had provided Musk with information in accordance with conditions set out in the acquisition deal.

“This is a clear sign that Musk recognized heading into Delaware Court that the chances of winning vs. the Twitter board was highly unlikely and this $44 billion deal was going to be completed one way or another,” Dan Ives, a managing director of equity research at Wedbush, an investment firm, told ABC News Tuesday in an email.

The move from Musk marks the latest reversal of course in a saga that started in January when the billionaire first invested in Twitter. By March, Musk had become the largest stakeholder in Twitter and the following month the social media company announced that Musk would join its board. Days later, however, Musk said he had decided against joining the board.

In April, Musk offered to buy Twitter at $54.20 per share, valuing the company at about $44 billion. The offer amounted to a 38% premium above where the price stood a day before Musk’s investment in Twitter became public. Roughly 10 days later, Twitter accepted Musk’s offer.

One month later, however, Musk said he had put the deal “temporarily on hold,” citing concern over what he said was the prevalence of bot and spam accounts on the platform. Roughly two hours later, Musk said he was “still committed” to the deal.

Eventually, Musk moved to terminate the deal in July. Soon after, Twitter sued Musk in Chancery Court in Delaware to force him to complete the deal.

A scheduling decision made by the court in July — to hold the trial over five days in October — appeared to align more closely with a timeline requested by Twitter, which had sought a four-day trial in September. Musk asked the court to set a trial date no earlier than mid-February 2023.

Now, according to the deal, the court case is off if the two sides reach a deal.

Twitter stock closed Tuesday at $52.01, up 22% for the day.

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(NEW YORK) — Nearly a third of Americans say they’re not prepared for a recession and they aren’t taking action to get their finances ready for one, according to a recent Bankrate poll.

Experts are calling it “recession fatigue” and it might be why younger generations in particular are failing to take active steps to weather an economic downturn.

“Recession depression, recession fatigue — whatever you want to call it, the hits to Americans’ financial security keep on coming, first with the devastating coronavirus pandemic, followed by 40-year-high inflation and now the growing risk of another downturn,” said Bankrate.com analyst Sarah Foster. “Sustaining motivation for two-plus years to prepare for tough economic times can no doubt feel exhausting.”

Bankrate’s poll found 40% of Gen Z (ages 18-25) say they aren’t prepared for a recession and aren’t taking any steps to get their finances in order. That compares with 31% of unprepared millennials (ages 26-41), 30% of Gen X (ages 42-57) and 27% of baby boomers (ages 58-76).

Gen Zers also say the pandemic interrupted their formative years and feel slighted that major life events, like proms and high school and college graduations, had to be canceled.

“Recession fatigue is the awkward cousin of revenge spending,” Foster said. “Americans were deprived of so many activities that brought them joy. It’s kind of like financial apathy.”

Experts say some Americans may not be preparing for a recession because they simply don’t know how. Many have never experienced an environment of high inflation and rising interest rates. For many Gen Zers, the closest they’ve come to a severe economic downturn is seeing how the Great Recession of 2007-2009 affected their parents.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell recently warned that the central bank’s aggressive interest rate hikes to combat stubbornly high inflation may cause “some pain,” including a rise in the unemployment rate.

A growing number of Americans now believe the Fed will not be able to achieve a “soft landing,” or bringing prices under control without tipping the economy into recession. According to a recent survey from MassMutual, 49% of respondents said they think there will likely be a recession next year. Experts seem to agree. A survey from the audit, tax and advisory firm Grant Thornton finds 72% of CFOs think the Fed’s rate hikes will spark a recession.

While the best time to prepare for a recession is often before it even begins, it’s never too late to get your financial house in order.

Start by identifying unnecessary spending and decide where you can cut back. Consider cutting subscriptions for monthly magazines or streaming services, eat out less or stop ordering food delivery.

Put the money you’re saving into an emergency fund. As a general rule of thumb, try to have at least three to six months of expenses set aside in case of a job loss or unexpected medical expense.

Once you have your emergency fund, prioritize paying down your debt, especially balances on high interest credit cards.

The Fed’s rate hikes are pushing the cost of unpaid balances even higher. Over the past six months, the average annual percentage rate on a credit card has jumped from 16.17% to 16.65%, closing in on a record high of 17.14% in 2019, according to the Fed.

If you’re carrying balances on multiple credit cards and you have good credit, consider consolidating them into a 0% interest rate transfer card or consider taking out a lower interest personal loan to pay off your higher interest credit card debt.

Finally, find a side hustle you enjoy. That doesn’t necessarily mean taking on a second job. It could mean turning your hobby, like jewelry making or photography, into an extra revenue maker.

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(NEW YORK) — Tesla CEO Elon Musk proposed the completion of a deal to acquire Twitter on Tuesday, reversing a monthslong effort to terminate the agreement.

Musk — the richest person in the world, according to Forbes — put forward a proposal to Twitter that would complete the deal at Musk’s original offer price of $54.20 a share at a total cost of roughly $44 billion, a person familiar with the proposal told ABC News.

Twitter filed a lawsuit against Musk in July over his effort to terminate an acquisition agreement. That trial is set to begin in less than two weeks.

Musk reached an acquisition deal with Twitter in April, but over the ensuing weeks, he raised concerns over spam accounts on the platform, claiming Twitter had not provided him with an accurate estimate of their number.

Twitter rebuked that claim, saying it had provided Musk with information in accordance with conditions set out in the acquisition deal.

“This is a clear sign that Musk recognized heading into Delaware Court that the chances of winning vs. the Twitter board was highly unlikely and this $44 billion deal was going to be completed one way or another,” Dan Ives, a managing director of equity research at Wedbush, an investment firm, told ABC News Tuesday in an email.

The move from Musk marks the latest reversal of course in a saga that started in January when the billionaire first invested in Twitter. By March, Musk had become the largest stakeholder in Twitter and the following month the social media company announced that Musk would join its board. Days later, however, Musk said he had decided against joining the board.

In April, Musk offered to buy Twitter at $54.20 per share, valuing the company at about $44 billion. The offer amounted to a 38% premium above where the price stood a day before Musk’s investment in Twitter became public. Roughly 10 days later, Twitter accepted Musk’s offer.

One month later, however, Musk said he had put the deal “temporarily on hold,” citing concern over what he said was the prevalence of bot and spam accounts on the platform. Roughly two hours later, Musk said he was “still committed” to the deal.

Eventually, Musk moved to terminate the deal in July. Soon after, Twitter sued Musk in Chancery Court in Delaware to force him to complete the deal.

A scheduling decision made by the court in July — to hold the trial over five days in October — appeared to align more closely with a timeline requested by Twitter, which had sought a four-day trial in September. Musk asked the court to set a trial date no earlier than mid-February 2023.

Now, it appears the court case may not take place, if the two sides reach a deal.

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(NEW YORK) — As American families face mounting food prices amid rising inflation, fast food companies like McDonald’s are looking for more ways to add value.

“The impact of inflation is really challenging; there’s not a sector that’s really immune to the challenges,” McDonald’s Chief Marketing and Customer Experience Officer Tariq Hassan said in an exclusive interview with ABC News on Tuesday.

“Our fans have been really clear to us that that value that they’ve come to expect from McDonald’s has never frankly been more important to them,” he continued. “We’re committed to continuing to have that ability to provide our customers those kind of offers, whether it’s through our everyday value meal or unique offers we’re making through national or local promotions or exclusive offers through the app.”

When asked if the company has plans to further reduce prices to help customers struggling with high food costs, Hassan reiterated that they are “making sure those value offers are still on the menu.”

He also explained that McDonald’s looks to add value beyond just monetary savings deals.

“You connect through great unique experiences — and we’ve been doing that whether through unique merchandise offers — we did a program in July where we gave fans exclusive access to concerts through the app,” he said, adding that their latest offer ties in culture, art and nostalgia.

McDonald’s has raised prices in several countries due to increasing costs of goods and global supply chain issues, but when asked if U.S. customers can expect to see similar increases, Hassan said, “We try to monitor when we do those things in a way that they’re not hitting the customer too hard, but the reality is we continue to provide our customers with great value — making sure we have offers available.”

The newest offer from the Golden Arches is a Cactus Plant Flea Market Box, which Hassan said was inspired by the “universal familiar experience that we all had as children” when you got a Happy Meal.

“We thought it’d be a great way to capture that joy and wrap it up in a great experience for adults,” he said of the collaboration with CPFM, which created the design of the box and the McDonaldland or Cactus Buddy figurines.

“You go through that same kid-like experience. You get to choose a Big Mac or 10-piece McNugget with world-famous fries and a drink,” Hassan said of the new meal deal.

The limited time boxes hit restaurants nationwide on Oct. 3 and are available while supplies last.

Plus, fans who buy the box on the McDonald’s app will automatically be entered for a chance to score exclusive merchandise for free each week, including T-shirts and hoodies, a Grimace chair and custom McDonald’s sign from the set of a TV commercial as grand prizes.

There is also a full line of limited-edition CPFM x McDonald’s gear available online.

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(WASHINGTON) — Within days, millions of Americans are expected to be able to take their first steps to cancel up to $20,000 in debt under President Joe Biden’s federal student loan forgiveness program — a multibillion-dollar initiative cheered on by advocates but which already faces legal challenges.

The Biden administration announced in August that single borrowers who earn under $125,000 can qualify for $10,000 in federal school loan debt cancellation while those who are married qualify for that amount if their joint income is under $250,000 (as calculated by gross adjusted income from 2020 or 2021).

Recipients of Pell grants — which are designed for people with “exceptional financial need,” according to the government — are eligible for an additional $10,000 to be canceled, or $20,000 total

Of the 43 million federal student loan borrowers who have accrued more than $500 billion in debt, most will need to fill out an application to see if they qualify for forgiveness. Only about eight million of those borrowers will automatically have their debt canceled, according to the White House, because the Department of Education already has their income information.

On Thursday, the Biden administration quietly excluded some borrowers of Perkins loans and Federal Family Education Loans (FFEL). Both groups formerly qualified for loan cancellation. While some four million Americans in total have these loans, an administration official told ABC News that only about 770,000 people will be affected by the change.

At a Sept. 26 briefing, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said there would be additional updates on the application process “very soon.” The administration maintains that the “simple process” will open in early October.

Outside experts are more skeptical of how smoothly the program will run.

“When you see the huge numbers that the administration projects will benefit from this initiative, that all depends on people being able to take these steps and have that debt relief applied to their account in a way that actually works,” said Mike Pierce, executive director of the Student Borrower Protection Center, an advocacy group.

Here are the key dates and details, so far, for applying for student loan forgiveness:

Early October: Loan forgiveness applications open

Applications for student loan cancellation will be released in early October, according to the DOE, though a more specific date has not yet been confirmed.

The department is recommending that everyone file an application, even those who might already qualify for automatic forgiveness.

To be notified when the process has officially opened, the department recommends borrowers sign up at their subscription page. (Private companies like Navient and Nelnet, which help administer the loans and repayments, are likewise referring borrowers to a government portal created to share updates on student loans.)

It’s unclear how many of the 43 million borrowers will submit applications. In cost estimates, the White House has said it could be as many as 75% of eligible people or as few as 50%.

“It will all depend on how good we are getting the word out about this opportunity and making sure that people actually do raise their hands to get in the line to get their debts canceled,” Pierce said.

Nov. 15: The recommended deadline to apply

DOE officials recommend that borrowers apply for student loan forgiveness by Nov. 15 in order to receive relief before the pandemic-era payment pause expires on Dec. 31 and interest begins accruing again.

The department said they expect a four-to-six-week turnaround for forgiveness.

However, some advocates like Pierce worry that may not be feasible, given the track record the federal government has with processing debt relief.

The DOE has not released details regarding a plan for borrowers whose applications are still being processed by the time the payment pause lifts after December.

Jan. 1: Student loan payments resume

Jan. 1 is when regular student loan payments will resume after a three-year moratorium first enacted under President Donald Trump during the onset of COVID-19. If a borrower’s entire balance is not erased by the federal forgiveness program, interest will begin accruing again on the remaining sum.

Dec. 31, 2023 : The program application sunsets

The application period for student loan forgiveness will close on Dec. 31, 2023.

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