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(NEW YORK) — Days away from the first ballots cast in the 2024 primary election, former President Donald Trump holds a commanding lead over his Republican rivals and tops President Joe Biden in some head-to-head polls.

Trump’s standing appears to stem in part from widespread frustration over Biden’s handling of the economy. Only 30% of voters approve of what Biden has done on that issue, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll from the fall.

While such voter sentiment has drawn significant attention, less focus has been paid to what Trump plans to do if he takes the reins of the economy next year.

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

Here’s what to know about Trump’s economic proposals for a potential second term and how some economists view them:

Trade

Trump plans to ratchet up a confrontational trade policy instituted during his first term, promising to impose tariffs on most imported goods.

Speaking with Fox Business in August, Trump said the tax on imported items could ultimately stand at 10%.

Trump also plans to tighten constraints on China-made products, including a “4-year plan to phase out all Chinese imports of essential goods,” according to a set of proposals released in February.

Stephen Moore, who previously served as an economic adviser to Trump and says he has helped shape Trump’s 2024 agenda, told ABC News that the tariff policies would hinder foreign producers and make domestic industries more competitive.

In turn, the policy would create jobs and boost manufacturing in the U.S., Moore said.

“Trump wants jobs here in America,” Moore added. “He wants things made in America.”

Many economists, including Moore, believe that a near-universal tariff would raise the prices of many consumer goods, however.

The price increases would primarily hurt low- and middle-income households, since consumer spending makes up a disproportionately large share of their expenses, Alan Blinder, a professor of economics at Princeton University and a former member of the Council of Economic Advisors under President Bill Clinton, told ABC News.

Gregory Daco, chief economist at global consulting firm EY, noted that the elevated prices could also weigh on consumer spending and in turn slow economic growth. Plus, he added, the potential shift toward American manufacturing would carry sizable up-front expenses.

“There’s no such thing as a free lunch,” Daco told ABC News. “It takes time to build factories and it costs a lot.”

Tax cuts

The revenue generated by a sweeping set of tariffs would allow the Trump administration to reduce taxes for individuals and companies, the Trump campaign said in February.

But the details of a tax cut proposal remain uncertain, Moore said. “This is all in motion,” Moore added. “Nothing has been decided.”

Trump is committed, however, to extending the tax cuts signed into law during his first term when they begin to phase out in 2025, Moore added.

“He clearly wants to make sure the tax rates don’t go up as they’re supposed to do if they let his tax plan expire,” Moore said.

However, a recent report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, or CBO, said that making permanent the provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 would add $3.5 trillion to the nation’s deficit.

The U.S. currently holds roughly $31.4 trillion in debt. In a report in February, the CBO projected the federal debt will grow nearly $20 trillion by the end of 2033.

“Extending the tax cuts would only worsen the already deep budget deficit problem that we’re dealing with,” Blinder said.

While the economy registered strong growth over the year after Trump’s tax cut took effect, the measure accounted for little or none of the performance, according to a study from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service in 2019.

“The tax cuts did not create investment or productivity miracles,” Blinder said. “Nobody should’ve expected that they would.”

Energy

Trump has vowed to slash U.S. energy and electricity costs by ramping up domestic production of fossil fuels.

On the campaign trail, Trump has summed up this approach with a slogan: “Drill, baby, drill.”

The agenda includes tax breaks for producers of oil, gas and coal.

Trump also plans to do away with much of the $369 billion Inflation Reduction Act, the largest climate measure in U.S. history, which includes incentives for clean energy projects and the purchase of electric vehicles, the Financial Times reported in November.

Under Biden, meanwhile, the U.S. set a record for oil output this year. As of December, the country was on pace to increase its supply of oil by an average of 1.4 million barrels per day, according to the International Energy Agency, a government group.

Blinder, of Princeton, questioned a potential expansion in production of fossil fuels, which make up a key driver of climate change. Economic policy should strike a balance between productivity and environmental concerns, Blinder said.

“One basic principle of taxation is you want to tax bad things and subsidize at least some good things,” he added. “I find it hard to see that with providing tax breaks for fossil fuels.”

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(NEW YORK) — TGI Fridays is starting off the new year by shuttering dozens of locations to support the restaurant chain’s long-term growth strategy, which it said includes appointing a former stakeholder to lead select regional locations “into a new phase of revitalization.”

The Dallas-based casual dining bar and grill chain announced it will soon be closing 36 of its “under-performing corporate-owned restaurants” in the U.S. and selling off “eight previously corporate-owned restaurants in the Northeast to former CEO Ray Blanchette.”

While TGI Fridays did not specify in the release which U.S. markets would be impacted by the closures, it underscored that there will be “more than 1,000 transfer opportunities,” which the company said “represents over 80% of total impacted employees.”

Since 2014, TGI Fridays restaurants have depleted nationwide by more than 50%, down from 500 eateries to just 233.

The restaurant chain, known for its social, weekend-ready atmosphere and low-price happy hour specials, called the new year moves “an era of transformation,” with new transitions in place to drive revenue while remaining committed to the overall guest experience.

Ray Risley, U.S. president and COO, said in a statement that TGI Friday’s has “identified opportunities to optimize and streamline our operations to ensure we are best positioned to meet and exceed on that brand promise.”

The sale to Blanchette comes on the heels of a recent move to bolster TGI Fridays’ leadership team, which included appointments of Weldon Spangler as CEO, Risley as U.S. president and COO, and Nik Rupp as president and COO of international, and CFO.

“As we continue along our path of transformation to revitalize the Fridays brand and implement a long-term growth strategy, we see a bright future for TGI Fridays,” Spangler stated in the press release. “We are at the helm of a pivotal moment that will allow us to explore boundless advancement, expansion, and innovation to keep delivering ‘That Fridays Feeling’ that our fans know and love.”

Risley added that by strengthening the TGI Friday’s franchise model and closing underperforming stores, “we are creating an unprecedented opportunity for Fridays to drive forward its vision for the future.”

TGI Fridays did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment as to which locations and how many total employees would be impacted by the closures.

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(NEW YORK) — Starbucks will become the first nationwide coffee retailer to accept reusable cups for mobile orders, effective immediately, the coffeehouse chain said in a release Wednesday. Customers will now also have the same reusable cup option for drive-thru orders for the first time.

Coffee drinkers can now fill a “clean, personal cup for every visit,” whether their order comes via drive-thru, mobile, or cafe purchase at all company-operated and participating licensed stores, according to the release.

“With the majority of Starbucks beverages enjoyed on the go, this milestone unlocks a big opportunity for customers to choose reusables and supports Starbucks’ commitment to reduce waste by 50 percent by 2030,” Starbucks said in the release.

The company also noted the effort to more broadly encourage reusable cups falls in line with Starbucks’ 2022 goal of reducing cup waste sent to landfills.

“At Starbucks, we envision a future where every beverage can be served in a reusable cup,” Michael Kobori, Starbucks chief sustainability officer, said in a statement.

“Offering customers more options to use a personal cup when they visit Starbucks marks tangible progress towards the future. We know our customers are passionate about the planet, and now, they can join us in our efforts to give more than we take, no matter how they order,” Kobori’s statement continued.

The new program comes with a financial incentive as well. Customers who use a personal cup will receive a ten-cent discount on their beverage. For Starbucks Rewards customers in the U.S., participating customers will receive 25 Bonus Stars.

The release instructs customers at drive-thru locations to notify the barista that they have a reusable cup. Next, “baristas will collect customers’ personal cup without the lid using a contactless vessel to ensure hygiene and safety. The beverage will be returned the same way.”

For mobile ordering, customers should select “Customization” and “Personal Cup” and hand their personal cups to the barista once they arrive at the store.

The release emphasizes the importance of making sure personal cups are.

“For customers’ safety and ours, baristas cannot rinse personal cups in Starbucks equipment sinks. For this reason, no dirty cups will be accepted,” the company said in the release.

According to Starbucks, after a “personal cup test” at 200 drive-thrus across Colorado last spring, the company decided to go forward with the program nationwide.

“As long as we are following all our procedures and steps, it doesn’t add any more time, and it is actually making customers happier,” said Brook, a partner who worked at a store that participated in the Colorado test, per the release. “This has been a really big hit.”

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(NEW YORK) — Dozens of families who are suing Snap Inc., the parent company of Snapchat, won a legal victory Tuesday when a judge in California ruled their lawsuit against the social media giant may continue.

Over 60 family members of children who allegedly obtained illegal drugs through Snapchat are part of the lawsuit, Neville et al v. Snap Inc., which was first filed in October 2022. In all but two cases, the child died after ingesting the drugs allegedly obtained through Snapchat.

Snap previously attempted to get the lawsuit dismissed back in October, but Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Lawrence P. Riff ruled Tuesday that the parents’ lawsuit may continue to trial.

In his ruling, the judge overruled Snap’s objections to 12 of 16 claims in the lawsuit.

The lawsuit alleges that “Snap and Snapchat’s role in illicit drug sales to teens was the foreseeable result of the designs, structures, and policies Snap chose to implement to increase its revenues,” according to court filings shared by the Social Media Victims Law Center, which is representing the families.

Some of Snapchat’s features that set it apart from other apps — like automatically deleted messages, geolocation functionality and the My Eyes Only privacy feature — make illegal activities harder to track and are especially attractive to drug dealers, the lawsuit alleges.

Television host Dr. Laura Berman and her husband Sam Chapman’s son Sammy was 16 years old and a junior in high school when he died in 2021 after overdosing on a fentanyl-laced pill from a person he allegedly met on Snapchat, according to Chapman and Berman.

“He did not mean to take fentanyl. He did not want to take fentanyl,” Berman, whose family is part of the lawsuit, told ABC News in December. “But what he took was counterfeit, and it was fentanyl.”

Amy Neville, the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit, told ABC News’ Good Morning America in October that her son Alexander was 14 years old and preparing for his freshman year of high school when he died in 2020 after taking a fentanyl-laced oxycodone pill that Neville said he allegedly obtained from a person he met on Snapchat.

“Kids are losing their lives, and they swept it under the rug. They had their chance to do the right thing, and they chose profits over people,” Neville told GMA, referring to Snapchat. “The way that we are going to bring Snapchat and other social media companies to the table is through lawsuits and legislation. That is plain and simple.”

In response to the judge’s ruling allowing the lawsuit to move forward, Ashley Adams, a spokeswoman for Snap Inc., told GMA the social media company will “continue to defend” itself in court.

“The fentanyl epidemic has taken the lives of too many people and we have deep empathy for families who have suffered unimaginable losses,” Adams said in a statement. “At Snap, we are working diligently to stop drug dealers from abusing our platform, and deploy technologies to proactively identify and shut down dealers, support law enforcement efforts to help bring dealers to justice, and educate our community and the general public about the dangers of fentanyl.”

Adams continued, “While we are committed to advancing our efforts to stop drug dealers from engaging in illegal activity on Snapchat, we believe the plaintiffs’ allegations are both legally and factually flawed and will continue to defend that position in court.”

Snap Inc. has said previously that the company uses “cutting-edge technology” in trying to keep users safe. The company has also pointed to its work supporting law enforcement investigations into drug dealers, and its work creating a Family Center to help provide parents with more visibility into their kids’ actions on Snapchat.

Matthew P. Bergman, the attorney for the families, said that Tuesday’s ruling marks a “first” in the effort to “hold social media companies accountable.”

“Today’s ruling marks the first time a court has allowed parents to hold social media companies accountable for facilitating the sale of deadly drugs,” Berman said in a statement Tuesday. “Fentanyl is the largest killer of kids under 18 and social media plays a huge role the deadly drug sales that have resulted in a 350% increase in teen deaths over the past three years.”

He continued, “Parents who lost children to fentanyl poisoning will now be able to move forward with lawsuit, uncover evidence of Snapchat’s contribution to illegal drug sales and by holding Snap legally accountable spare other families the unspeakable grief they experience every day.”

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(NEW YORK) — Mortgage rates have plummeted in recent weeks, boosting the prospects of homebuyers previously stifled by high borrowing costs.

Many forecasters predict mortgage rates will drop further, however, since the Federal Reserve expects to cut its benchmark interest rate this year.

Those circumstances pose a quandary for buyers: Jump into a newly attractive market that promises thousands of dollars in gains or wait for the possibility of an even more favorable one.

Homebuyers would be well-served by a leap into the current market, since the movement of mortgage rates often proves difficult to predict and purchasers reserve the ability to refinance if rates continue to fall, experts told ABC News.

But that approach does carry risks, some experts added, noting the loss of additional time to pad one’s finances as well as the possibility of a decline in home value after the purchase if the market worsens.

“If you need to buy a property, go ahead and buy it,” Marti Subrahmanyam, a professor of finance and business at New York University, told ABC News. “Don’t try to time the market.”

Last year, mortgage rates reached their highest level in more than two decades.

But rates have declined sharply over the past few months. As of last week, the average interest rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage stood at roughly 6.6%, according to FreddieMac. That amounts to more than a percentage point drop from a peak reached in October.

Each percentage point decrease in a mortgage rate can take away thousands or tens of thousands of dollars in costs each year, depending on the price of the house.

The fall of mortgage rates coincided with an announcement from the Fed that it expects to cut interest rates this year by an amount equivalent to three quarter-point reductions.

Such plans would reverse a near-historic series of rate increases over the past year that sent mortgage rates soaring.

Mortgage rates closely track with 10-year treasury bond yields, which last month reached lows last seen in August. Those yields are highly sensitive to the Fed’s interest rate moves.

“Treasury rates are coming down — and as treasury rates come down, so will mortgage rates,” Susan Wachter, a professor of real estate at University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, told ABC News.

Even though mortgage rates could continue to fall, experts said, it makes sense to jump into the market because shifts in rates often defy expectations.

“I would be wary of advising prospective homebuyers to delay their purchase in hopes of better terms in the future,” Julia Fonseca, a professor at the Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “It’s very hard to time the market.”

Lu Liu, a professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, echoed this view.

“Households should make their housing decisions in line with their needs,” Liu told ABC News. “It’s very hard to accurately predict long-term interest rates.”

Plus, experts added, homebuyers can opt to refinance their homes at relatively low cost if rates move further downward.

“It’s quite efficient to refinance,” Wachter said.

This approach does carry some downsides, however, some experts noted.

If homebuyers move quickly, they cut down the time available to add to their savings before taking on the significant expense of a mortgage.

Purchasers also run the risk of snatching up a house right before the market declines, in which case the home could lose value almost immediately.

“The risks are that housing prices may plummet,” Wachter said, noting that such an outcome would likely require a severe recession that triggers layoffs and tanks demand for homes.

Optimism has grown about the outlook for the U.S. economy, however. Experts widely expect the economy to slow but not shrink over the next year.

“That risk of significant declines in housing prices I believe is off the table,” Wachter said.

Ultimately, the decision to buy a house requires a case-by-case assessment of factors that extend well beyond borrowing costs, some experts said.

“Whether now is a good time to jump back in depends on your personal situation,” Liu said.

 

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(NEW YORK) — Days after Elon Musk bought X for $44 billion last year, he strolled through the glass doors at company headquarters carrying a kitchen sink.

“Let that sink in,” he said.

Now, Musk faces a difficult reality of his own: A sharp decline in the value of X totaling tens of billions of dollars in losses.

The mutual fund Fidelity values the company at less than a third of its worth at the time of the acquisition, Axios recently reported.

That revelation adds urgency to a lingering question among some observers: Would Musk sell?

An ongoing advertiser boycott and continued payments on the company’s debt pose challenges that could make a sale attractive, experts told ABC News.

Musk, however, is unlikely to sell because economic incentives appear secondary in his approach to the company and such a move could be construed as an acknowledgment of defeat, some experts said. Plus, they added, the losses have put Musk in a weak position if he were to unload the ailing asset.

“It’s never a good look if you’re trying to sell a melting ice cube to the ice market,” Eric Talley, a law professor at Columbia University who focuses on mergers and acquisitions, told ABC News.

X, formerly known as Twitter, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Before the acquisition, advertising sales made up the vast majority of the company’s income, earnings reports showed.

Since Musk acquired the company last year, advertising revenue has fallen about 50%, Musk said in a post on X in July.

That decline came before a wave of advertising exits from X in November after Musk made an antisemitic remark on X. The ad exodus included Comcast, IBM, Warner Bros. Discovery and Disney, the parent company of ABC News.

Musk apologized for the post in November but added a crude denunciation of the advertisers that had withdrawn from the platform in protest.

“I don’t want them to advertise,” Musk said at The New York Times DealBook Summit in New York. “If someone is going to blackmail me with advertising money, go f— yourself.”

Musk, who describes himself as a “free speech absolutist,” has characterized the acquisition of X as an effort to establish a digital town square unencumbered by limits on expression.

On top of that, he holds an ambitious long-term vision for Twitter as an “everything app” that serves not only as a messaging and media-sharing platform but also a versatile tool in which users pay friends, purchase products and book reservations.

“It’s very hard to say whether he’d be willing to sell, and that’s because it’s not obvious to me he’s behaving as an economic actor,” Ann Lipton, a professor at Tulane University who studies corporate law, told ABC News. “He might view a sale at a discount as something like an admission of failure.”

Paul Barrett, a professor at New York University Law School and deputy director of the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, put it a different way: “Selling X at its current much-reduced value would constitute an enormous blow to a tech mogul who has an enormous ego.”

Still, some experts said Musk would go forward with a partial sale as soon as this year, precisely because he needs to raise funds to expand the capabilities of the platform.

“He’ll rip the Band-Aid off but raise outside capital,” Dan Ives, a managing director of equity research at the investment firm Wedbush, told ABC News.

To purchase the company, Musk borrowed roughly $12.5 billion from major lenders such as Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Barclays.

So far, Musk has made hundreds of millions in payments on that debt. But the revenue losses have put pressure on him to renegotiate the terms of the loans, said Talley.

If the debt load persists and revenue declines further, Musk will encounter an increasingly difficult position.

“That’s when people get antsy,” Talley said.

Speaking at the conference in November, Musk acknowledged that the company faces existential risks but indicated a willingness to endure them.

“What the advertising boycott is going to do is it’s going to kill the company,” Musk added. “The whole world will know that those advertisers killed the company and we will document it in great detail.”

 

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(NEW YORK) — Over 675,000 cans of baby formula are being recalled for possible bacterial contamination, the company announced.

Reckitt and Mead Johnson Nutrition, the makers of Enfamil and Nutramigen, announced Saturday it was voluntarily recalling cans of Nutramigen Hypoallergenic Infant Formula Powder, a specialty formula given to infants with cow’s milk allergy, following product sample testing outside of the U.S.

“When we were alerted in December to a potential for cross-contamination in product samples outside the U.S., both Reckitt/Mead Johnson and the US FDA tested samples from the batch in question and all tests came back negative,” a Reckitt and Mead Johnson Nutrition spokesperson told ABC News in a statement. “However, Reckitt/Mead Johnson understands the incredible responsibility we have in providing what is often the sole nutrition for infants, and there can be no short cuts for this vulnerable population – therefore, we chose to recall select batches of Nutramigen out of an abundance of caution.”

“Parents should be reassured that they can continue to feed their infants with Reckitt/Mead Johnson Nutrition products, including other Nutramigen powder formula batches, with confidence,” the spokesperson added.

Currently, only Nutramigen Hypoallergenic Infant Formula 12.6 and 19.8 oz cans made in June 2023 are included in the recall. Reckitt said Nutramigen’s liquid formulas and their other nutrition products are not impacted by the recall.

The infant formula cans are being recalled due to possible contamination of Cronobacter sakazakii, a type of bacteria often found in dry goods such as powdered milk, infant formula and herbal tea, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the same type of bacteria behind past baby and infant formula recalls, including Abbott’s recall that shut down their Sturgis, Michigan plant in 2022.

The CDC notes that cronobacter sakazakii infection is rare but can be especially dangerous for babies under 2 months, premature babies and babies with weakened immune systems, as well as older adults over the age of 65. Cronobacter sakazakii infections in babies can potentially cause fever, very low energy, difficulty feeding, seizures, inflammation around the brain and spinal cord, and can be life-threatening.

Reckitt and Mead Johnson Nutrition said they have not received any reports of illnesses.

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(NEW YORK) — The recent headlines for electric vehicles have been brutal: Sales are dropping. Momentum is slipping. Consumers are souring on the technology.

Experts say, however, that 2024 may be the year to finally pull the plug on gasoline-powered cars and trucks.

“Five years ago we did not have the array of EVs we have now. They account for 10% of the market,” John Voelcker, a contributing editor at Car and Driver, told ABC News. “The growth rate may flatten … but the cost of EVs will continue to come down.”

Price slashing by Tesla and its rivals has definitely juiced sales of battery-powered vehicles. In November, dealers increased the discounts on EVs, with the average transaction price (ATP) dropping 8.9%, according to Cox Automotive. EV incentives totaled less than 2% of ATP a year ago.

New models like the Kia EV9, Chevy Blazer EV and Volvo EX30 could also help convince Americans to permanently ditch their V6 and V8 engines.

Moreover, the decision by nearly every automaker to adopt the North American Charging Standard (NACS) port, which Tesla developed, will likely improve the charging experience and ameliorate range anxiety. Voelcker, though bullish on EVs, argued that automakers and the industry overall may have overestimated Americans’ initial fascination with them.

“Some of the manufacturers got overly ambitious,” Voelcker said. “It may be difficult to get to 50% [of new EV sales] by 2030. We’ve moved beyond the early adopters now.”

According to Ivan Drury, Edmunds’ director of insights, automakers — Tesla included — are selling EVs at a loss. The move by Hertz and other rental car companies to stop adding EVs to their fleets has contributed to sluggish sales, he argued.

“EVs are getting harder to move,” Drury told ABC News. “Earlier in the year they were still going for above MSRP. Once the average interest rate hit 7% EVs began to linger on the lot and now require a lot more work from automakers and dealers to sell.”

Ford announced in December it would cut 2024 production targets for its F-150 Lightning pickup truck, building 50% fewer units each week. Jim Farley, the company’s CEO, cited weaker-than-expected demand and a patchy national charging network for the decision. Ford has sold slightly more than 20,000 Lightnings since the end of November.

Last month, German automaker Audi said it would pare back its electric vehicle rollout in the coming year as growth slows, according to Bloomberg. After repeated delays, the company’s Q6 e-tron will finally enter production in the second quarter of 2024.

“Every EV on the market is being battered by bad news,” said Drury. “Nothing is meeting expectations. A new set of buyers now mean a new set of concerns.”

Ed Kim, president and chief analyst at AutoPacific, predicts EV sales in the U.S. will reach 1.5 million units in 2024 and two million by 2025, a slightly more conservative outlook compared to other forecasters.

“We’re not seeing the level of frenzied activity we saw earlier. There’s a slight tapering of demand and partially a market correction,” Kim told ABC News. “The rate of adoption has tailed off a little bit but it’s still growing. This is not a catastrophe for EVs. Don’t get panicked yet.”

He added, “A lot of automakers overestimated demand for high-priced EVs. But that does not mean EV demand is dropping.”

In fact, the Tesla Model Y was one of the top-selling vehicles in all of 2023, a huge triumph for EVs, Kim pointed out. Tesla, which commands 60% of the electric vehicle auto market, will roll out styling updates and substantial improvements to the Model Y and Model 3 next year, a move to ward off the competition, Kim said.

“We have an EV from a manufacturer that didn’t exist 15 years ago and it will be either the first or second top-selling non-pickup vehicle in 2023,” he said. “That’s shocking especially as EV demand is leveling off.”

Kim and Voelcker agreed that the launch of more three-row electric SUVs, a top priority for families with young children, will be needed to shore up sales. The EV9, Lucid Gravity, VinFast VF9 and ID.Buzz could fill the void.

“2024 will be the year we see three-row EVs coming to the marketplace,” said Kim.

Voelcker said the Volvo EX30, a compact SUV that starts under $35,000, would be a significant player in the market, giving mainstream Americans access to an affordable EV with 275 miles of range.

“The EX30 could be significant,” he said.

Voelcker, however, doubted that the Cybertruck, Tesla’s angular electric pickup, would sway traditional truck buyers.

“Call me when Tesla produces the first 10,000 units,” he said. “I continue to think the Cybertruck will be extremely difficult to get into volume production.”

Brands that have been more cautious on electrification are readying their first EVs for consumers. Jaguar Land Rover, for example, recently opened pre-orders for its electric Range Rover SUV.

“It’s going to be a real Range Rover, meaning it’s fully off-road capable … and it will address all the functional needs of a Range Rover without compromise, plus deliver on performance,” Joe Eberhardt, president and CEO of Jaguar Land Rover North America, told ABC News. “Up to this point all the competitors out there have made compromises. We won’t make any.”

Tyson Jominy, vice president of data and analytics at J.D. Power, anticipates EV market share to rise to 12% next year — though that percentage could be higher, he suggested. The Inflation Reduction Act negatively impacted sales by slashing the number of electrics eligible for federal tax credits, he asserted. The lack of cheap models also persuaded consumers to stay away.

“EV sales will go up next year, but there are challenges,” he said.

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(NEW YORK) — Wildfire smoke bathed New York City’s front-line workers in fumes, atmospheric rivers forced hundreds of thousands of California homes into darkness, and hurricane Idalia battered tourism in Florida.

Natural disasters nationwide in 2023 focused attention on the life-or-death stakes of climate change but also underscored a grave risk of a different type: economic distress.

A landmark report released by the federal government last month put a price tag on extreme weather events, saying they impose nearly $150 billion in costs for the United States each year.

Those losses fall disproportionately on low-income and historically marginalized people, worsening inequality, the Fifth National Climate Assessment found.

While the economic consequences of climate change became more clear this year, the response from companies, economic policymakers and private investors was mixed, analysts told ABC News.

The largest climate legislation in the nation’s history, the Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, helped unleash a wave of clean energy projects and record sales of electric vehicles, some experts said.

However, a backlash against environmental, social and governance investing, or ESG, brought a decline in financing for funds focused on those issues. Meanwhile, the U.S. produced a record amount of oil, even though the burning of fossil fuels makes up a key driver of climate change, experts added.

“There are reasons to be both optimistic and pessimistic,” Glenn Rudebusch, a former economist at the Federal Reserve, told ABC News. “Policymakers have made some slow, halting progress. But progress has been made.”

This year marked the first since the IRA took effect, offering tax credits meant to incentivize private investment in clean energy, such as wind and solar, and, in theory, boost U.S. production of renewables.

Roughly 280 clean energy projects representing $282 billion of investment were announced over the measure’s first year, Goldman Sachs found in a report in October. In all, the study said, such projects created about 175,000 jobs.

New initiatives included a battery manufacturing plant in Georgia, a solar complex in Alabama and the expansion of a wind turbine facility in Colorado, American Clean Power, an industry group representing green energy companies, said in a report last December.

“The uptake has been vastly greater than what the Biden White House anticipated,” Robert Stavins, a professor of energy and economic development at Harvard University, told ABC News.

Alongside the growth of its clean energy industry, however, the U.S. set a record for oil output this year. As of December, the country was on pace to increase its supply of oil by an average of 1.4 million barrels per day, according to the International Energy Agency, a government group.

The added supply puts downward pressure on gasoline prices but worsens climate emissions.

“This transition is rapidly accelerating on the renewable side, but there’s a stubborn entrenchment of fossil fuel production,” Dave White, director of the Global Institute of Sustainability and Innovation at Arizona State University, told ABC News. “This is a tension playing out in the U.S. energy sector.”

The surge of investing in clean energy also came alongside a sharp decline of ESG financing, a major source of private-sector funds for some green businesses.

Prominent Republican politicians, such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, have assailed ESG as “woke” capitalism that prioritizes liberal goals over investor returns.

Some on the left have questioned the rigor of such funds, warning that they establish insufficient standards for companies seeking to qualify.

Funds worldwide categorized as “responsible investing” received $68 billion of net new deposits in 2023 through November, according to data from financial firm LSEG Lipper. That amount had fallen dramatically from $158 billion for all of 2022 and $558 billion for all of 2021.

“Over the course of 2023 we really saw a culmination of the backlash against ESG,” Robert Jenkins, global head of investment and wealth for LSEG Lipper, told ABC News. “This is not going to be helpful broadly for the world to reach [climate] goals.”

However, Jenkins added, the criticism has spurred a shift toward more sophisticated criteria for evaluating the environmental impact of a given business and assembling funds that reflect the values sought by investors.

“Good evolutionary things are happening when we look at this space,” Jenkins said.

Looking ahead, the analysts centered their attention on the 2024 presidential election. The outcome of that contest could ultimately propel green investment and galvanize corporate action, or reverse some of the recent progress, some experts said.

“It really requires another election to see where things are going,” Rudebusch said.

 

 

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(LOS ANGELES) — With the minimum wage in California increasing to $20 an hour for fast food workers in 2024, some Pizza Hut franchisees say they’re preparing to eliminate jobs as well as delivery options for customers.

As first reported by ABC News Los Angeles station KABC, two major Pizza Hut franchisees with restaurants in Orange, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties are planning layoffs that would impact 1,200 workers.

The mass layoffs would also reportedly impact another 800 workers at Pizza Hut locations in Sacramento, Central California, Southern Oregon, and the Reno-Tahoe area, according to KABC.

The cuts would eliminate the franchisees’ delivery services for customers in those locations, they said. Customers will instead have to rely on services like Uber Eats or DoorDash.

“Pizza Hut is aware of the recent changes to delivery services at certain franchise restaurants in California,” a company spokesperson said Thursday. “Our franchisees independently own and operate their restaurants in accordance with local market dynamics and comply with all federal, state, and local regulations, while continuing to provide quality service and food to our customers via carryout and delivery.”

The chain, which is owned by Yum! Brands, said access to delivery would continue to be available via the Pizza Hut mobile app, website and phone ordering.

Other fast food companies including KFC and Taco Bell did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

The wage legislation, AB 1228, which was signed into law by California Gov. Gavin Newsom in late September, is the catalyst for this decision by operators, the franchisees say.

The new law goes into effect in April and will boost minimum wage to $20 per hour for fast food workers, $4 more than the state minimum wage of $16 that will be effective Jan. 1.

Other fast food companies, including McDonald’s and Chipotle, previously said the new law would impact the respective chains’ operating costs and could potentially change menu pricing for customers.

Although a decision has not been made official, Chipotle CEO Jack Hartung said on a November earnings call that the pricing at the popular fast-casual Mexican restaurant would have to change “to take care of the dollar cost” and cover the new margins.

“We are definitely going to pass this on. We just haven’t made a final decision as to what level yet,” he said.

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