DETROIT — General Motors union workers ratified a record deal with the United Auto Workers after a contentious final few days of voting, according to results posted Thursday morning by the union.

Much like the negotiations themselves, voting was not as smooth as many thought it would be. A majority of the Detroit automaker’s large assembly plants rejected the pact, however it wasn’t enough to offset support at smaller facilities and a handful of other assembly plants.

Ratification of the deal came under doubt Wednesday morning, after seven of GM’s 11 U.S. assembly plants rejected the pact. But a swing in voting results in favor of the deal, specifically at a SUV plant in Texas, gave the agreement a much needed lifeline.

According to the UAW’s vote tracker, the deal was supported by 54.7% of the nearly 36,000 autoworkers at GM who voted. The vote total was 19,683 in support versus 16,275 against — a margin of 3,409 votes.

Both the UAW and GM declined to comment on the results until they’ve been finalized.

Voting on similar contracts at Ford Motor and Chrysler-parent Stellantis is ongoing, with support of roughly 67% of unionized workers at each automaker who voted as of Thursday morning, according to the union. Barring any major shifts or swing in turnouts, those deals are likely to pass.

GM’s voting was closer, in part, due to the demographics of the company’s workforce. The automaker has the highest number of traditional workers on a percentage basis compared to its crosstown rivals. Such workers have voiced disapproval for the wage increases granted to them by the deals, compared to those offered to newer hires. They were also dissatisfied with pension contributions and retirement benefits.

For the union and UAW President Shawn Fain, the deals represent significant economic gains. They include 25% pay increases; a path to secure future jobs for union ranks such as battery plants; and a springboard for organizing efforts at other non-union automakers operating in the U.S. — a main goal of Fain moving forward.

For the companies as well as their investors, the contracts represent the top-end of forecasted increases in labor costs. While the automakers several times called foul on the union’s tactics, including six weeks of targeted strikes, they should be able to stomach the cost increases. That’s not to say they won’t be seeking offsets to the increases elsewhere in the forms of future investments, restructuring and other means.

Ford CFO John Lawler last month said the UAW deal, if ratified by members, would add $850 to $900 in costs per vehicle assembled. He said Ford will work to “find productivity and efficiencies and cost reductions throughout the company” to offset the additional costs and deliver on previously announced profitability targets.

Beer giant Anheuser-Busch says its head of U.S. marketing is leaving, months after its Bud Light brand lost its position as the top beer brand in the country.

The company said U.S. Chief Marketing Officer Benoit Garbe will leave at the end of 2023 “in order to embark on a new chapter in his career,” with U.S. Chief Commercial Officer Kyle Norrington taking charge of marketing activities.

The company said other sales leaders will report directly to Anheuser-Busch CEO Brendan Whitworth.

“These senior leadership changes will accelerate our return to growth as we continue to focus on what we do best — brewing great beer for everyone and earning our place in moments that matter,” Whitworth said in an emailed statement.

He also said the changes would reduce layers of management.

Bud Light lost its U.S. leadership title to Modelo Especial over the summer. Sales of the brand have been falling for years while Modelo’s parent, Constellation Brands, gained steam and marketed itself more successfully to younger beer drinkers.

Bud Light was also the target of a sharp backlash after it partnered with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney in April for a sponsored Instagram post that ran the weekend of the NCAA basketball men’s and women’s national championships.

Conservative politicians and influencers said they would boycott the brand in response and shared videos of themselves throwing the beer away, pouring it out, or shooting cans.

“Add a tip?”

The prompts have become ubiquitous in all kinds of sales situations — from ordering a coffee to paying for a packaged sandwich — as digital card readers proliferate. But while automated requests for gratuities continue to spur confusion and grumbling, recent data suggests consumers have no trouble breezing past them.

Many people first started noticing so-called tipflation as the economy emerged from the pandemic. Venturing out again to bars, restaurants and shops, consumers were confronted with what felt like a new set of etiquette expectations — and duly began tipping more often, even as many griped loudly about it. But those upticks were modest and far from universal, and some of shoppers’ generosity now looks to be waning.

In a survey released this month by the Pew Research Center, 72% of American adults said tipping is now expected in more places than it was five years ago — but that’s pretty much all consumers can agree on when it comes to tipping.

Many dislike it when the tablets they’re presented suggest specific gratuity amounts; 40% oppose the prompts, while just 24% favor them, according to Pew.

But when consumers are left to their own devices, they take widely different approaches to deciding how much extra to offer and when to offer it, if at all. While 78% of respondents told Pew they always or often tip for haircuts, just 61% said the same of tipping their taxi or ride-hailing drivers. And only 1 in 4 reported frequently tipping baristas.

Americans can’t even agree on whether adding a tip is more of a choice or an obligation: 21% see it the first way and 29% the latter, with the remaining 49% landing somewhere in the squishy middle, saying it depends on the situation.

It’s no surprise consumers are so divided and exasperated, said Deidre Popovich, a Texas Tech University professor of marketing and supply chain management who specializes in consumer behavior.

“I think there’s just too many prompts now in the marketplace with these automated payment systems,” she said. “We’re used to tipping when we can evaluate the service, and in a lot of these situations, there’s no service tied to the tip. What do we do?”

There has been some movement at the margins of Americans’ gratuity habits.

NBC News reported in February that tipping frequency was up, possibly reflecting a pandemic hangover of good vibes toward service workers when expanding point-of-sale systems made it easier for businesses to solicit tips.

The payments processor Square, which makes a popular point-of-sale platform, said the restaurant and retail workers who use its software have seen increases in tipped and overtime earnings. But the company noted that the rises have tracked broader wage increases and higher restaurant menu prices.

“We’ve definitely observed a slight increase in tipping over the last few years,” said Ara Kharazian, the research lead at Square. “But I think it’s a lot more modest than people realize, and it’s starting to slow down a lot.”

For example, the average overall earnings for restaurant workers using Square were $17.67 an hour in October, with a base wage of $13.80. That $3.87 difference, which mostly reflects tips, is only about 60 cents higher than it was in October 2021, according to the company’s payroll index.

As consumers get used to seeing tip prompts in more places more regularly, they may be getting more comfortable ignoring them — especially after having dealt with inflation-related sticker shock for many goods and services over the past year.

Lightspeed, another POS provider, said customers add tips on just 1.3% of in-store transactions at the retailers that have enabled its tipping feature.

While tip levels in some settings have held steady or inched higher, others are declining.

Lightspeed said the median tip at all types of restaurants using its service increased from 16.9% in the second quarter last year to 17.3% in the same period this year. But tip amounts for online orders and delivery — for which patrons can decide privately whether to tip, without service workers nearby — have dipped since last year, from about 8.8% to 8.1%.

Another point-of-sale platform, Toast, said in September that average tips at full-service restaurants declined from 19.7% in the first quarter this year to 19.4% in the second — the lowest level for that category since the start of the pandemic. Gratuities at quick-service restaurants using Toast barely ticked up to 16.1% from 16.0% over the same period.

A Bankrate survey this year found tipping frequency has continued a multiyear downslide virtually across the board. The shares of Americans who say they always tip in service transactions from food delivery to hotel housekeeping have steadily shrunk. That’s the case even at sit-down restaurants, where those who reported always tipping their servers fell from 75% in 2021 to 65% this spring.

Some companies are trying other ways to nudge customers to tip. DoorDash wrote in a blog post this month that it was testing an in-app pop-up in the U.S. and Canada to remind users of its delivery service to leave gratuities, lest they risk longer waits.

“Orders with no tip might take longer to get delivered,” the test prompt reads. “Are you sure you want to continue?”

“Add a tip?”

The prompts have become ubiquitous in all kinds of sales situations — from ordering a coffee to paying for a packaged sandwich — as digital card readers proliferate. But while automated requests for gratuities continue to spur confusion and grumbling, recent data suggests consumers have no trouble breezing past them.

Many people first started noticing so-called tipflation as the economy emerged from the pandemic. Venturing out again to bars, restaurants and shops, consumers were confronted with what felt like a new set of etiquette expectations — and duly began tipping more often, even as many griped loudly about it. But those upticks were modest and far from universal, and some of shoppers’ generosity now looks to be waning.

In a survey released this month by the Pew Research Center, 72% of American adults said tipping is now expected in more places than it was five years ago — but that’s pretty much all consumers can agree on when it comes to tipping.

Many dislike it when the tablets they’re presented suggest specific gratuity amounts; 40% oppose the prompts, while just 24% favor them, according to Pew.

But when consumers are left to their own devices, they take widely different approaches to deciding how much extra to offer and when to offer it, if at all. While 78% of respondents told Pew they always or often tip for haircuts, just 61% said the same of tipping their taxi or ride-hailing drivers. And only 1 in 4 reported frequently tipping baristas.

Americans can’t even agree on whether adding a tip is more of a choice or an obligation: 21% see it the first way and 29% the latter, with the remaining 49% landing somewhere in the squishy middle, saying it depends on the situation.

It’s no surprise consumers are so divided and exasperated, said Deidre Popovich, a Texas Tech University professor of marketing and supply chain management who specializes in consumer behavior.

“I think there’s just too many prompts now in the marketplace with these automated payment systems,” she said. “We’re used to tipping when we can evaluate the service, and in a lot of these situations, there’s no service tied to the tip. What do we do?”

There has been some movement at the margins of Americans’ gratuity habits.

NBC News reported in February that tipping frequency was up, possibly reflecting a pandemic hangover of good vibes toward service workers when expanding point-of-sale systems made it easier for businesses to solicit tips.

The payments processor Square, which makes a popular point-of-sale platform, said the restaurant and retail workers who use its software have seen increases in tipped and overtime earnings. But the company noted that the rises have tracked broader wage increases and higher restaurant menu prices.

“We’ve definitely observed a slight increase in tipping over the last few years,” said Ara Kharazian, the research lead at Square. “But I think it’s a lot more modest than people realize, and it’s starting to slow down a lot.”

For example, the average overall earnings for restaurant workers using Square were $17.67 an hour in October, with a base wage of $13.80. That $3.87 difference, which mostly reflects tips, is only about 60 cents higher than it was in October 2021, according to the company’s payroll index.

As consumers get used to seeing tip prompts in more places more regularly, they may be getting more comfortable ignoring them — especially after having dealt with inflation-related sticker shock for many goods and services over the past year.

Lightspeed, another POS provider, said customers add tips on just 1.3% of in-store transactions at the retailers that have enabled its tipping feature.

While tip levels in some settings have held steady or inched higher, others are declining.

Lightspeed said the median tip at all types of restaurants using its service increased from 16.9% in the second quarter last year to 17.3% in the same period this year. But tip amounts for online orders and delivery — for which patrons can decide privately whether to tip, without service workers nearby — have dipped since last year, from about 8.8% to 8.1%.

Another point-of-sale platform, Toast, said in September that average tips at full-service restaurants declined from 19.7% in the first quarter this year to 19.4% in the second — the lowest level for that category since the start of the pandemic. Gratuities at quick-service restaurants using Toast barely ticked up to 16.1% from 16.0% over the same period.

A Bankrate survey this year found tipping frequency has continued a multiyear downslide virtually across the board. The shares of Americans who say they always tip in service transactions from food delivery to hotel housekeeping have steadily shrunk. That’s the case even at sit-down restaurants, where those who reported always tipping their servers fell from 75% in 2021 to 65% this spring.

Some companies are trying other ways to nudge customers to tip. DoorDash wrote in a blog post this month that it was testing an in-app pop-up in the U.S. and Canada to remind users of its delivery service to leave gratuities, lest they risk longer waits.

“Orders with no tip might take longer to get delivered,” the test prompt reads. “Are you sure you want to continue?”

Union members at Ford, Stellantis and General Motors have ratified a new 4½-year contract, locking in at 11% pay increases secured after a six-week strike in September and October.

The United Auto Workers said that roughly 67% of Ford employees represented by the UAW voted in favor of the contract, which will last through April 30, 2028.

Voting officially ends Friday, but with around 57,000 union employees at Ford, the contract appeared headed toward easy ratification.

The contracts were negotiated after members of the UAW went on strike from Sept. 15 until late October.

Union members will get a total pay increase of 25% over the course of the deal. The new contracts also reinstate cost-of-living adjustments, let workers reach top wages in three years instead of eight and protect their right to strike over plant closures.

Both the UAW and the carmakers described the deals as “record” contracts based on those pay increases. The union also said members were regaining some of the benefits they agreed to give up after the Great Recession to help keep the automakers alive.

Workers at GM approved the contract, but they did so by a much narrower margin than Ford’s employees did, with about 55% of workers voting yes.

While UAW President Shawn Fain has called the contacts a victory for workers, he has also said they are part of a larger plan to win back more benefits over the long haul.

According to the UAW’s ratification vote tracker, Stellantis employees were on pace to approve the deal at margins similar to Ford workers. With 17,391 votes tallied as of Thursday evening ET, about 66% of ballots had been cast in favor of accepting the contract.

While the general terms of the contracts are similar, workers at Detroit’s Big Three automakers are voting to accept or reject them independently.

Halloween is done, scary season is ending, and the horrors of the housing market are getting more gentle — if only a little bit.

Mortgage rates are coming down slightly after a dramatic rise. The government-backed mortgage company Fannie Mae says the interest rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was down to 6.73% on Thursday. It peaked at more than 8% in mid-October.

Since rates have come down, demand for mortgages is starting to tick higher. It’s a modest increase, as the Mortgage Bankers Association says demand in early November was 12% lower than the same time in 2022.

Borrowing costs for mortgages are at two-decade highs, but prices have continued to rise because so few houses are on the market. That’s put home ownership out of reach for large numbers of people.

The situation has changed because investors are becoming convinced that the Federal Reserve might really be done raising rates. It has raised its benchmark interest rate from near-zero in early 2022 to a range of 5.25% to 5.5% by July, and mortgage rates, along with interest rates on auto loans, credit cards and other financial products, moved higher in tandem.

The gap between typical interest rates and mortgage rates also got unusually large.

While the Fed hasn’t raised interest rates in more than three months, mortgage rates had continued to rise because investors thought the central bank was likely to keep raising them in the future.

But there are signs inflation is continuing to fade, and that the Fed might be satisfied with the progress it’s made in getting price gains under control. That’s let mortgage rates stabilize and start to come down

However, over the longer term, lower mortgage rates might not make houses more affordable, as home prices tend to rise when mortgage rates go down precisely because buyers have an easier time borrowing money.

With Black Friday only about a week away, there are signs consumers aren’t in a jolly, high-spending mood.

The Commerce Department said Wednesday that sales by U.S. retailers were 0.1% lower in October than in September. The agency said department store sales fell 1% and clothing sales were unchanged from the previous month.

That total excludes sales at gas stations and auto parts retailers.

A survey from the National Retail Federation and CNBC, also released Wednesday, showed similar results, with sales unchanged from September to October.

The lack of improvement might be a sign shoppers are going to pinch their pennies over the holidays this year. Ted Rossman, an analyst who covers topics including personal finance for Bankrate, said the report is an ‘ominous’ sign for November and December.

‘Nonstore retailers, basically a proxy for e-commerce shops, only expanded their sales 0.2% from September to October. That’s surprising given all of the early holiday promotions,’ Rossman wrote, noting that Target, Amazon and Walmart all had major promotions. ‘Consumer sentiment remains depressed and retailers have to be getting nervous about the all-important holiday period.’

Consumers are indeed feeling more pressure lately, and that might leave them reluctant to spend.

Interest rates on credit cards are at longtime highs. People are carrying bigger balances on their cards than they had previously. Student loan payments just resumed after a long pause. And while the pace of inflation has slowed, prices are still notably higher than they were a few years ago.

Meanwhile, the job market isn’t quite as strong as it has been, although unemployment is very low. And more than three years after the last round of pandemic stimulus, people have spent most of what they’d saved up.

All of that is leaving consumers feeling gloomy. The University of Michigan says consumer sentiment has fallen for four months in a row, although it remains better than it was a year ago. The school found that people with lower incomes were most concerned.

The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index shows that almost 70% of respondents expect a recession in the next 12 months.

Not everyone thinks retailers are going to get the equivalent of a lump of coal. Chris Zaccarelli, the chief investment officer for the Independent Advisor Alliance, said Wednesday’s retail sales data was a bit better than Wall Street experts had expected.

‘Given expectations that retail sales would contract month-over-month, instead we saw slight gains in the data. In addition, the prior month’s data was revised higher as well, showing that this month wasn’t a statistical fluke,’ Zaccarelli wrote.

A group of Wells Fargo economists, including senior economist Tim Quinlan, economist Shannon Seery and economic analyst Jeremiah Kohl, wrote in October that sales will grow 5% compared to last year. That sounds pretty good, and is above a longer-term average, but they acknowledged that it might feel a bit sluggish to retailers because growth over the previous couple of years was unusually strong.

‘Purchasing power is fading and competition for consumer wallets is rising. Both of these factors have contributed to lower sales momentum and will likely remain a headwind to overall purchases this holiday season,’ they said.

Disney on Tuesday released a study showing its economic impact in Florida at $40.3 billion as it battles Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and his appointees over their takeover of the district that governs the entertainment company’s massive theme park resort in central Florida.

Disney accounted for 263,000 jobs in Florida, more than three times the actual workforce at Walt Disney World, according to the study conducted by Oxford Economics and commissioned by Disney, covering fiscal year 2022. Besides direct employment and spending, the study attributed the company’s multibillion-dollar impact to indirect influences, such as supply chain and employees’ spending.

The jobs include Disney employees as well as jobs supported by visitor spending off Disney World property. Disney employs 82,000 workers in Florida, not only at Disney World outside Orlando, but also Disney Cruise Line in Port Canaveral, Fort Lauderdale and Miami, as well as a resort in Vero Beach.

In central Florida, Disney directly accounts for 1 in 8 jobs, and for every direct job, another 1.7 jobs are supported across Florida, Oxford Economics said.

The time period in the study is before the takeover earlier this year of Disney World’s governing district by DeSantis and his appointees after Disney publicly opposed a state law banning classroom lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity in early grades. The law was championed by DeSantis, who is running for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.

Disney officials in the past year have said the company plans to invest an additional $17 billion over the next decade in central Florida, including potentially adding another 13,000 jobs. However, the company has shown a willingness to pull back investing in the Sunshine State.

Earlier this year, Disney scrapped plans to relocate 2,000 employees from Southern California to work in digital technology, finance and product development, an investment estimated at $1 billion.

Disney World already has four theme parks, more than 25 hotels, two water parks and a shopping and dining district on 25,000 acres (10,117 hectares).

Disney is battling DeSantis and his appointees in federal and state courts over the takeover of what was formally called the Reedy Creek Improvement District but was renamed the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District after DeSantis appointees gained control. The district was created by the Florida Legislature in 1967 to handle municipal services like firefighting, road repairs and waste hauling, and it was controlled by Disney supporters until earlier this year.

Before control of the district changed hands from Disney allies to DeSantis appointees, the Disney supporters on its board signed agreements with Disney shifting control over design and construction at Disney World to the company. The new DeSantis appointees said the “eleventh-hour deals” neutered their powers, and the district sued the company in state court in Orlando to have the contracts voided. Disney has filed counterclaims, which include asking the state court to declare the agreements valid and enforceable.

Disney also has sued DeSantis, a state agency and DeSantis appointees on the district’s board in federal court in Tallahassee, saying the company’s free speech rights were violated when the governor and Republican lawmakers targeted it for expressing opposition to the law dubbed “Don’t Say Gay” by its critics.

In an earnings report last week, Disney noted that while its theme parks worldwide had a year-to-year increase in operating income, it had decreased at the Florida theme park resort due to costs related to the closure of its immersive Star Wars-themed two-night experience and lower visitor spending from a decrease in hotel rates.

Prices for consumers are growing at a slower pace, the U.S. government reported Tuesday morning, as overall prices in October were the same as what consumers paid in September.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics says prices in October were unchanged as gasoline prices declined and shelter costs continued to rise. Its Consumer Price Index rose 3.2% compared to a year ago, the latest sign that inflation is slowing down as interest rates rise and the job market gives up some of the strength it has shown in the last few years.

The CPI results were about equal to what experts had expected. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal had projected an 0.1% increase in prices compared to September, and 3.2% from October 2022.

Core prices, which exclude food and energy prices because they can be highly volatile, rose 4% compared to October 2022. The BLS said that was the slowest pace of growth it has recorded since September 2021.

The BLS said that compared to a year ago, food prices climbed 3.3% and shelter costs rose 6.7%. The price of used cars and trucks fell 7.1%, continuing a long decline after those prices had spiked in the early stages of the pandemic.

Gasoline prices were down 5.3% from a year ago, which contributed to an overall drop in energy costs.

‘The usual trouble spots — shelter, motor vehicle insurance, and personal care — still remain,’ wrote Greg McBride, chief financial analyst for Bankrate. ‘Shelter has accounted for 70% of the increase in core prices over the past year and offset the 5% decline in gasoline prices during October.”

While more apartments are being built, McBride says that’s not showing up in rents right now.

The report will be a major factor in the Federal Reserve’s next decision on interest rates in December. Stocks rose Tuesday morning, as investors concluded that the report makes it more likely that the Fed is done raising interest rates for the time being.

At 9:46 a.m. ET, the benchmark S&P 500 index rose 1.6% and the tech stock-heavy Nasdaq composite rose 2.1%.

Higher interest rates tend to slow down the economy and cut into profits for most businesses, so relatively lower rates are seen as better for stocks. Higher rates on bonds are a more appealing investment relative to stocks because their payments increase when rates do.

The central U.S. bank will meet for the final time this year Dec. 12 and 13. It left rates alone in September and October after a series of steep increases throughout 2022 and early this year.

Officials including Fed Chair Jerome Powell have suggested that the central bank is comfortable with the progress it has made in reducing inflation so far. U.S. inflation peaked at 9.1% annually in June 2022, so it has slowed significantly even though it remains well above the 2% rate the Fed says it wants to achieve.

In September, overall prices rose 0.2% from August, and CPI was up 3.7% over the previous 12 months.

Even as Home Depot forecast sales declines, the retailer had good news for investors and consumers on Tuesday.

“I think the most important observation we’ve made is that the worst of the inflationary environment is behind us,” Chief Financial Officer Richard McPhail said on an earnings call.

Shares of the retailer rose by nearly 6% in early trading after the company beat quarterly earnings expectations, driving a rally for the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company’s comments also came as federal data on Tuesday morning showed that inflation was flat in October from the prior month.

Home Depot kicked off a much-anticipated week of retail earnings that includes other household names, such as Walmart, Target and Macy’s. All of the retailers have struggled with consumers who have become more selective about spending, particularly on pricier and discretionary items, as they pay more for necessities like groceries.

Home Depot is no exception. For multiple quarters, its customers have bought fewer big-ticket items and taken on smaller, less expensive projects.

Yet with its comments on Tuesday, Home Depot gave fresh hope that consumers and the broader economy could soon see relief. In the short term, cooling inflation reduces sales numbers for retailers, including Home Depot. Yet long term, if prices level off or even start to drop, it can free up extra money that shoppers can spend elsewhere.

Plus, cooling inflation could speed along the end of interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve. The central bank has been trying to tame decades-high price increases without tipping the economy into a recession.

Still, Michael Baker, a retail analyst for D.A. Davidson, said relief won’t come soon enough for the holiday season. He expects modest sales growth for retailers.

 “Less inflation can invite back in some discretionary spending, but that’s offset by the fact it’s generally a pretty soft spending environment,” he said.

At Home Depot, McPhail has described 2023 as “a year of moderation” after the boom in home improvement during the Covid pandemic. The retailer predicts a drop in sales from last year.

Yet the normalization of other trends has brought predictability for the business and customers, he said.

“Some prices are settling at levels higher than 2022,” McPhail said. “Others are settling lower. But we’re seeing some stabilization there.”

Appliances, which sometimes requires months-long wait times, are back in stock. Those healthier inventory levels have lifted sales in the category, said Billy Bastek, executive vice president of merchandising, on the earnings call.

Yet some factors that drive inflation are beyond retailers’ control and influence consumers’ decisions, too.

Just take the cost of painting a living room, CEO Ted Decker said on the earnings call. He said Home Depot remains focused on offering low prices. But, he added, it’s backed off on the kinds of promotions that don’t make a difference.

He said cutting the price of paint by $10 doesn’t put a dent in the bigger cost: Paying the painters.