Workers at Ford, Stellantis and General Motors are weighing in on the new contracts proposed by their union and the Big Three — and a few of them seem unsatisfied with what they’re being offered.

UAW Local 598, which represents workers and retirees at a General Motors truck plant in Flint, Michigan, said Thursday that 51.8% of its members voted to reject the deal. Production workers in the chapter narrowly opposed the new contract, while a smaller group of skilled workers strongly supported it.

Another group of GM employees, UAW Local 659, said Tuesday that production workers at the Flint engine operations plant also voted against the deal by a 52% to 48% margin. Other parts of the chapter were strongly in favor, however.

The proposed contracts were negotiated after members of the UAW went on strike for more than six weeks. If majorities at each automaker approve, the pacts will last through April 30, 2028. Union members will get an 11% initial wage increase and a total pay increase of 25% over the course of the 4½ year 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 United Auto Workers and the carmakers described the deals as ‘record’ contracts based on those pay increases.

While some union chapters have posted their vote totals on social media, others have not disclosed them, and the UAW will only make the final results public. So it’s hard to know what the negative votes say about the odds the contracts will be approved.

Compared to GM, Ford employees seem a bit more enthusiastic. Ford was the first of the Big Three to reach an agreement with the UAW, and its members are scheduled to finish voting on the proposed contact Nov. 17.

The first group of Ford employees to weigh in was Local 900 at the Michigan assembly plant, which was the first Ford plant to go on strike. The UAW said 82% of those members voted to ratify the contract, with more than 3,000 ‘yes’ votes.

United Airlines plans to make it easier for customers to earn elite status through co-branded Chase credit cards, the latest airline to tweak its lucrative frequent flyer program to reward big spenders.

The airline isn’t changing overall requirements for elite frequent flyer status next year, a first for the carrier since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Instead, United said Thursday that in 2024, it will reward customers with 25 qualifying points for every $500 they spend on co-branded cards. Currently, customers get 500 points for every $12,000 spent. The carrier will also lift caps on credit card spending that can qualify toward elite status.

Travelers need 5,000 qualifying points plus four flights to get to silver status, the lowest level, or have a combination of flights and points.

Airlines reward their elites with perks such as free upgrades, when available; earlier boarding; and other perks.

But ranks of elite frequent flyers have surged in recent years as travelers continued to spend during the Covid-19 pandemic and airlines allowed them to hold on to their tier status even if they weren’t flying.

That has challenged airlines to keep their programs both exclusive and reasonably attainable and angered elites who are jostling alongside fellow travelers for upgrades or airport lounge access.

Delta Air Lines in September said elite status would be awarded solely on spend — instead of a combination of flights and spending — though last month it walked back some planned changes to its SkyMiles program and lounge access limits after customer complaints.

The unions representing hospitality workers in Las Vegas on Thursday reached a tentative deal with MGM Resorts International for a new contract covering nearly 25,400 employees, less than 24 hours before a strike threatened to shut down the Strip.

The Culinary Workers and Bartenders Unions said they have a five-year tentative agreement with the casino operator, which averts a strike at eight MGM properties and comes a day after rival Caesars Entertainment reached a deal with 10,000 workers.

MGM Resorts, the biggest Las Vegas operator by number of employees, said on Wednesday that the new contract would result in the largest pay increase in the history of its contracts with the unions.

MGM did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Shares of MGM were up 1.78% in morning trading.

The negotiations, which began in April, came as a number of unions across industries press employers for better pay and benefits, buoyed by a shortage of workers.

The Las Vegas unions, considered among the most powerful in the United States, were demanding meaningful wage increases, funds for healthcare and pensions as well as a reduction in steep housekeeping quotas and mandating of daily room cleaning.

Caesars Entertainment, the second-biggest Las Vegas casino operator by number of employees, said that its deal with the unions provides “meaningful wage increases” and aligns with plans to bring more union jobs to the Strip.

Wynn Resorts has yet to yield an agreement ahead of Friday’s strike deadline but said it has negotiations scheduled with the unions on Thursday.

Casino resort operators have been earning record profits from a steady post-pandemic recovery in Las Vegas tourism.

Visits to the city in September were 4% lower than in the same period in 2019, according to data from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. Room rates, however, have surged more than 47%.

The city is gearing up for events including the Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix this month, which is expected to draw thousands of tourists.

The IRS on Thursday announced higher federal income tax brackets and standard deductions for 2024.

The agency has boosted the income thresholds for each bracket, applying to tax year 2024 for returns filed in 2025. For 2024, the top rate of 37% applies to individuals with taxable income above $609,350 and married couples filing jointly earning $731,200.

Federal income brackets show how much you’ll owe on each portion of your “taxable income,” calculated by subtracting the greater of the standard or itemized deductions from your adjusted gross income.

Higher standard deduction

The standard deduction will also increase in 2024, rising to $29,200 for married couples filing jointly, up from $27,700 in 2023. Single filers may claim $14,600, an increase from $13,850.

Adjustments for other tax provisions

The IRS also boosted figures for dozens of other provisions, such as the alternative minimum tax, a parallel system for higher earners and the estate tax exemption for wealthy families.

There’s also a higher earned income tax credit, bumping the write-off to a maximum of $7,830 for low- to moderate-income filers. And employees can funnel $3,200 into health flexible spending accounts.

By just about any measure, the mighty American economy is chugging along nicely. The much-forecast recession of 2023 simply never happened. Instead, the jobless rate has remained below 4% for two years, wages are finally rising faster than inflation, and the economy revved up in the third quarter to post a nearly 5% growth. Bipartisan investments in infrastructure and computer chip manufacturing are just starting to bear fruit, fueling more economic tailwinds in the months ahead.

In fact, in a note to clients Wednesday, Goldman Sachs declared “the hard part is over” for efforts to shore up the global economy, predicting that inflation would continue to ease in 2024. The bank’s researchers now expect a mere 15% risk that the United States will tip into a recession next year, following a spate of forecasters, including those at the Federal Reserve, voicing growing economic optimism.

But many Americans don’t share that view, and the Republican presidential candidates taking the stage in Miami for Wednesday night’s debate, hosted by NBC News, will be looking for opportunities to reinforce their outlook.

In a new Bankrate survey, half of Americans reported that their overall financial situation is worse now compared with Election Day 2020. And a New York Times/Siena College poll released this week found 81% of voters rating the economy either “fair” or “poor,” with just 19% calling it “good” or “excellent.”

Yet despite the widespread pessimism, consumers — who drive two-thirds of economic activity — are still spending.

“People may be feeling bad, but they are not spending badly,” said Nela Richardson, chief economist of the payroll processing firm ADP. “They are spending like they are optimistic, even though they are reporting that they are pessimistic.”

What gives? The likely explanation is a gloomy soup of two major wars, ongoing domestic political divisions, a still-recent pandemic and price pressures that have slowed down dramatically but rarely reversed.

“It’s one word: inflation,” said Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst at Bankrate. In his view, inflation’s lingering toll over the past year and a half more than makes up for the historic strength in the job market and other upsides to Americans’ wallets.

“Inflation is coming down, but prices aren’t coming down, which is the source of the irritation” for many, Hamrick said. And of course, the country’s yawning economic inequality means that robust overall consumer spending figures can’t help but mask wide disparities in households’ finances. (“There’s no one, monolithic ‘consumer,’” Hamrick noted.)

Inflation has eased from the painful 9.1% in the middle of last year to 3.7% in September. But while economists and Fed officials are cheered by that trend, ordinary Americans vividly recall a not-so-distant past when many things were cheaper.

For example, the average price of a gallon of milk in November 2019 was $3.19. It surged to $4.20 in May 2022, before settling back to $3.97 this fall.

“We’re in an economy where the price level has taken a big, gigantic step up,” said Richardson. Add in the highest interest rates in decades and borrowing money is more expensive too — translating to steeper mortgage rates and credit card interest.

A year out from the 2024 vote, it’s an open question how, or even whether, Americans’ economic malaise will play out either in the economy itself or at the ballot box. But both parties have been betting heavily that it will matter.

President Joe Biden has been pounding pavement to trumpet $5 billion in new investments to juice rural economies, hoping that voters will reward him and fellow Democrats for infrastructure projects ramping up across the country. Meanwhile, Republicans have raced to pin voters’ frustrations over high prices on “Bidenomics,” the term with which the White House has tried — with uncertain success — to brand the administration’s economic policies.

Of course, presidents frequently get too much credit and too much blame for the state of the economy on their watches, and pollsters note that voters tend to blame a leader for a declining economy more than they credit them for a good one.

But if Tuesday night’s election results are any indication, there’s no guarantee that next year’s contest will hinge on the economy. In a number of races — albeit off-year ones that tend to draw a different mix of voters than those who turn out for presidential elections — other issues rose to the fore.

Abortion access in particular has continued to propel Democrats to victories at the state and local level after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year. In many cases, conservative voters who strongly disapprove of Biden, including for his handling of the economy, crossed party lines to back more expansive reproductive rights.

If the past 12 months’ mistaken economic predictions have illustrated anything, it’s that a lot can change in a year, both in Americans’ financial lives and the ways they feel about them.

Reflecting on the dissonance between many of the economy’s fundamentals and consumers’ sour outlook, Richardson was circumspect.

“When that feeling starts translating into behavior,” she said, “I think that’s when we’re going to have to pay attention.”

Mass shootings, bullying, student mental health and the threat of gun violence have become increasingly bigger concerns at U.S. schools during the last two decades.

In the wake of the pandemic, which was both deeply damaging to students and forced many schools to employ new technology to teach students, more schools are turning to apps to address those problems.

A police officer speaks to eighth grade students about internet safety and cyberbullying in Stamford, Conn., last year.John Moore / Getty Images file

“Technology companies during the pandemic really took a rise of presenting themselves as an app-based solution for problems in schools,” said Alexis Hancock of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

That’s perhaps expected — who doesn’t love high-tech solutions to everything? — and surprising, in that thousands of schools are telling students and parents to download and use these apps.

The notion of apps to address problems ranging from cyberbullying to mental health crises to shootings isn’t new. And Corporate America is exploring this path, too. But inside the tech departments at various schools, things seem to be taking off.

Craig Hansen said he recognized during the pandemic that students were struggling more than ever. Along with experiencing the trauma of the pandemic, they were suffering from a long period of isolation from their peers and had been deprived of a lot of their normal activities. And they still had the normal pressures of school to contend with. So he wanted to find a way to help. Hansen is the chief emergency officer for Questar III BOCES, a school that also provides educational and administrative services to districts in New York’s Hudson Valley.

“We knew it would be a good opportunity to try to get a grant to help support our schools in this realm knowing the mental health strains and stressors that we were seeing,” he told NBC News.

Companies including STOPit Solutions, Raptor Technologies, Navigate360, Anonymous Alerts, and Sandy Hook Promise offer apps with a wide variety of safety and monitoring features such as anonymous threat reporting, tracking of visitors to schools, silent alarms and communication with police and mental health counselors. Several states have developed their own reporting systems with similar features.

The companies say they are giving schools and students tools that can prevent a tragedy. What’s certain is that they’re becoming widespread.

Hansen said he applied for a Justice Department grant and received funding to pay for a program that would help address the problems students were having. He considered a handful of options and chose STOPit Solutions because it has a 24-hour monitoring center where reports are evaluated. Fifteen area school districts joined his application, which was ultimately accepted. They are now starting to use the system.

“It’s another tool that will allow students and families to report something and give kids the help that they need,” he told NBC News.

STOPit Solutions, a privately-held company that has been around since 2013, says its app is now being used by 8,800 schools in every U.S. state.

“We give kids a simple fast and powerful way to reach out when they’re in distress, and that can be an external threat, a threat on campus, or an internal threat to oneself, which is more commonly the case these days,” CEO C. Parkhill Mays III said.

Mays says the company gets 300 to 500 reports from students every night, and about 10.5% of those constitute an imminent threat in which police or mental health professionals are brought in.

It’s going to take more than just an app

When it comes to the nightmare scenario of school shootings, unspoken in all of this is the following: Parents and school administrators can’t do much about U.S. gun policies or the state of the health care system in the immediate future, and both of those are both often cited as factors in these issues.

Students hug at a memorial Dec. 1, 2021, following a shooting at Oxford High School in Oxford, Mich.Paul Sancya / AP

But many school officials say they have to do something. And in many cases, they’re required to act. A handful of states around the country have passed versions of Alyssa’s Law, which require schools to have silent panic alarms in case of an emergency.

Craig Hansen said he sought the grant that funded the STOPit app in the Hudson schools because New York state was about to pass that law.

In that context, something like an app that could report a dangerous situation or person looks that much more helpful.

Still, experts said, apps like these could be a double-edged sword. While they could really help students going through a crisis, they have to be implemented carefully — particularly when it comes to potential school violence. They raised concerns about whether students would use these reporting tools to harass their peers, for example.

Mays said that kind of behavior is rare, as less than 1% of reports that go through his company’s app are a result of users abusing the platform. He added that school administrators can block students who misuse the app.

Hancock, of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said that before a school partners with a reporting app like these, it needs to create procedures that will dictate how different kinds of reports will be handled, what kinds of in-person interventions are done, and when parents or authorities are contacted, among other things.

Without that, she says, even a well-designed app won’t do much good.

“If you don’t have an outlined offline protocol, this tool will be effectively useless,” Hancock said.

The experts NBC News spoke to agreed that children who seem suicidal require immediate help, and that an app where students can report that they or their peers are struggling has obvious benefits — and that counselors and regular screenings and check-ins are needed, as well.

Devorah Heitner, author of “Growing Up in Public: Coming of Age in a Digital World,” said that giving schools more resources to address students’ mental health problems would help more than an app.

She said there have been plenty of cases where students have reported that they were worried that a fellow student was going to bring a gun to school — only for no one to act on that report, with tragic results. In some cases, she added, future school shooters have even reported themselves but not received help.

“It’s good to be doing schoolwide mental health screenings on kids and then taking seriously what kids say about how they’re doing,” Heitner said. “I think we need more counselors than cops in schools.”

Pushing for peer intervention

In its introductory materials, STOPit Solutions tells students that they have to take it upon themselves to get involved and report behavior that might be a warning sign for violence, such as unusual and concerning actions or statements.

“Eighty percent of mass shootings are preventable due to the presence of early warning threat indicators,” STOPit national trainer Martoinne Williams says in a student training video. He says it’s especially important for students to monitor social media for those signs.

“Adults are not spending that much time on social media, so that means you are the eyes and the ears on social media,” he says. He advises them to take screenshots and gather specific information about the time and place that any violent incident might occur, and report it to schools through the app.

“It’s like asking children to be their own private investigators to bullying campaigns, and that’s not an approach I would want any child to take,” Hancock said. “If we were actually to address this, it has to be through a multifaceted solution, not a singular app asking students to become police.”

Austin Crosier, Hudson City School District​ communications specialist, said that for his district, STOPit is part of a broader emphasis on health and safety.

“We have and always will encourage students and staff if they see/hear something concerning or are dealing with an issue, to say something and get ahead of the situation before it escalates. All administrators, guidance counselors, building psychologists, nurses and staff are willing and ready to assist however they can and will treat every case individually with the utmost care and importance,” he wrote in an email to NBC News.

Still, experts who spoke to NBC News said there were downsides to the idea of addressing bullying through reports and apps.

The idea of getting bystanders to intervene in bullying situations has become a popular one, said Izzy Kalman, a school psychiatrist and author. But he says there is little evidence showing that it helps.

Kalman told NBC News that since the Columbine High School shooting in 1999, schools have taken overly active approaches to stamping out bullying, including asking students to report all manner of incidents. In his view, it doesn’t work, and might be making things worse. He points out that there is nothing more upsetting to a child than being “told on,” so getting administrators involved becomes part of a cycle of punishment and revenge.

“People get defensive when reported,” he said. “They want to get back and it escalates and it leads to physical harm.”

There are unquestionably times when children need to get an authority figure involved, Kalman says. Especially if someone is hurt or a crime is committed, or someone is in danger.

But in other situations, he says, schools should be teaching children how to solve their own problems and develop relationships instead of telling them to report one another to authority figures.

Juliette Pennyman, superintendent of the Hudson City School District, which started using STOPit on Nov. 1, had a different perspective. She said that using the app to report potential problems will ultimately make students feel more connected.

“I think it will help the culture of transparency and wanting to keep everyone safe, and students caring about each other, and they know that they won’t feel like they’re telling on a friend if a friend is in distress of any kind,” she said.

Americans now owe $1.08 trillion on their credit cards, according to a new report on household debt from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Credit card balances spiked by $154 billion year over year, notching the largest increase since 1999, the New York Fed found.

“Credit card balances experienced a large jump in the third quarter, consistent with strong consumer spending and real GDP growth,” said Donghoon Lee, the New York Fed’s economic research advisor.

Credit card delinquency rates also rose across the board, according to the New York Fed, but especially among millennials, or borrowers between the ages of 30 and 39, who are burdened by high levels of student loan debt.

With most people feeling strained by higher prices — particularly for food, gas and housing — more cardholders are carrying debt from month to month or falling behind on payments, and a greater percentage of balances are going more than 180 days delinquent, according to a separate report from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Nearly one-tenth of credit card users find themselves in “persistent debt” where they are charged more in interest and fees each year than they pay toward the principal — a pattern that is increasingly difficult to break, the consumer watchdog said.

“It’s a big deal,” said Ted Rossman, senior industry analyst at Bankrate. “Your credit card is probably your highest cost debt by a wide margin.”

Credit card rates top 20%

Credit card rates were already high but have recently spiked along with the Federal Reserve’s string of 11 rate hikes, including four in 2023.

Since most credit cards have a variable rate, there’s a direct connection to the Fed’s benchmark. As the federal funds rate rose, the prime rate did, as well, and credit card rates followed suit.

The average annual percentage rate is now more than 20% — also an all-time high.

Why credit card debt keeps rising

Despite the steep cost, consumers often turn to credit cards, in part because they are more accessible than other types of loans, according to Matt Schulz, chief credit analyst at LendingTree. But that comes at the expense of other long-term financial goals, he added.

“That’s money that doesn’t go to a college fund or down payment on a home purchase or Roth IRA,” he said.

Up until recently, most Americans benefited from a few government-supplied safety nets, most notably the large injection of stimulus money, which left many households sitting on a stockpile of cash that enabled some cardholders to keep their credit card balances in check.

But that cash reserve is largely gone after consumers gradually spent down their excess savings from the Covid-19 pandemic years.

Now, “consumers are maintaining and supporting their lifestyles using credit card debt,” said Howard Dvorkin, a certified public accountant and the chairman of Debt.com.

“It has been a struggle,” said Adriana Cubillo, 25, of Modesto, California. “My rent is going up, so even though all my bills are paid, sometimes I’m living paycheck to paycheck.”

Still, consumer credit scores have remained high, helped by a strong labor market and cooling inflation, along with the removal of certain medical collections data from consumer credit files, recent reports show.

What to do if you’re in credit card debt

If you’re carrying a balance, try calling your card issuer to ask for a lower rate, consolidate and pay off high-interest credit cards with a lower interest home equity loan or personal loan or switch to an interest-free balance transfer credit card, Schulz advised.

To optimize the benefits of their credit card, consumers should regularly compare credit card offers, pay as much of their balance as they can as soon as they can and avoid paying their bill late, said Mike Townsend, a spokesperson for the American Bankers Association.

“Any credit card holder who finds themselves in financial stress should always contact their card issuer to make them aware of their situation,” Townsend said. “They may be eligible for some relief or assistance depending on their individual circumstances.”

Mass shootings, bullying, student mental health and the threat of gun violence have become increasingly bigger concerns at U.S. schools during the last two decades.

In the wake of the pandemic, which was both deeply damaging to students and forced many schools to employ new technology to teach students, more schools are turning to apps to address those problems.

A police officer speaks to eighth grade students about internet safety and cyberbullying in Stamford, Conn., last year.John Moore / Getty Images file

“Technology companies during the pandemic really took a rise of presenting themselves as an app-based solution for problems in schools,” said Alexis Hancock of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

That’s perhaps expected — who doesn’t love high-tech solutions to everything? — and surprising, in that thousands of schools are telling students and parents to download and use these apps.

The notion of apps to address problems ranging from cyberbullying to mental health crises to shootings isn’t new. And Corporate America is exploring this path, too. But inside the tech departments at various schools, things seem to be taking off.

Craig Hansen said he recognized during the pandemic that students were struggling more than ever. Along with experiencing the trauma of the pandemic, they were suffering from a long period of isolation from their peers and had been deprived of a lot of their normal activities. And they still had the normal pressures of school to contend with. So he wanted to find a way to help. Hansen is the chief emergency officer for Questar III BOCES, a school that also provides educational and administrative services to districts in New York’s Hudson Valley.

“We knew it would be a good opportunity to try to get a grant to help support our schools in this realm knowing the mental health strains and stressors that we were seeing,” he told NBC News.

Companies including STOPit Solutions, Raptor Technologies, Navigate360, Anonymous Alerts, and Sandy Hook Promise offer apps with a wide variety of safety and monitoring features such as anonymous threat reporting, tracking of visitors to schools, silent alarms and communication with police and mental health counselors. Several states have developed their own reporting systems with similar features.

The companies say they are giving schools and students tools that can prevent a tragedy. What’s certain is that they’re becoming widespread.

Hansen said he applied for a Justice Department grant and received funding to pay for a program that would help address the problems students were having. He considered a handful of options and chose STOPit Solutions because it has a 24-hour monitoring center where reports are evaluated. Fifteen area school districts joined his application, which was ultimately accepted. They are now starting to use the system.

“It’s another tool that will allow students and families to report something and give kids the help that they need,” he told NBC News.

STOPit Solutions, a privately-held company that has been around since 2013, says its app is now being used by 8,800 schools in every U.S. state.

“We give kids a simple fast and powerful way to reach out when they’re in distress, and that can be an external threat, a threat on campus, or an internal threat to oneself, which is more commonly the case these days,” CEO C. Parkhill Mays III said.

Mays says the company gets 300 to 500 reports from students every night, and about 10.5% of those constitute an imminent threat in which police or mental health professionals are brought in.

It’s going to take more than just an app

When it comes to the nightmare scenario of school shootings, unspoken in all of this is the following: Parents and school administrators can’t do much about U.S. gun policies or the state of the health care system in the immediate future, and both of those are both often cited as factors in these issues.

Students hug at a memorial Dec. 1, 2021, following a shooting at Oxford High School in Oxford, Mich.Paul Sancya / AP

But many school officials say they have to do something. And in many cases, they’re required to act. A handful of states around the country have passed versions of Alyssa’s Law, which require schools to have silent panic alarms in case of an emergency.

Craig Hansen said he sought the grant that funded the STOPit app in the Hudson schools because New York state was about to pass that law.

In that context, something like an app that could report a dangerous situation or person looks that much more helpful.

Still, experts said, apps like these could be a double-edged sword. While they could really help students going through a crisis, they have to be implemented carefully — particularly when it comes to potential school violence. They raised concerns about whether students would use these reporting tools to harass their peers, for example.

Mays said that kind of behavior is rare, as less than 1% of reports that go through his company’s app are a result of users abusing the platform. He added that school administrators can block students who misuse the app.

Hancock, of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said that before a school partners with a reporting app like these, it needs to create procedures that will dictate how different kinds of reports will be handled, what kinds of in-person interventions are done, and when parents or authorities are contacted, among other things.

Without that, she says, even a well-designed app won’t do much good.

“If you don’t have an outlined offline protocol, this tool will be effectively useless,” Hancock said.

The experts NBC News spoke to agreed that children who seem suicidal require immediate help, and that an app where students can report that they or their peers are struggling has obvious benefits — and that counselors and regular screenings and check-ins are needed, as well.

Devorah Heitner, author of “Growing Up in Public: Coming of Age in a Digital World,” said that giving schools more resources to address students’ mental health problems would help more than an app.

She said there have been plenty of cases where students have reported that they were worried that a fellow student was going to bring a gun to school — only for no one to act on that report, with tragic results. In some cases, she added, future school shooters have even reported themselves but not received help.

“It’s good to be doing schoolwide mental health screenings on kids and then taking seriously what kids say about how they’re doing,” Heitner said. “I think we need more counselors than cops in schools.”

Pushing for peer intervention

In its introductory materials, STOPit Solutions tells students that they have to take it upon themselves to get involved and report behavior that might be a warning sign for violence, such as unusual and concerning actions or statements.

“Eighty percent of mass shootings are preventable due to the presence of early warning threat indicators,” STOPit national trainer Martoinne Williams says in a student training video. He says it’s especially important for students to monitor social media for those signs.

“Adults are not spending that much time on social media, so that means you are the eyes and the ears on social media,” he says. He advises them to take screenshots and gather specific information about the time and place that any violent incident might occur, and report it to schools through the app.

“It’s like asking children to be their own private investigators to bullying campaigns, and that’s not an approach I would want any child to take,” Hancock said. “If we were actually to address this, it has to be through a multifaceted solution, not a singular app asking students to become police.”

Austin Crosier, Hudson City School District​ communications specialist, said that for his district, STOPit is part of a broader emphasis on health and safety.

“We have and always will encourage students and staff if they see/hear something concerning or are dealing with an issue, to say something and get ahead of the situation before it escalates. All administrators, guidance counselors, building psychologists, nurses and staff are willing and ready to assist however they can and will treat every case individually with the utmost care and importance,” he wrote in an email to NBC News.

Still, experts who spoke to NBC News said there were downsides to the idea of addressing bullying through reports and apps.

The idea of getting bystanders to intervene in bullying situations has become a popular one, said Izzy Kalman, a school psychiatrist and author. But he says there is little evidence showing that it helps.

Kalman told NBC News that since the Columbine High School shooting in 1999, schools have taken overly active approaches to stamping out bullying, including asking students to report all manner of incidents. In his view, it doesn’t work, and might be making things worse. He points out that there is nothing more upsetting to a child than being “told on,” so getting administrators involved becomes part of a cycle of punishment and revenge.

“People get defensive when reported,” he said. “They want to get back and it escalates and it leads to physical harm.”

There are unquestionably times when children need to get an authority figure involved, Kalman says. Especially if someone is hurt or a crime is committed, or someone is in danger.

But in other situations, he says, schools should be teaching children how to solve their own problems and develop relationships instead of telling them to report one another to authority figures.

Juliette Pennyman, superintendent of the Hudson City School District, which started using STOPit on Nov. 1, had a different perspective. She said that using the app to report potential problems will ultimately make students feel more connected.

“I think it will help the culture of transparency and wanting to keep everyone safe, and students caring about each other, and they know that they won’t feel like they’re telling on a friend if a friend is in distress of any kind,” she said.

Americans now owe $1.08 trillion on their credit cards, according to a new report on household debt from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Credit card balances spiked by $154 billion year over year, notching the largest increase since 1999, the New York Fed found.

“Credit card balances experienced a large jump in the third quarter, consistent with strong consumer spending and real GDP growth,” said Donghoon Lee, the New York Fed’s economic research advisor.

Credit card delinquency rates also rose across the board, according to the New York Fed, but especially among millennials, or borrowers between the ages of 30 and 39, who are burdened by high levels of student loan debt.

With most people feeling strained by higher prices — particularly for food, gas and housing — more cardholders are carrying debt from month to month or falling behind on payments, and a greater percentage of balances are going more than 180 days delinquent, according to a separate report from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Nearly one-tenth of credit card users find themselves in “persistent debt” where they are charged more in interest and fees each year than they pay toward the principal — a pattern that is increasingly difficult to break, the consumer watchdog said.

“It’s a big deal,” said Ted Rossman, senior industry analyst at Bankrate. “Your credit card is probably your highest cost debt by a wide margin.”

Credit card rates top 20%

Credit card rates were already high but have recently spiked along with the Federal Reserve’s string of 11 rate hikes, including four in 2023.

Since most credit cards have a variable rate, there’s a direct connection to the Fed’s benchmark. As the federal funds rate rose, the prime rate did, as well, and credit card rates followed suit.

The average annual percentage rate is now more than 20% — also an all-time high.

Why credit card debt keeps rising

Despite the steep cost, consumers often turn to credit cards, in part because they are more accessible than other types of loans, according to Matt Schulz, chief credit analyst at LendingTree. But that comes at the expense of other long-term financial goals, he added.

“That’s money that doesn’t go to a college fund or down payment on a home purchase or Roth IRA,” he said.

Up until recently, most Americans benefited from a few government-supplied safety nets, most notably the large injection of stimulus money, which left many households sitting on a stockpile of cash that enabled some cardholders to keep their credit card balances in check.

But that cash reserve is largely gone after consumers gradually spent down their excess savings from the Covid-19 pandemic years.

Now, “consumers are maintaining and supporting their lifestyles using credit card debt,” said Howard Dvorkin, a certified public accountant and the chairman of Debt.com.

“It has been a struggle,” said Adriana Cubillo, 25, of Modesto, California. “My rent is going up, so even though all my bills are paid, sometimes I’m living paycheck to paycheck.”

Still, consumer credit scores have remained high, helped by a strong labor market and cooling inflation, along with the removal of certain medical collections data from consumer credit files, recent reports show.

What to do if you’re in credit card debt

If you’re carrying a balance, try calling your card issuer to ask for a lower rate, consolidate and pay off high-interest credit cards with a lower interest home equity loan or personal loan or switch to an interest-free balance transfer credit card, Schulz advised.

To optimize the benefits of their credit card, consumers should regularly compare credit card offers, pay as much of their balance as they can as soon as they can and avoid paying their bill late, said Mike Townsend, a spokesperson for the American Bankers Association.

“Any credit card holder who finds themselves in financial stress should always contact their card issuer to make them aware of their situation,” Townsend said. “They may be eligible for some relief or assistance depending on their individual circumstances.”

Office-sharing company WeWork filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in New Jersey federal court Monday, saying that it had entered into agreements with the vast majority of its secured note holders and that it intended to trim “non-operational” leases.

The bankruptcy filing is limited to WeWork’s locations in the U.S. and Canada, the company said in a news release. The company reported liabilities ranging from $10 billion to $50 billion, according to a bankruptcy filing.

“I am deeply grateful for the support of our financial stakeholders as we work together to strengthen our capital structure and expedite this process through the Restructuring Support Agreement,” WeWork CEO David Tolley said in a press release. “We remain committed to investing in our products, services, and world-class team of employees to support our community.

WeWork has suffered one of the most spectacular corporate collapses in recent U.S. history over the past few years. Valued in 2019 at $47 billion in a round led by Masayoshi Son’s SoftBank, the company tried and failed to go public five years ago.

The pandemic caused further pain as many companies abruptly ended their leases, and the economic slump that followed led even more clients to close their doors.

It disclosed in an August regulatory filing that bankruptcy could be a concern.

WeWork debuted through a special purpose acquisition company in 2021 but has since lost about 98% of its value. The company in mid-August announced a 1-for-40 reverse stock split to get its shares trading back above $1, a requirement for keeping its New York Stock Exchange listing.

WeWork shares had fallen to a low of about 10 cents and were trading at about 83 cents before the stock was halted Monday.

Former CEO and co-founder Adam Neumann said that the filing was “disappointing.”

“It has been challenging for me to watch from the sidelines since 2019 as WeWork has failed to take advantage of a product that is more relevant today than ever before,” Neumann said in a statement to CNBC. “I believe that, with the right strategy and team, a reorganization will enable WeWork to emerge successfully.”

As recently as September, the company said it had been actively renegotiating leases and that it was “here to stay.” The company had close to $16 billion in long-term lease obligations, according to securities filings.

The company leases millions of square feet of office space in 777 locations around the world, according to its regulatory filings.

WeWork has engaged Kirkland & Ellis and Cole Schotz as legal advisors. PJT Partners will serve as its investment bank, with support from C Street Advisory Group and Alvarez & Marsal.