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U.S. consumer borrowing surged in November by the most on record, reflecting outsize increases in credit-card balances and non-revolving loans, Bloomberg News reported. Total credit jumped $40 billion from the prior month after a revised $16 billion gain in October, Federal Reserve figures showed Friday. On an annualized basis, borrowing increased 11%. The November gain exceeded all estimates in a Bloomberg survey which had a median projection of $20 billion. Revolving credit outstanding, which includes credit cards, climbed $19.8 billion — the largest increase on record. Non-revolving credit, which includes auto and school loans, rose $20.2 billion, the largest gain in six months. The figures suggests Americans’ are starting to rely more on credit as savings built up on the back of government pandemic-relief funding dries up. Bloomberg Economics estimates that households earning less than $90,000 a year will have exhausted their financial cushions by February.

Though initial shutdowns caused unemployment to surge to levels not seen since the Great Depression, trillions of dollars in government stimulus and the economy’s swift, if turbulent, recovery helped many families reach a new level of financial security, the Wall Street Journal reported. The first two rounds of stimulus payments lifted 11.7 million people out of poverty, according to the Census Bureau. Americans built up $2.7 trillion in extra savings. Some expect that, combined with rising wages, to provide them with lasting stability despite the return to more normal spending patterns and rising inflation. Not everyone benefited equally, and some say the future already looks more tenuous. The federal government’s stimulus checks, expanded unemployment insurance and monthly child tax credit have ended, and the pause on payments and interest on student loans will end soon. The Omicron variant of the coronavirus is driving up infections and disrupting businesses. But Americans of all income levels socked away more money during the pandemic, according to Moody’s Analytics estimates based in part on government data.

Bad weather and coronavirus outbreaks among workers continued to disrupt schedules across the United States, but airlines have also called off many recent flights, in advance, so they can correct course at a traditionally slow time for travel without surprising customers with last-minute cancellations, the New York Times reported. About 5,000 flights were canceled from Friday through Sunday, according to FlightAware, a data tracking service, with the daily number of cuts declining steadily over that period. Southwest Airlines suspended over 1,000 flights, more than any other carrier. SkyWest Airlines, which operates flights for several major carriers, and United Airlines each canceled more than 500 flights. The turmoil began before Christmas, caused by bad weather in the West and staff shortages because of virus outbreaks among employees. Snowfall in the Northeast continued to wreak havoc at major airport hubs across the country into the first weekend of this month. “Given the ongoing surge in Covid cases and related sick calls, we’ve been working with each of our major partners to proactively reduce our January schedules,” SkyWest said in a statement. The airline operates flights for United, Delta Air Lines, American Airlines and Alaska Airlines and said the pullback is intended to “ensure we’re able to adequately staff our remaining flying as we work to recover in the coming weeks.”

Today, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments over efforts to overturn two major Biden Administration policies designed to raise coronavirus vaccination rates: its vaccine-or-testing mandate aimed at large employers and a vaccination requirement for some health care workers, the New York Times reported. The hearing comes as the country is facing a surge in COVID cases and the White House wrestles with how to manage this phase of the pandemic. It could be the “most important day for public health in a century,” according to Lawrence Gostin, a professor of global health law at Georgetown. It boils down to whether the federal government has the authority to impose these mandates, a question the Supreme Court has not yet considered in other challenges. The Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration says it has the power via a 1970 law that allows it to issue emergency rules for workplace safety. Opponents, which include some states, trade groups and companies, say that the mandates should be left to legislation, not executive action. The court’s six-justice conservative majority may be skeptical of broad assertions of executive power. The last time the Supreme Court considered a Biden administration policy addressing the pandemic — a moratorium on evictions — the justices shut it down. A decision in favor of the mandate would mean that, by Jan. 10, large companies must have policies in place that require employees to be vaccinated or tested weekly. They must be following those policies by Feb. 9.

The U.S. Treasury Department stuck by its rule that states and cities can’t use pandemic relief aid to pay down debt, Bloomberg News reported. The Treasury yesterday released its final rule detailing how municipalities can use some $350 billion of aid from the Biden administration’s American Rescue Plan. The rule bars governments from using the funds to pay debt service, one of several restrictions that the Treasury has put on the money. A bevy of governments like Illinois had asked the Treasury to relax that restriction, arguing that they needed to take on debt when the pandemic upended their finances in 2020. The Treasury has emphasized that the lifeline to states, cities, counties and other governments is intended to help them rebuild their workforces, maintain government services and aid in the U.S. economic recovery.

Airlines are struggling through one of the most severe and persistent mass-cancellation events of the past decade, according to data compiled by FlightAware, after U.S. COVID-19 infections surged too quickly for carriers to manage without upending holiday travel, wreaking havoc on already-stretched airline workforces. Now carriers are assessing how to better manage what could continue to be a difficult period, at least for the next few weeks, the Wall Street Journal reported. Airlines have canceled more than 1,000 daily U.S. flights for 12 straight days, including over 2,000 on Thursday. Flights scrubbed from Christmas Eve through Jan. 5 exceeded 22,000, more than 7% of the number airlines had planned to fly, according to FlightAware, a flight-tracking service. For airlines, the upheaval of the pandemic is heading into a new phase. Unlike in early 2020, when terrified passengers canceled trips in droves, new variants dent but don’t decimate appetite for travel. But airlines are still rebuilding their operations. The twin challenges of rising numbers of employees calling out sick after being infected or exposed to COVID-19, and a series of severe winter storms that hit major hubs from Seattle to Chicago to Washington, D.C., created the perfect conditions for travel chaos. (Subscription required.)

The U.S. job market is nearly at levels healthy enough that the central bank’s low-interest rate policies are no longer needed, Federal Reserve officials concluded last month, according to minutes of the meeting released yesterday, the Associated Press reported. Fed officials also expressed concerns that surging inflation was spreading into more areas of the economy and would last longer than they previously expected, the minutes said. “Many (policymakers) saw the U.S. economy making rapid progress” toward the Fed’s goal of “maximum employment,” the minutes said. “Several” officials said they felt the goal had already been reached. The minutes underscored the Fed’s sharp pivot from what had been its policy through most of the pandemic, shifting from keeping interest rates very low to encourage more hiring, to moving quickly towards raising rates to rein in inflation, which has surged to four-decade highs. Fed officials also voiced heightened concerns about inflation, a development that pushed down stock prices after the minutes were released. Bond yields also rose in response. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note, a benchmark for setting rates on mortgages and many other kinds of loans, increased to 1.7% soon after the minutes were released, from 1.68% just before.

U.S. businesses added 807,000 jobs in December despite the emergence of the omicron variant, according to data released Wednesday by payroll processor ADP, far exceeding expectations, The Hill reported. The ADP National Employment Report, a closely watched gauge of private sector job growth, showed private non-farm payrolls adding almost twice as many new workers as analysts projected. Private sector job growth was spread broadly among businesses of all sizes and industries, said ADP chief economist Nela Richardson. “December’s job market strengthened as the fallout from the delta variant faded and omicron’s impact had yet to be seen,” Richardson said in a statement. “Job gains were broad-based, as goods producers added the strongest reading of the year, while service providers dominated growth. Businesses with fewer than 50 employees added 204,000 workers last month, while mid-sized firms added 214,000 new workers and companies with more than 500 employees added 389,000 new workers to payrolls. Good-producing businesses added 138,000 jobs while service sector firms added 669,000. The leisure and hospitality sector, which is deeply vulnerable to COVID-19 shocks, also added 246,000 jobs last month despite the omicron surge.