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Based on the International Council of Shopping Centers and Goldman Sachs (ICSC-GS) holiday consumer tracking survey, 15 percent or 23.1 million consumers (16 years of age or older) plan to shop on Christmas Eve (December 24).

While more than half (56%) of Americans had dutifully completed their holiday shopping by Dec. 19, nearly one in five hadn't even begun. As a result, those stragglers will be out in force on Christmas Eve, with an estimated 10 percent of consumers hitting the malls in a last-ditch attempt to beat the deadline, according to a nationally representative Consumer Reports Holiday Shopping Poll.

Amid a surge in feelings of financial security, middle-class families are unexpectedly easing their frugal spending behaviors for the holidays.

The issues of hunger and homelessness still remain major challenges in U.S. cities according to a U.S. Conference of Mayors (USCM) report on the status of Hunger and Homelessness in 27 cities in America (listed below) that was released by the U.S. Conference of Mayors on a news conference call.

The Conference Board Leading Economic Index® (LEI) for the U.S. increased 1.1 percent in November to 112.4 (2004=100), following a 0.4 percent increase in October, and a 0.6 percent increase in September.

comScore, a leader in measuring the digital world, reported holiday season retail e-commerce spending for the first 47 days of the November – December 2010 holiday season. For the holiday season-to-date, $27.46 billion has been spent online, marking a 12-percent increase versus the corresponding days last year. The most recent week (week ending Dec. 17) reached $5.15 billion in spending, an increase of 14 percent versus the corresponding week last year, with four individual days surpassing $900 million, led by Green Monday (Monday, December 13) with $954 million and Free Shipping Day (Friday, December 17) with $942 million. Free Shipping Day achieved a 61-percent increase versus the corresponding shopping day last year, highlighting the appeal and success of the promotion in which more than 1,500 merchants offered free shipping.

Small cars and fuel efficiency were all the rage at the first major auto show of the season in Los Angeles in November, but shoppers are still attracted to larger vehicles, according to the AutoTrader.com November Trend Engine report, covering searches and site activity on AutoTrader.com for November 2010. The November report also includes the top-searched new, used and certified pre-owned (CPO) vehicles for the year.

The December new-vehicle retail sales pace is significantly beating expectations, driving a strong close to a challenging year of recovery, according to J.D. Power and Associates, which gathers real-time transaction data from more than 8,900 retail franchisees throughout the United States.

Data released by Standard & Poor's for the S&P Healthcare Economic Composite Index indicates that the average per capita cost of healthcare services covered by commercial insurance and Medicare programs rose 6.70% over the 12-months ending October 2010. This is a deceleration from the 7.08% reported for the 12-months ending in September 2010.

Following the economic crisis, the financial risk implications of defined benefit (DB) plan sponsorship have become the primary pension concern for companies with large U.S. DB plans, according to a joint survey of financial executives conducted by global professional services company Towers Watson and Forbes Insights. To address these issues, many companies are considering changes to settlement options, as well as changes to investment strategy and plan design, both for today and in the future.