November 2013

The Pizza Hut manager who was fired for refusing to open on Thanksgiving has been offered his job back. 

Tony Rohr became a national folk hero earlier this week when he told the honchos at Pizza Hut he wouldn’t open his store up on the holiday. The move cost him his job, but that was before the story went viral. Rohr’s firing received nationwide media coverage and the mild-mannered pizza store manager was interviewed several times on television.

U.S. single-family home prices posted their strongest annual gains in September in more than seven years, according to the latest figures from S&P’s Case-Shiller home price index.

The index of 20 U.S. cities rose 0.7 percent from the previous month and 13.3 percent from September of last year.

Price gains were most pronounced in the West, where some economists fear another housing bubble is forming. Home prices in Las Vegas rose 29.1 percent year-over-year, while San Francisco and Los Angeles were close behind with 25.7 percent and 21.8 percent increases, respectively.

The Golden State’s economy was a job creating machine last month – California employers added 39,800 positions and the official unemployment rate fell to 8.7 percent, close to its lowest level since before the financial crisis.

In the past year, California's job creation record has been bettered by only one other state: Texas. Since October 2012, California has added 207,300 jobs, while Texas tops the list at 267,400.

Late credit card payments spiked in the third quarter, according to credit reporting agency TransUnion.

The agency said on Thursday that the rate of late payments 90 days past due was 1.36 percent in the July to September quarter, up from 1.27 percent in the previous quarter.

TransUnion says the rise is due in part to seasonal factors.

“The credit card delinquency rate typically rises in the third quarter, partly because of back-to-school spending,” said Toni Guitart, director of research at TransUnion.