The measures are being taken to prevent what the US sees as China's support for Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the outlet reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
Last week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused China of providing Russia with crucial technology parts for its weapons industry.
"We see China sharing machine tools, semiconductors, other dual-use items that have helped Russia rebuild the defense industrial base that sanctions and export controls had done so much to degrade," he said at a press conference following the G7 foreign ministers meeting in Italy.
According to Chinese customs data, trade between the two countries reached a high of $240 billion in 2023, with China becoming one of Russia's largest goods suppliers since Western companies left the Russian market after the country's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
A Chinese embassy spokesperson previously told Reuters that China was not a party to the war in Ukraine and that usual trade between China and Russia should not be interfered with or restricted.
Amid reports that Russia had developed ways of circumventing the sanctions, the US last year sought to punish banks and other organizations facilitating the trade.
The Journal reported that new sanctions on Chinese banks were being considered as an escalatory option in case other diplomatic attempts to curb exports from China fail.
The report comes as Blinken heads to China Tuesday, where he is likely to address US allegations that China is secretly intensifying its support for Russia's invasion.
The plan could backfire
Cutting banks off from access to the dollar would have huge implications for China, with its economy already in a precarious state after a property market debt crisis.
In response to previous sanctions, Russia and China intensified efforts to create exchange mechanisms that don't rely on the dollar.
China doesn't want to get rid of the dollar entirely, but to diminish its dominance and create security for its economy if the US decides to impose even greater sanctions.
The Financial Times last August reported that economies in the "global south" that have long criticized US dominance over the financial system are increasingly keen to use currencies and exchange platforms that don't require the US currency.
Alexandra Prokopenko, a fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center think tank, told The Wall Street Journal that regional Chinese banks had emerged that had little involvement in dollar exchanges.
"Payment chains are slowly being rebuilt," Prokopenko told the outlet. "Both Russians and Chinese are constantly adapting to the new conditions."
The US is betting that China's financial links to the US are stronger than its relationship with Russia.
"There is underused leverage by the West, especially given the dollar and euro dominance in the financial system," said Maria Snegovaya, a senior fellow at CSIS told the Journal.
A stock image shows an older man making a payment online using his credit card.
iStock/Getty Images
A 25-year-old Japanese 'sugar baby' has been sentenced to nine years in prison.
A court ruled that Mai Watanabe defrauded men she met on dating apps out of more than $1 million.
Watanabe also sold a manual on how to execute similar scams, helping another woman in her efforts.
A 25-year-old "sugar baby" was handed a nine-year prison sentence for defrauding men she met on dating apps out of more than $1 million, and selling a manual on how to carry out similar scams.
Mai Watanabe, also known as "itadaki joshi Riri-chan," which translates as "sugar baby Riri," was sentenced by the Nagoya District Court on Monday, The Japan Times reported.
The news outlet said that Watanabe was also fined 8 million yen, about $52,000.
According to the court's ruling, Watanabe defrauded three men in their 50s out of a total of around 55.8 million yen, about $1 million, between 2021 and 2023, the Nippon news agency reported.
She swindled one victim out of 117 million yen, about $756,000, by convincing him that she needed the money to pay off a debt, according to the Kyodo news agency, which added that she used a similar story to defraud the other two men.
Nippon reported that Watanabe used most of the money to make payments at male host clubs in Tokyo's Kabukichō district.
In these clubs, female customers pay for male company and are often poured drinks and flirted with by male hosts.
Kyodo, citing the court's ruling, said that Watanabe was also convicted of creating a manual on how to execute similar scams.
The Jiji Press news agency said she sold the manual to a 21-year-old woman in 2022, aiding her in swindling someone out of about 10 million yen — a little over $64,000.
The news agency said Watanabe was also convicted of evading income tax by hiding about a quarter of the scam's proceeds.
Being a sugar baby can be financially rewarding. A freelance writer previously told Business Insider that she got paid as much as $500 for dates, and was treated to designer clothes, expensive dinners, and stays in luxury hotels.
For sugar daddies — older men who pay younger women — it can sometimes offer a form of companionship, whether platonic or otherwise.
But if they're not careful, they risk falling victim to romance scams.
The Federal Trade Commission in the US received 64,003 reports of romance scams in 2023, amounting to total losses of more than $1.1 billion.
The median loss per person, at $2,000, was higher than in any other type of imposter scam, the FTC noted.
According to a 2023 report by the commission, nearly 60% of people who lost money to a romance scam that year first made contact with the scammer through social media, websites, or apps.
Victoria Beckham, Britney Spears, and Salma Hayek were reportedly among her clients, as well as cast members of "Sex and the City," the Associated Press reported.
It's unclear if any of them bought handbags made out of endangered animal skins, the outlet noted.
The DOJ found that between 2016 and 2019, Gonzalez enlisted friends, family, and employees as part of a scheme to fly designer purses, handbags, and totes from her factory in Colombia into the US.
Carrying the bags in their luggage or on their person, those traveling would, if questioned, tell authorities the bags were gifts, the AP reported.
The handbags would then be displayed at Gzuniga's Manhattan showroom, ready for high-end retailers to buy for their own stores, according to the DOJ.
Handbags displayed in the Gzuniga showroom in a photo submitted by the DOJ as evidence.
Department of Justice
The bags were made of caiman — an alligator-like reptile — and python skin, the AP reported.
Both species are protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, and Gonzalez did not have the right import documents, the news agency added.
At the sentencing, Gonzalez told the court she was deeply sorry, per the AP. She added that "under pressure, I made poor decisions."
While Gonzalez's lawyers argued that only a tiny proportion of her stock was sourced without proper authorization, prosecutors said that she enriched herself while "producing felons" out of those she enlisted to carry the bags, the AP reported.
Prosecutors estimated that Gonzalez amassed more than $2 million through this scheme, AP reported.
This sum reflects the massive growth in the luxury handbag market, with buyers increasingly seeking high-end bags not only for fashion status but also as an investment.
In 2022, handbags — mainly from Chanel, Hermès, and Louis Vuitton — performed better than wine, rare whisky, and jewelry as a luxury asset class, the Financial Times reported.
Thousands of planes appear to have run into issues with jammed GPS signals over the Baltics, a new report by The Sun outlines.
Robert Smith/MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images
About 46,000 flights reported navigation problems flying over the Baltics during an eight-month period, The Sun reported.
The tabloid reported that many were likely to have been Russian jamming and spoofing attacks.
Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Türkiye, and Cyprus are all at high risk of the attacks, per the report.
Thousands of planes may have run into issues with jammed GPS signals, according to a report by British tabloid The Sun which suggests that Russia may be to blame.
Planes reported about 46,000 instances of problems with their satellite navigation over the Baltics between August 2023 and the end of March 2024, The Sun reported, using flight-log data from GPSJAM.org. Many of these were likely to have been jamming and spoofing attacks, The Sun reported.
Jamming is an intentional radio frequency interference with global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) that prevents planes from accessing satellite signals and makes the GNSS system "ineffective or degraded," the European Union Aviation Safety Agency says.
Spoofing, on the other hand, occurs when false satellite signals are sent to "deceive" GNSS receivers and cause them to compute incorrect position, navigation, and timing data, the EASA says. The Sun reported that in some cases planes swerved around objects that weren't actually there.
Both The Sun and The Guardian reported that Russia is suspected of being involved in GPS jamming attacks.
According to The Sun, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Türkiye, and Cyprus are all at high risk of the attacks.
Between August 2023 and the end of March 2024, more than 2,300 Ryanair flights and more than 1,350 flights by Hungarian budget carrier Wizz Air reported satnav problems in the Baltic region, per The Sun. The frequency of instances of navigation problems rocketed from fewer than 50 a week last year to more than 350 a week last month, The Sun reported.
In March, a Royal Air Force plane that UK Defense Secretary Grant Shapps was flying on from Poland to the UK "temporarily experienced GPS jamming" when it flew close to Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave in the Baltics, a spokesperson for British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said.
There's been a "sharp rise" in attacks on GNSSs, Luc Tytgat, the acting executive director of the EASA, said in January. The EASA noted that the uptick in jamming and spoofing incidents had "increasingly threatened the integrity" of positioning, navigation, and timing services across Eastern Europe and the Middle East.
In a safety information bulletin in November, the EASA noted that the rise in jamming and spoofing had started in February 2022, the month that Russia invaded Ukraine.
"This issue particularly affects the geographical areas surrounding conflict zones" but is also encountered in parts of the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, the Baltic Sea, and the Arctic area, the EASA said. It noted that in the Baltic Sea area this affected flight information regions surrounding Kaliningrad.
But the CAA told The Independent that jamming and spoofing near conflict zones were often by-products of military activity, not deliberate actions.
"GPS jamming does not directly impact the navigation of an aircraft and while it's a known issue, this does not mean an aircraft has been jammed deliberately," Glenn Bradley, head of flight operations at the UK Civil Aviation Authority, told The Sun.
A Ryanair spokesperson told The Sun that if location systems, such as GPS, were not functioning, the crew would switch to alternate systems.
Chinese automaker BYD briefly eclipsed Tesla as the world's top seller of electric vehicles.
Even without access to the American market, BYD's affordable EVs are popular in China.
Here's how a little-known Chinese brand proved it could go toe-to-toe with an industry giant.
BYD may not be a household name in America, but it recently made itself known in a big way.
For a brief moment earlier this year, the Chinese automaker unseated Tesla as the world's top seller of electric cars.
Even though you won't see a BYD car in America (yet), the company has built an affordable brand that's popular in China and elsewhere.
Here's the story of the company that proved it could outsell Elon Musk.
BYD doesn't stand for anything — officially.
The BYD nameplate is associated with the slogan "Build Your Dreams," but that came after the company was formed.
picture alliance
Wang Chuanfu and a cousin founded BYD in 1995. Then a 29-year-old government researcher, Wang came from a family of rice farmers. He earned a university scholarship and eventually moved to the Special Economic Zone in Shenzhen to start his new company.
The "YD" in the name comes from Yadi, the village in Shenzhen where the company was originally located, according to one South Korean newspaper. The "B" was added later, supposedly as a promotional tool. Wang has said in interviews that, taken together, the "BYD" name didn't stand for anything in particular.
It was only later that Wang derived the slogan "Build Your Dreams." The company has also acquired another nickname: "Bring Your Dollars."
The company was originally a cell phone battery manufacturer.
Hu Jintao, China's vice president in the 1990s, tests a Samsung cellphone. Samsung was one of BYD's earliest customers.
Kim Jae-Hwang/AFP via Getty Images
The company's original business wasn't cars. It was cellphone batteries. BYD challenged established Japanese suppliers Toyota and Sony by providing a cheaper alternative. By 2002, companies like Motorola, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, and Samsung were all using BYD batteries.
They started making cars in 2003.
Peter Parks/AFP via Getty Images
BYD moved into the car business after buying Xi'an Tsinchuan, a failing state-owned automaker that was then an arm of defense contractor Norinco, according to the South China Morning Post.
The company launched its first car in 2005. The BYD F3 was a compact sedan that resembled the Toyota Corolla. It sold for as little as 40,000 yuan, or about $5,850.
Warren Buffett was a key early booster.
Wang Chuanfu (left) welcomed investors Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett, and Bill Gates to celebrate the launch of the BYD M6 in 2010.
Visual China Group via Getty Images
Billionaire investor Warren Buffett was one of the high-profile names to take interest in BYD early on. Looking to invest in China's booming car market, Buffett toured BYD's headquarters.
While the Berkshire Hathaway tycoon was there, Wang reportedly took a sip of battery fluid to prove how clean his batteries were, according to The Wall Street Journal. Buffett was so impressed by the experience, he offered to buy 25% of the company.
Wang declined that offer, but Buffett was not deterred. Berkshire Hathaway acquired a 10% stake in BYD — for $232 million — in 2008.
Their first electric car drew scorn from Elon Musk.
Stan Honda/AFP via Getty Images
The company debuted its first fully electric vehicle, the e6, in 2010. Benefiting from Chinese government subsidies, it was able to compete with its Japanese counterparts.
But not everyone was impressed. Tesla CEO Elon Musk, in a 2011 interview, laughed when he was asked whether he considered BYD a serious rival to Tesla.
"Have you seen their car?" he said. "I don't think they make a good product. I don't think it's particularly attractive. The technology is not very strong."
BYD's hybrid cars turned it into a titan of Chinese automakers.
Wang Chuanfu introduced the BYD Qin in 2012.
AP Photo/Alexander F. Yuan
BYD established itself as one of the top automakers for hybrid vehicles in China in the 2010s. Its most popular offering was the Qin, introduced in 2012, which became one of the bestselling cars in China.
That wasn't the only offering that propelled BYD to prominence, however. The company also released the Tang, a hybrid SUV, and partnered with Daimler AG (now Mercedes-Benz) to make its Denza line.
BYD took the EV crown from Tesla — briefly.
A BYD ATTO 3 in Bangkok.
Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters
Even though most of its sales in the fourth quarter of 2023 came from the Chinese market, BYD made headlines across the globe when it seemingly did the impossible — it unseated Tesla as the world's top seller of electric cars.
The Chinese automaker rode the EV wave on the back of its new Seagull, which debuted for 73,000 yuan (about $10,000), as well as its Song, Qin Plus, Dolphin, Yuan Plus, and Han EVs.
Tesla reclaimed the crown in the first quarter of 2024, though both companies saw steep declines in their sales.
Don't expect to see a BYD car on American roads anytime soon.
New BYD cars wait to be loaded onto a ship in China's Shandong province.
Future Publishing
For a time, it looked like we were just a few years away from getting Chinese electric cars in the United States. A BYD executive said as much in 2017, and the company even hired Leonardo DiCaprio as a brand ambassador for English-speaking customers.
But the company says it has abandoned its plans of selling its EVs to Americans. Analysts have pointed to geopolitical tensions and trade barriers between the two countries, as well as the slumping demand for EVs in the United States.
There are 170 million Americans on TikTok, and they're stressed about a potential ban.
David Espejo/Getty Images
TikTokers are stressed about a potential US ban and are criticizing the intentions behind it.
Chinese-owned ByteDance will be forced to sell TikTok to a US company or face a nationwide ban.
TikTokers argue a ban would infringe on their freedom of speech and hurt the creator economy.
TikTokers are stressed about the app potentially being banned in the US, saying it would be "devastating" to their careers since the businesses they've built would "shrivel and die."
The US Senate will likely approve the bill this week. Once passed, the bill would mean TikTok could be banned in the US in 2025, but it could take even longer (if it happens at all).
Still, creators are unhappy, and see the move as hypocritical and infringing on their freedom of speech.
Those who want the app banned argue that TikTok may be forced into giving over user data to the Chinese government. They also fear TikTok could be suppressing or amplifying certain topics due to governmental pressure.
TikTok has repeatedly denied these allegations and made attempts to distance itself from ByteDance.
TikTok and its users have fought back, with the platform urging people to call their representatives and make their views heard.
Creators have enthusiastically mobilized against the bill and called out what they say is the hypocrisy of the US government. They claim it focuses heavily on one app while leaving other tech companies, such as Meta and Google, alone.
Leo LonDini, who has nine million followers, questioned how other companies with partial Chinese ownership seemingly have a free pass.
Tencent, a Chinese company, has a stake in Epic Games, Universal Group, Warner Music Group, Spotify, Tesla, Snapchat, and many others, for example, and a significant amount of Apple products are made in China.
"Listen, I don't want any government, foreign or domestic, spying on me," LonDini said. "And if our government could actually prove that Chinese companies are spying on us, well, then we have a decision to make, don't we? Either we accept the risk, or we get rid of the app."
Brett Jansen, a creator who shares news on TikTok, said in a recent video she thought it was suspicious that the one app where information spreads freely will potentially be banned.
She described the bill as "fear-mongering," and accused the government of using people's ignorance of TikTok and how it works to their advantage.
"Can someone please help me to understand how the US government is not doing the exact same thing that they are accusing China of doing?" she said. "Which is essentially controlling the narrative, controlling how our data is collected, and controlling how that data is used."
How many people on tiktok feel this is the only place they learn information not only about the US but around the globe that isnt skewed with a media bias or coming straight from a government narrative? 🙋🏼♀️ Yet congress through this ban into a foreign aid bill because 1. They are cowarda and dont want to vote on this independently because it will expose them. This is overreach at the highest levels. Its gross, its unethical and I hope if this does go through people wake the F up as to how corrurpt DC is on both sides of the aisle. #tiktokban#congress#foreignaid#corruption#tiktok#wethepeople
Shira, a content creator who operates under the name shirashiraonthewall, told Business Insider last month that the ban is '"a tactic to control the narrative."
"TikTok has cultivated a huge community of people who discuss politics and current affairs without it being altered by propaganda," she said. "A lot of us just want to know the truth."
Without TikTok, Shira said she personally wouldn't know about "some of the injustices occurring across the world."
"It's a valuable tool in seeking solidarity," she said.
Shira also pointed to how a ban would harm her business, as she would no longer be able to make money from TikTok shop.
A ban would be "devastating" for her, she said, because years of her work would be "deleted forever."
"I know that I will just have to accept what happens and move on to making content on Instagram Reels or Shorts," she said. "But my growth and virality aren't guaranteed there as my content was uniquely made for TikTok."
She said her future, as a result, is pretty uncertain. She's worked with many large American corporations through the app, and more than half of her earnings come from brand deals with them.
A TikTok spokesperson told BI in March that the legislation has a "predetermined outcome," which is a total ban of TikTok in the US.
"The government is attempting to strip 170 million Americans of their Constitutional right to free expression," they said. "This will damage millions of businesses, deny artists an audience, and destroy the livelihoods of countless creators across the country."
Ben Stanley turned to TikTok when he started making artwork. He said he hasn't been able to hold down a job due to his mental and physical health complications, so growing a following on TikTok has provided him a flexible way to earn an income.
It's TikTok's algorithm that has made him so successful, he told BI.
"Should Tiktok be banned, my business won't be able to sustain itself because I don't have the same kind of following anywhere else," he said.
"So I would essentially be unemployed again, which would be a massive strain on my health as well as my wife and son on the way."
A loss of TikTok would mean a loss of his business, he said, meaning his income would "shrivel and die."
Tahrea Sherman, a content creator who makes TikToks about pop culture, told BI she is worried that if TikTok is sold to a US company, then the government would suppress certain content.
This is a concern because TikTok is already hot on content moderation.
"I feel like it's doing what social media is supposed to do, which is connecting with other people and exploring new ideas," Sherman said. "They want to change what makes the app great, and I think that's very unfortunate."
Catalina Goanta, an associate professor of private law and technology at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, told BI the bill in Congress only targets social media, which is "particularly odd and incoherent" considering there are security concerns around many other businesses that operate in the US, including Temu.
According to Statista, around 75% of the marketing spending worldwide on social media stars was on US influencers in 2023.
"Losing TikTok would be a terrible blow not only to the livelihood of creators of all sizes in the US but also to the creative digital industry as a whole," Goanta said. "It is an economically nonsensical decision to bring down a poorly understood modern, creative, digital industry."
"At the stage that the bill is signed, we will move to the courts for a legal challenge," TikTok's head of public policy in the Americas, Michael Beckerman, wrote in an internal memo to staff on Saturday.
"We'll continue to fight, as this legislation is a clear violation of the First Amendment rights of the 170 million Americans on TikTok."
Editor's note, April 23, 2024: This article has been updated to reflect the House of Representatives vote, which passed a bill to ban TikTok in the US.
It's sunk from first to third place in the Chinese smartphone market after iPhone sales tumbled 19% in the first three months of the year, according to estimates from Counterpoint Research.
The sales slump marks the iPhone's worst performance in China since 2020 and underlines increasingly tough competition from local rivals.
Chinese-based rivals Vivo and Honor outpaced Apple's sales in the first quarter of the year, per Counterpoint data. Apple finished the quarter with a 15.7% share of the market, down from 19.7% in the same period last year and barely ahead of Huawei's 15.5%, per the research outfit.
In stark contrast with Apple's slide, Huawei sales soared by almost 70% compared with the first three months of 2023.
Counterpoint research analyst Ivan Lam said in a note that Huawei's surge had directly affected iPhone sales in China. Apple had also been hit by fewer consumers replacing their smartphones, he added.
Huawei's new Pura70 phone has three cameras, just like the iPhone Pro.
CFOTO/Future Publishing/Getty Images
Huawei recently released a new series of smartphones called the Pura 70 that has an advanced camera system similar to the trio of lenses on the iPhone Pro range.
The new phones, which start at $760, provide Huawei with a new opportunity to win over Chinese customers from Apple. Last year the company launched the Mate 60 Pro series that was aimed at iPhone 15 buyers.
The Huawei Pura70 smartphone.
NurPhoto/Getty Images
Despite the stiff competition, Lam said iPhone sales could still reverse their downward slide.
"We are seeing slow but steady improvement from week to week, so momentum could be shifting," he said. "For the second quarter, the possibility of new color options combined with aggressive sales initiatives could bring the brand back into positive territory."
The 19% decline is slightly better than the 24% slide that Counterpoint had estimated for the first six weeks of the year.
The Chinese smartphone market is crucial for Apple as it's second only to the US, and is ahead of Europe.
Apple has been fighting on multiple fronts this year. In March, the European Commission fined the company about 1.8 billion euros ($1.95 billion). In the US, Apple is battling an antitrust lawsuit from the Department of Justice.
Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, made outside normal working hours.
Companies are getting creative with benefits packages to hire and retain top talent.
Nicolas Hansen/Getty Images
Workers and companies are trying non-traditional job benefits to combat the rising cost of living.
Housing assistance, student loan repayments, and commuting support are increasingly popular.
Unconventional benefits could also entice remote workers back to the office.
As Americans deal with the rising cost of living, more companies and workers are rethinking the types of job benefits that are most important.
Recent surveys have shown that some workers prefer non-traditional job benefits such as housing assistance and help with commuting costsover things like extra vacation time. Additionally, companies are getting creative with their benefits packagesso that can help both the business and the employees, such as matched contributions to help pay off student loans in place of retirement benefits and adoption assistance, saidJohn Newcome, vice president and senior consultant at the benefits administration firm Kelly Benefits.
"Employees want a holistic approach to benefits that address their overall well-being, including work-life balance, mental health support, and financial guidance," Newcome told Business Insider. "Standard benefits, like medical, dental, or vision care, are typically included in most employee benefits plans. However, many employees now seek more specific benefits."
The most direct form of housing assistance can be in the form of rental or down payment assistance, which Newcome said more companies are starting to implement, especially among public entities, such as major universities, public school districts, and even the US federal government. However, there are other more creative ways to help with home ownership, he added.
For example, a company can guarantee a loan to help secure a lower interest rate for an employee or even share ownership of a house with the worker, which they can buy out over time.
Walmart is one example of a company offering housing assistance to employees. When qualified workers buy a new home or refinance a house, Walmart will help with the process and pay part of the closing costs.
ElonMusk's tunneling company, Boring, announced plans in 2023 to build a 110-home subdivision for employees near the Austin suburb of Bastrop. The homes are expected to be offered as lease to own, with prices below market rate and close to facilities for Boring and other Musk-led businesses, Tesla and SpaceX.
Non-traditional perks can be chosen to help with more immediate needs
Other non-traditional perks on the rise include some voluntary benefits that can lower or eliminate living expenses, said Newcome. These include family planning benefits, such as help with fertility procedures or adoption costs, along with supplements to basic health insurance, including mental health support and even pet insurance.
Student loan repayment assistance is another benefit growing in popularity, saidNewcome. In some cases, workers can choose this benefit and pause other benefits such as retirement contributions.
"With workers of all ages repaying student debt, student loan assistance should be a key consideration in the enhancement of employee benefit programs," Newcome said.
Some companies are offering matching contributions to employees for student loan debts.
FG Trade Latin/Getty Images
One way companies are offering student loan assistance is similar to a 401(k), in which the company makes matching contributions to the student loan each month based on how much the employee pays.
In cases where employees can choose between student loan help and retirement contributions, it can help keep the company and the workers from having to take on additional benefits costs.
To be sure, there can be downsides to accepting these perks. Many Americans are facing a retirement crisis without enough saved up for their post-work lives. Postponing retirement savings in favor of more immediate needs could just be trading one problem in and creating a bigger one later.
In addition, some of these perks, such as supplements to health insurance, might be offered as optional with an added cost. If taken, the employee faces potentially lower after-tax, take-home pay.
Non-traditional benefits could also convince workers to rethink remote work
In a survey of 1,020 employers and workers about office perks, performed by the bonding and insurance company JW Surety Bonds and published in January, 47% of respondents said they would be willing to return to the office if housing benefits were offered. Additionally, 69% said they would be willing to change their job or career for employer-based housing benefits.
Additionally,43% said they would take less vacation time in exchange for help with housing costs, and 30% said they would prefer housing assistance over a pay raise.
Some workers have expressed an interest in returning to the office in exchange for perks that help with the cost of living.
Morsa Images/Getty Images
Similarly, providing employees with commuting assistance could be key to luring more workers back to the office in a post-pandemic world, according to a survey of 1,038 US adults and remote employees performed in February by the cloud communications company Ringover.
When asked which perks would convince them to give up remote work, the top response was "paid commute," with 83.2% of respondents picking that as an important incentive.
As the landscape of employee benefits evolves to meet the changing needs of the workforce, companies are becoming more innovative.
Steve Dalton and Sydney Sauber recently moved from the Bay Area to Worcester, Massachusetts.
Steve Dalton
Steve Dalton and Sydney Sauber left California for a lower cost of living in Massachusetts.
Dalton and Sauber appreciate Worcester's cultural diversity and intellectual opportunities.
They estimate their $560,000 Worcester home would sell for over $2 million in the Bay Area.
Steve Dalton, 56, and his partner Sydney Sauber, 58, were ready to leave the Bay Area of California after nearly two decades.
Sauber was homesick for the Northeast, where she lived for much of her life, though Dalton had never lived anywhere outside the Bay Area. After deliberating staying on the West Coast, they settled on a historic home in Worcester, Massachusetts, the state's second-most-populous city.
The cost of living in Worcester is lower than in the Bay Area, and they've found the city accessible for Dalton's mobility challenges. Worcester also has the intellectual and artistic opportunities both were looking for, and they valued its cultural diversity. Dalton said they "still pinch ourselves over how lucky we are."
"It was really important to us to live in a neighborhood that you could walk in and that physically you would be able to easily go across the street with your bare feet and talk to your neighbor," Sauber said. "People walk their dogs and just hang out in their yards without super loud cars rushing by you."
According to the Census Bureau's most recent tabulation of American Community Survey data, 818,000 people left California between 2021 and 2022, compared to 475,800 who moved in. About 18,500 moved from California to Massachusetts during this period. A Business Insider analysis reveals the typical mover leaving California makes $53,500 and is a millennial or Gen Zer, with many stating they're moving for lower living costs, slower paces of life, or political reasons.
Leaving California for Massachusetts
Dalton, an IT professional for a university, was born and raised in the Bay Area. He grew up in Marin County, directly north of San Francisco, before moving to Contra Costa County further east.
Sauber, a cognitive scientist and learning style specialist, was born in Puerto Rico, then moved around the country to New York, Texas, and Florida. She eventually settled in New England, spending time in Northampton and Salem, Massachusetts, as well as Dover, New Hampshire.
Sauber then moved to California to work on a book, living on a fishing boat in the East Bay. While there, she met Dalton, and they moved into a condo in San Pablo two years later in 2010.
They enjoyed living near San Francisco and Oakland, though both knew the condo was temporary. Sauber said San Pablo didn't have the academic and artistic community she sought, and it was unsustainable for her to have a home office at the condo.
As they reached retirement age, the couple wanted to purchase a house, though they knew that would be implausible in the Bay Area with their budget. As a couple with a single income of just over $100,000, they would need to look quite far from the Bay to purchase their dream home. Zillow estimates the average home price in San Pablo is $605,000.
"As it was, homes we were considering in the North Bay at the time would have required us to spend our entire savings and equity on a down payment and still carry a pretty high mortgage," Dalton said.
Sauber also thought she would have a larger client base as an educational consultant in a New England city than in California. Both also felt moving out of California would mean they would be less affected by the climate crisis, as they worried wildfires or infrastructure failures would damage their future retirement home.
"We lived four miles away from the Chevron oil refinery, and we learned several times, over and over again, that San Pablo is a sacrifice zone," Sauber said, referring to an area permanently changed by environmental damage. "We knew that it was not going to be one of the places that people are going to run to service if something big happens near or in it."
As Dalton is a paraplegic from a spinal cord injury, he wanted a larger space that would allow him to live more comfortably — and would have enough room for a live-in caregiver as he ages.
Settling on Worcester, Massachusetts
They made two "reconnaissance trips" to Worcester, a city of slightly over 200,000 residents. One of their concerns was adjusting to the snow, and one of their trips was during a 10-inch snowstorm. Still, they calculated there would only be a few house-bound days in Massachusetts due to the snow, compared toroughly 25 days a year in San Pablo due to poor air quality.
The couple bought their home in Worcester in May 2022, spending $560,000 on the 100-year-old 2,000-square-foot home — they sold their California home for $480,000. Their neighborhood mostly comprises single-family homes built 75 to 125 years ago. The four-bedroom house is walking distance from parks and grocery stores, and it's a short drive from downtown and many high-quality medical facilities.
"We're able to use some of the money we had in savings to make other investments in the home, make it more accessible for me, and also do some future-proofing, like with solar panels," Dalton said.
He estimates a similar home in the Bay Area would cost over $2 million. They pay less than $2,000 a month for their mortgage, and they had extra money from savings to install a new roof. They also installed an elevator, and their solar panel system will zero out their electricity bill for the next three decades.
Dalton said he's been comforted by the city's healthcare resources. They live close to a few hospitals and specialized care facilities that are not as crowded and rushed as in California.
Dalton said despite his disability, he enjoys taking advantage of nature. He misses the whitewater rafting and adaptive rock climbing of California, though his part of Massachusetts has plenty of parks and nature trails.
As a city with 10 colleges and universities, Worcester is "lively with a rich intellectual life," Dalton said. The couple said Worcester has shocked them with how creative and community-focused the city has become. They've appreciated the city's public gardens, poetry associations, and art projects that have made the city feel inviting.
"Worcester is a city that is doing a lot to progress as a city," Dalton said. "In the not-too-distant past, they had the Red Sox minor league team make their home here, and they have a very nice stadium for that. They're building a lot of nightlife and cultural stuff around that. They also have revitalized their theater and performing arts district."
They've also found the people warm and open, despite stereotypes they heard about New Englanders being standoffish. The community is ethnically and socioeconomically diverse as well. They acknowledged that some longtime residents have noted an opioid crisis has rocked the city or have been concerned about gentrification, though Dalton and Sauber said Worcester is maybe the best place they've lived.
"I didn't want to live in a super expensive, posh neighborhood; I wanted a place that felt safe but also had opportunities to get to know other people from other cultures and backgrounds and at the same time be of service to each other," Sauber said.
Have you recently moved to a new state or left the United States for a new country? Reach out to this reporter at nsheidlower@businessinsider.com.
Donald Trump speaks to reporters outside the courtroom in Manhattan.
Reuters/Victor J. BluerEU
Manhattan prosecutors say Trump has violated his gag order at least 10 times.
Trump may be found in contempt Tuesday morning for his posts on Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels.
He faces fines of $1,000 per violation and even jail, though experts say the latter is less likely.
Donald Trump faces a contempt-of-court finding and thousands of dollars in fines if the judge in his New York hush-money trial finds him in contempt of court for repeatedly violating his gag order.
A contempt hearing is set for 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, the second day of testimony.
Openings were Monday. Prosecutors told a seven-man, five-woman jury that Trump conspired to falsify business documents to hide a $130,000 hush money payment that silenced porn star Stormy Daniels on the eve of the 2016 election.
Since the gag order took effect on April 1, Trump has persisted in attacking jurors and two key witnesses, Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels, prosecutors complained in seeking the GOP frontrunner be fined.
Under New York law, Trump faces a maximum of $1,000 per violation.
The judge could also pose any amount of jail time as a punishment and deterrent against future violations. But prosecutors have not asked that Trump be jailed.
Experts said a warning of jail is far more likely than even a brief stint behind bars.
Manhattan defense lawyer Murray Richman says he's had plenty of experience with gag orders in his 60 years in practice — during which he has repped organized crime figures "from every one of the Five Families," he told Business Insider.
"There is almost always a gag order to protect the parties, the witnesses, the case," he said.
The judge will not order Trump jailed even if he does find he repeatedly violated the gag, Richman predicted.
"It's like he's challenging the judge to do something," Richman said.
"But the reality is, if the judge incarcerates him, he becomes a hero. If he puts him in for five days, three days, one day — they'll publish that picture around the world. And then he becomes president."
Still, last week, prosecutors asked that the judge, New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, warn Trump that future violations could get him thrown behind bars.
"We're asking the court to remind the defendant that further violations of the court's order could result in jail time," a prosecutor, Christopher Conroy, told the judge last Monday.
Trump's gag order bans Trump from making public statements about jurors and witnesses that could interfere with the trial.
Despite the gag, at least 10 attacks have been posted to Trump's Truth Social account and his official campaign website this month,
Most of the posts cited by prosecutors target Cohen, calling him a "serial perjurer."
One of Trump's gag-violating Truth Social posts went live shortly after 9 a.m. on April 15, the first day of jury selection, Conroy complained to the judge last week.
"It's entirely possible that it was done while in this courthouse," the prosecutor said.
Another of Trump's "Truths," from April 10, called Daniels and Cohen "two sleaze bags who have, with their lies and misrepresentations, cost our country dearly."
Other Truth Social posts cited by prosecutors attacked a former prosecutor on the case, and the jury pool in general.
On April 18, Trump quoted Fox News host Jesse Watters claiming that "Liberal Activists" were lying to the judge in order to infiltrate the jury.
"The defendant has demonstrated his willingness to flout the order," Conroy told the judge last week.
"He has attacked witnesses in the case in the past. He has attacked Grand Jurors and jurors," Conroy said.
Also last week, Merchan showed little patience for Trump lawyer Todd Blanche for claiming that Trump had to fight back against Cohen and Daniels.
"The two witnesses themselves have been talking about their testimony in this case, President Trump's ongoing reelection, and just generally disparaging threats constantly," Blanche complained.
"He's responding to salacious repeated attacks by these witnesses," the lawyer added.
Merchan did not sound sympathetic to Blanche's argument when he ordered the defense to respond in writing to the prosecution's claims.
"When you respond," the judge said, "direct me to any portion in the original gag order or the subsequent gag order that ways that there is an exception to the gag order if Mr. Trump feels he is being attacked."
The judge added, with some sarcasm, "I don't recall inserting that anywhere in either gag order."