Business

Nvidia defies AI bubble fears but some analysts remain worried

Win McNamee/Getty Images

(NEW YORK) — Blockbuster earnings from chip giant Nvidia this week appeared to rebuke concerns about an artificial-intelligence bubble, briefly ending a days-long slump in the stock market.

“It’s fair to say that Nvidia’s results have completely changed the market mood and pushed out any bubble fears for another day,” said Jim Reid, a research strategist at Deutsche Bank, in a memo to clients early Thursday morning, just hours after the earnings.

But the market went on to offer little reassurance. Shares of Nvidia fell almost 3% in the first post-earnings trading session. The major stock indexes also dropped, underscoring the importance of the technology for Wall Street and the overall economy, which have both come to rely on massive AI spending to propel growth.

Nvidia recorded $57 billion in sales over three months ending in October, the company said on Wednesday, setting a quarterly sales record and demonstrating near-bottomless demand for the semiconductors at the heart of AI.

Still, critics say such appetite for the building blocks of AI has far outpaced the technology’s end uses and financial returns. AI hasn’t delivered much profit, they argue, despite up-front costs totaling hundreds of billions of dollars spent on data centers and chips.

Proponents strongly disagree, pointing to the rapid adoption of products like ChatGPT and counseling patience as other uses of the technology take hold. To hear them tell it, AI is set to augur a tech transformation like the internet or electricity, meaning the hype will ultimately bear out even if some firms falter along the way.

“There is no question that Nvidia will make a bunch of money,” Gary Marcus, a professor emeritus of psychology and neuroscience at New York University, who specializes in AI, told ABC News. “There are many questions about where the market is headed after this initial burst of enthusiasm.”

For his part, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang rejected AI-related worries during an earnings call on Wednesday.

“There’s been a lot of talk about an A.I. bubble,” Huang said. “From our vantage point, we see something very different.”

The economy is undergoing a technological sea change that extends beyond generative AI, Huang said, noting the rise of advanced software such as cloud computing as well as AI-driven physical products — all of which increasingly run on Nvidia chips.

“Nvidia corporation is unlike any other accelerator,” Huang added.

AI spending is expected to total $375 billion this year, jumping to about $500 billion by the end of 2026, UBS Global Wealth Management found in August. For reference, the half-trillion to be spent on AI next year would be roughly equivalent to the gross domestic product of Singapore.

The AI boom has helped propel U.S. economic growth. Such spending added a 0.5 percentage point boost to annualized U.S. GDP growth over the first half of 2025, accounting for about one-third of economic activity, Pantheon Macroeconomics said.

But analysts fearful of an AI bubble warn of what they consider immense costs, saying energy needs and chip production have saddled the balance sheets of firms developing and operating AI models. Profits may not come for years, if at all, they warn. OpenAI said it expects to begin generating substantial profits in 2030.

Speaking to reporters earlier this year, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman acknowledged frenzied investor enthusiasm but signaled confidence about the long-term outlook for the industry.

“When bubbles happen, smart people get overexcited about a kernel of truth,” Altman said. “Are we in a phase where investors as a whole are overexcited about A.I.? My opinion is yes. Is A.I. the most important thing to happen in a very long time? My opinion is also yes.”

Tech giants like Amazon and Google retain the capacity to spend without taking on sizable debt, but smaller players require loans, risking credit defaults if the technology fails to deliver on the up-front costs, Marcus said. The potential unpaid loans could strain banks and put pressure on the wider financial system, he added.

“A big question is how much the banks have been propping this up: What will the blast radius be?” Marcus said.

Proponents of AI say such worries are overblown. They point to the popularity of products like AI chatbot ChatGPT, which boasts about 800 million weekly users. Millions of additional users avail themselves of xAI’s Grok, Google’s Gemini and Meta’s MetaAI.

Last year, Apple unveiled AI-fueled tools for its iPhones, Mac and iPad. Some firms are developing a new wave of AI-equipped robots to perform tasks in people’s homes and in workplaces like logistics and warehouses.

“This is the fastest adoption of any technology by consumers by far,” Lynn Wu, a professor of operations, decisions and information at the University of Pennsylvania, told ABC News. “This is a general purpose technology that will be adopted everywhere.”

The profitability of the technology will be made apparent over time as consumers and businesses identify its best uses, Wu added.

“When a general purpose technology — like electricity or the internet — is being adopted, firms and people don’t know how to use it,” Wu said. “We haven’t envisioned how to use this paradigm yet.”

Still, Wu cautioned, an AI bubble likely exists, though it isn’t dangerous. Wu compared the current state of the industry to the internet era before the dot-com bubble, when a host of firms went belly up but the technology reoriented the economy and established corporate giants.

“If you ask me flat out — yes or no — are we in a bubble? The answer is yes,” Wu said. “But the bubble isn’t necessarily a bad bubble.”

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Business

Stocks move lower, erasing morning rally driven by Nvidia earnings

Javier Ghersi/Getty Images

(NEW YORK) — Stocks ticked downward in midday trading on Thursday, wiping out a rally earlier in the day driven by blockbuster earnings from chip giant Nvidia and a stronger-than-expected jobs report.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell about 60 points, or 0.1%, while the S&P 500 declined 0.2%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 0.3%.

Those returns marked a reversal from highs earlier in the day. Previously, the Dow had risen 1.2%, while the S&P 500 had jumped 1.8% and the Nasdaq had spiked 2.5%.

Shares of Nvidia, the $4.7 trillion juggernaut behind many of the chips fueling artificial-intelligence products, ticked down 0.1% in midday trading after having surged upward earlier in the day.

A stock market selloff over recent days underscored the uncertainty looming over the economy as some investors warned of an AI bubble. The earnings blowout from Nvidia late Wednesday appeared to rebuke such concerns, however, temporarily reviving enthusiasm for an AI trade that has propelled much of the market gains this year.

The S&P 500 has soared 15% in 2025, while the Dow has climbed 10%. The Nasdaq has increased 19% this year.

Investors also appeared to draw optimism from a jobs report on Thursday morning, which showed far more hiring than economists’ expected. The fresh data defied a hiring slowdown that took hold over the summer.

The U.S. added 119,000 jobs in September, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That figure marked an acceleration from the previous month, and it exceeded an average of nearly 100,000 jobs added per month over the first half of 2025.

The report included a downward revision for the month of August, however, slashing performance from 22,000 jobs gained that month to 4,000 jobs lost.

An earnings release from Walmart on Thursday morning also exceeded revenue expectations, offering some reassurance about the health of consumer spending.

Inflation has picked up in recent months while hiring has ratcheted down, posing a risk of an economic double-whammy known as “stagflation.”

Those economic conditions have put the Federal Reserve in a bind, since the central bank must balance a dual mandate to keep inflation under control and maximize employment.

In recent months, concern has tilted toward strain in the labor market, prompting the central bank to reduce interest rates a quarter of a percentage point at each of its last two meetings.

On Thursday morning, markets appeared to digest the news as favorable toward a potential interest rate cut at the Fed’s meeting next month. The odds of a quarter-point rate cut ticked up from 33% on Wednesday afternoon to 43% on Thursday morning, according to the CME FedWatch Tool, a measure of market sentiment.

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Business

Jobs report blows past expectations, defying hiring slowdown

Alex Wong/Getty Images

(NEW YORK) — Employers hired far more workers than expected in September, defying a sharp slowdown over the summer that appeared to cool off the labor market.

The U.S. added 119,000 jobs in September, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That figure marked an acceleration from 22,000 jobs added in the previous month, and it exceeded an average of nearly 100,000 jobs added per month over the first half of 2025.

The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.4%, but it remained at a historically low level.

A stock market selloff over recent days underscored the uncertainty looming over the economy as some investors warned of an AI bubble. Blockbuster earnings unveiled by chip giant Nvidia late Wednesday, however, appeared to defy such concerns.

Still, mass layoffs at corporate giants like Amazon, UPS and Verizon in recent weeks have drawn attention to a sluggish labor market — and stoked fears that job losses may spread.

It is likely too early to panic, however, some economists previously told ABC News. While the layoffs reflect a weakened labor market and AI adoption in some corners of the tech industry, they added, the prospect of wider job losses remains highly uncertain.

Inflation has picked up in recent months while hiring has slowed, posing a risk of an economic double-whammy known as “stagflation.”

Those economic conditions have put the Federal Reserve in a bind, since the central bank must balance a dual mandate to keep inflation under control and maximize employment.

“We have the situation where the risks are to the upside for inflation and to the downside for employment. We have one tool,” Fed Chair Jerome Powell said at a press conference in Washington, D.C., last month. “You can’t address both of those at once.”

Still, Powell said, concern has tilted toward strain in the labor market, prompting the central bank to reduce interest rates a quarter of a percentage point at each of its last two meetings.

“A further reduction of the policy rate in December is not a foregone conclusion — in fact, far from it,” Powell told reporters.

Traders peg the chances interest rates will be left unchanged next month at about 66%, while the odds of a quarter-point rate cut stand at 33%, according to the CME FedWatch Tool, a measure of market sentiment.

On Wednesday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) said it would not release a full jobs report for the month of October due to lost capacity during the shutdown. Rather, partial jobs data for October will be released as part of the November report, the BLS said.

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Business

Long-delayed jobs report to show hiring amid wobbly economy

Alex Wong/Getty Images

(NEW YORK) — A long-awaited jobs report to be released on Thursday will offer the latest look at the health of the labor market at a fraught moment for the U.S. economy.

Hiring slowed sharply over the summer, before a government shutdown paused the release of gold-standard federal data for weeks on end. A stock market selloff over recent days underscored the uncertainty looming over the economy as some investors warn of an AI bubble.

Economists expect the U.S. to have added 50,000 jobs in September, which would mark an acceleration from 22,000 jobs added in August, according to a Morningstar analysis of FactSet data.

Still, the anticipated figure would come in well below an average of 97,000 jobs added over the first six months of this year.

Mass layoffs at corporate giants like Amazon, UPS and Verizon in recent weeks have drawn attention to a sluggish labor market — and stoked fears that job losses may spread.

It is likely too early to panic, however, some economists previously told ABC News. While the layoffs reflect a weakened labor market and AI adoption in some corners of the tech industry, they added, the prospect of wider job losses remains highly uncertain.

Inflation has picked up in recent months while hiring has slowed, posing a risk of an economic double-whammy known as “stagflation.”

Those economic conditions have put the Federal Reserve in a bind, since the central bank must balance a dual mandate to keep inflation under control and maximize employment.

“We have the situation where the risks are to the upside for inflation and to the downside for employment. We have one tool,” Fed Chair Jerome Powell said at a press conference in Washington, D.C., last month. “You can’t address both of those at once.”

Still, Powell said, concern has tilted toward strain in the labor market, prompting the central bank to reduce interest rates a quarter of a percentage point at each of its last two meetings.

“A further reduction of the policy rate in December is not a foregone conclusion — in fact, far from it,” Powell told reporters.

Traders peg the chances interest rates will be left unchanged next month at about 66%, while the odds of a quarter-point rate cut stand at 33%, according to the CME FedWatch Tool, a measure of market sentiment.

On Wednesday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) said it would not release a full jobs report for the month of October due to lost capacity during the shutdown. Rather, partial jobs data for October will be released as part of the November report, the BLS said.

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Business

Chip giant Nvidia beats revenue expectations, rebuking warnings of an AI bubble

The NVIDIA logo is displayed on a mobile phone with the company branding visible in the background. Jonathan Raa/NurPhoto via Getty Images

(NEW YORK) — Chip giant Nvidia exceeded Wall Street expectations for revenue over a recent three-month period, the company said on Wednesday, rebuking fears of an AI bubble that have hammered markets in recent days.

The California-based company recorded $57 billion in sales over three months ending in October, which beat analyst expectations of $54.9 billion. The jump in revenue marked 62% growth compared to the same quarter a year earlier.

Analysts closely watched Nvidia as a bellwether for the stock market and the overall economy, which have both come to rely on massive spending on artificial intelligence to propel continued growth.

The latest test for the world’s most valuable company arrives at a fraught moment for markets, which have fallen for four consecutive days over fears of an AI bubble. Nvidia, which makes many of the chips fueling AI products, had suffered a decline of more than 10% over a two-week stretch before turning upward on Wednesday ahead of its earnings release.

As big-tech names spend hundreds of billions on chips and data centers necessary for the energy-intensive technology, the financial benefits remain uncertain. The earnings reported by Nvidia gauged demand for a key building block of AI, showing whether appetite for the technology remains at a fever pitch.

The results hold major stakes for the U.S. economy, which has shown signs of strain in recent months as hiring has slowed and consumer sentiment has dampened.

The AI spending boom, a lone bright spot, added a 0.5 percentage point boost to annualized gross domestic product growth over the first half of 2025, accounting for about one-third of economic activity, Pantheon Macroeconomics found.

“There is one company in the world that is the foundation for the AI Revolution,” Dan Ives, a managing director of equity research at investment firm Wedbush, told ABC News in a statement, referring to Nvidia.

Fears of an AI bubble surfaced over the summer ahead of Nvidia’s previous earnings report, but the company defied naysayers.

Nvidia recorded $46.7 billion in sales over three months ending in July, which exceeded analyst expectations of $46.2 billion. The jump in revenue marked 56% growth compared to the same quarter a year earlier.

The company boasts a market cap of $4.5 trillion, making it roughly equivalent to the GDP of Japan or Germany. Nvidia has expanded at a breakneck pace since an AI craze set off by the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in 2022, soaring nearly 700% over the ensuing two years.

Alongside continued growth, the company is weathering new challenges. President Donald Trump barred the sale of chips to China earlier this year, before revoking the ban in July. A month later, Trump struck an agreement with Nvidia and its competitor Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) that allowed the companies to sell chips in China if they hand over 15% of revenue generated by the exports to the U.S.

Speaking at the White House in August, the president recounted the agreement.

“I said, ‘If I’m going to do that, I want you to pay us as a country something, because I’m giving you a release,'” Trump said.

Earnings released in August said Nvidia did not sell any of its H20 chips in China over the most recent quarter, but the firm did not mention any losses related to the policy. The H20 chip was specifically designed for sale to China.

In recent days, Nvidia announced a large investment in AI, signaling confidence in the outlook of the technology. Nvidia on Tuesday announced a multi-billion dollar partnership with two of its largest counterparts in AI: Microsoft and Anthropic.

Under the terms of the deal, Nvidia and Microsoft agreed to invest $15 billion in Anthropic, a top developer of AI models. Anthropic, meanwhile, vowed to purchase $30 billion of computing infrastructure operated by Microsoft Azure on Nvidia systems.

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Business

Nvidia earnings captivate investors as fears of AI bubble grow

The NVIDIA logo is displayed on a mobile phone with the company branding visible in the background. Jonathan Raa/NurPhoto via Getty Images

(NEW YORK) — Financial results to be released on Wednesday by chipmaking-giant Nvidia will be closely watched as a bellwether for the stock market and the overall economy, which have both come to rely on massive spending on artificial intelligence to propel continued growth.

The latest test for the world’s most valuable company arrives at a fraught moment for markets, which have fallen for four consecutive days over fears of an AI bubble. Nvidia, which makes many of the chips fueling AI products, has suffered a decline of more than 10% over the past two weeks.

As big-tech names spend hundreds of billions on chips and data centers necessary for the energy-intensive technology, the financial benefits remain uncertain. The earnings reported by Nvidia will gauge demand for a key building block of AI, showing whether appetite for the technology remains at a fever pitch.

The results hold major stakes for the U.S. economy, which has shown signs of strain in recent months as hiring has slowed and consumer sentiment has dampened.

The AI spending boom, a lone bright spot, added a 0.5 percentage point boost to annualized gross domestic product growth over the first half of 2025, accounting for about one-third of economic activity, Pantheon Macroeconomics found.

“There is one company in the world that is the foundation for the AI Revolution,” Dan Ives, a managing director of equity research at investment firm Wedbush, told ABC News in a statement, referring to Nvidia.

Fears of an AI bubble surfaced over the summer ahead of Nvidia’s previous earnings report, but the California-based company defied naysayers.

Nvidia recorded $46.7 billion in sales over three months ending in July, which exceeded analyst expectations of $46.2 billion. The jump in revenue marked 56% growth compared to the same quarter a year earlier.

The company boasts a market cap of $4.5 trillion, making it roughly equivalent to the GDP of Japan or Germany. The company has expanded at a breakneck pace since an AI craze set off by the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in 2022. The California-based company saw its stock price soar nearly 700% over the ensuing two years.

Alongside continued growth, the company is weathering new challenges. President Donald Trump barred the sale of chips to China earlier this year, before revoking the ban in July. A month later, Trump struck an agreement with Nvidia and its competitor Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) that allowed the companies to sell chips in China if they hand over 15% of revenue generated by the exports to the U.S.

Speaking at the White House in August, the president recounted the agreement.

“I said, ‘If I’m going to do that, I want you to pay us as a country something, because I’m giving you a release,'” Trump said.

Earnings released in August said Nvidia did not sell any of its H20 chips in China over the most recent quarter, but the firm did not mention any losses related to the policy. The H20 chip was specifically designed for sale to China.

In recent days, Nvidia announced a large investment in AI, signaling confidence in the outlook of the technology. Nvidia on Tuesday announced a multi-billion dollar partnership with two of its largest counterparts in AI: Microsoft and Anthropic.

Under the terms of the deal, Nvidia and Microsoft agreed to invest $15 billion in Anthropic, a top developer of AI models. Anthropic, meanwhile, vowed to purchase $30 billion of computing infrastructure operated by Microsoft Azure on Nvidia systems.

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Business

Outage at Cloudflare temporarily disrupts access to some popular websites

The Cloudflare logo appears on a smartphone screen and as the background on a laptop computer screen in this photo illustration in Athens, Greece, on October 31, 2025. (Photo by Nikolas Kokovlis/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

(NEW YORK) — Web infrastructure company Cloudflare said Tuesday it resolved an issue on its network, which had curtailed access to some popular websites for several hours.

“A fix has been implemented and we believe the incident is now resolved,” Cloudflare said on its status page at 9:40 a.m. ET.

Dane Knecht, Cloudflare’s chief technology officer, posted an apology for the outage around that time, ruling out the possibility of a cyberattack.

“I won’t mince words: earlier today we failed our customers and the broader Internet when a problem in [Cloudflare’s] network impacted large amounts of traffic that rely on us. The sites, businesses, and organizations that rely on Cloudflare depend on us being available and I apologize for the impact that we caused,” Knecht said in a post on X. “This was not an attack.”

Artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT and social media platform X, which where temporarily down or limited earlier Tuesday, appeared to be available for users as of 10:30 a.m. ET.

Hours earlier, Cloudflare had issued an alert about a problem affecting “multiple customers.”

“Cloudflare is aware of, and investigating an issue which potentially impacts multiple customers,” the company said at around 7 a.m. ET.

Minutes later, the company said it had begun to resolve the issue. “We are seeing services recover, but customers may continue to observe higher-than-normal error rates as we continue remediation efforts,” Cloudflare said.

Cloudflare helps companies handle user traffic, including efforts to respond to cyberattacks and load information.

On Tuesday morning, a landing page on X alerted ABC News to an “internal server error,” urging users to “visit cloudflare.com for more information.” A similar warning appeared on ChatGPT’s website, telling ABC News to “please unblock challenges.cloudflare.com to proceed.”

X did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment. Neither did OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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Business

Outage at Cloudflare disrupts access to some popular websites

The Cloudflare logo appears on a smartphone screen and as the background on a laptop computer screen in this photo illustration in Athens, Greece, on October 31, 2025. (Photo by Nikolas Kokovlis/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

(NEW YORK) — Web infrastructure company Cloudflare said it is experiencing problems across its network on Tuesday, curtailing access to some popular websites.

“Cloudflare is aware of, and investigating an issue which potentially impacts multiple customers,” the company said online at around 7 a.m. ET.

Minutes later, the company said it had begun to resolve the issue. “We are seeing services recover, but customers may continue to observe higher-than-normal error rates as we continue remediation efforts,” Cloudflare said.

Some popular websites, like social media platform X and artificial-intelligence chatbot ChatGPT, appeared to be down or limited on Tuesday.

Cloudflare helps companies handle user traffic, including efforts to respond to cyberattacks and load information.

A landing page on X alerted ABC News to an “internal server error,” urging users to “visit cloudflare.com for more information.” A similar warning appeared on ChatGPT’s website, telling ABC News to “please unblock challenges.cloudflare.com to proceed.”

X did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment. Neither did OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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Business

Cash price for popular weight loss drug Wegovy dropping 30% Monday, manufacturer says

Injection pens for the weight-loss treatment Wegovy, manufactured by Novo Nordisk A/S, on display during a news conference in Mumbai, India, on Tuesday, June 24, 2025.(Photographer: Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

(NEW YORK) — The cash price for popular weight-loss medications Wegovy and and the medication authorized for people with type 2 diabetes Ozempic are dropping by 30% in U.S. on Monday, according to Novo Nordisk, the Danish pharmaceutical company that manufactures both drugs.

The new monthly cost for either GLP-1 drug will be $349, down from its current price of $499, for customers who are not using insurance, the company said. The new pricing will be in place on Monday at 70,000 retail pharmacies and other places, including Walmart and Costco’s pharmacies, the drugmaker said.

The previous cash price for Wegovy matched that of a full dose of Zepbound, a competing drug from competitor Eli Lilly.

“As pioneers of the GLP-1 class, we are committed to ensuring that real, FDA-approved Wegovy and Ozempic are affordable and accessible to those who need them,” Dave Moore, Novo Nordisk executive vice president, said in a statement. “The US healthcare system is complex, with different types of insurance and various ways for patients to obtain their medicines. Our new savings offers provide immediate impact, bringing forward greater cost savings for those who are currently without coverage or choose to self-pay.”

Moore added that the price cut is “part of a larger strategy to expand access that includes building relationships with telehealth providers and major retailers, expanding coverage, and working with the Administration to lower costs for people living with chronic diseases like obesity and type 2 diabetes.”

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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Business

Will the rich leave New York City after Mamdani takes office? Experts weigh in

Stephanie Keith/Getty Images

(NEW YORK) — New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist who says he wants to hike taxes on the rich, set off alarm among some critics about a potential exodus of wealthy people bent on keeping their money out of government coffers.

As the warning goes, a tax increase at the top could drive away affluent New Yorkers and undercut revenue meant to fund proposals like universal child care, free city buses and publicly owned grocery stores.

John Catsimatidis, the billionaire owner of grocery chain Gristedes, told the Free Press in June he may “consider closing our supermarkets and selling the business” in the event of a Mamdani victory. Neil Blumenthal, the co-founder and co-C.E.O of eyewear company Warby Parker, said, “I will never move from New York, but there’s a lot of other people that will and are leaving New York.”

Even Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who ultimately endorsed Mamdani, warned in an interview in June about the possible departure of the wealthy set. “I don’t want to lose any more people to Palm Beach,” Hochul told local outlet PIX 11, underscoring her opposition to a tax increase.

Studies show a race for the exits of this type is highly unlikely, experts at Northwestern University, as well as research organizations the EU Tax Observatory and the Tax Foundation, told ABC News.

Similar tax increases in states like California have typically pushed out a small number of wealthy people, the experts said, but the vast majority stay put for reasons that hold true across income brackets: They like where they live, and want to remain close to friends, family and professional networks.

“There is tax-induced mobility. It’s not non-existent but it’s very small,” Quentin Parinello, policy director at the Northwestern University as well as research organizations the EU Tax Observatory and the Tax Foundation, told ABC News.

“In New York and other big metropolises, people want to be somewhere they can go to the theater, they can have business opportunities, they can hire talent,” Parinello added.

Mamdani says he will put forward a 2 percentage point tax increase for residents making more than $1 million, which would raise the tax rate for high earners in New York City from roughly 3.9% to 5.9%.

The mayor-elect has also proposed hiking the corporate tax rate from 7.5% to 11.5%, which would put New York in a tie with New Jersey for the highest state corporate tax rate nationwide.

“These things together raise about $9 billion, which more than pays for our economic agenda,” Mamdani told ABC’s “Good Morning America” this month.

When asked whether he is concerned the taxes could drive job creators out of New York, Mamdani said: “What I’ve heard from a number of business leaders is that the affordability crisis is also affecting their ability to attract and retain talent. The city’s inability to provide child care means that businesses often have to provide stipends for that child care.”

Both tax measures would require state legislation bearing Hochul’s signature.

Studies from researchers at Stanford University, the Treasury Department and the non-partisan Fiscal Policy Institute show minimal departures among the rich in response to tax increases.

Researchers at Stanford University and the Treasury Department in 2016 examined tax records belonging to all million-dollar earners in the U.S. over a 13-year period, finding “tax flight is occurring but only at the margins of statistical and socioeconomic significance.”

In 2023, the Fiscal Policy Institute examined movement among high earners in the aftermath of a New York state income tax hike two years earlier.

“There is no statistically significant evidence of tax migration in New York,” the study found.

“Movement of rich people on the basis of tax differentials is relatively small,” Jeffrey Winters, a professor of equality development and globalization studies at Northwestern University who studies high earners, told ABC News. “It’s very common for them to threaten to move. The risk is grossly overstated.”

Jared Walczak, vice president of state projects at the non-partisan Tax Foundation, voiced opposition to Mamdani’s proposed tax hike, saying the policy risks a gradual erosion in the high-earner tax base and revenue losses that would accumulate over time.

“The city won’t empty out if taxes rise, but on the margin you expect some people to move,” Walczak told ABC News.

“That hurts the city and the state because these individuals are already paying a lot of taxes and creating a lot of jobs,” Walczak added.

Winters, of Northwestern University, said the focus on wealthy residents risks overlooking the cost-of-living challenges that force low- and middle-income New Yorkers to move elsewhere.

“We are worried about the outflow of the very wealthiest people in major cities like New York when in fact the biggest outflow of people is among those who can’t afford even the basics of staying there,” Winters said.

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