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Private-sector employers shrugged off a looming budget crisis and stepped up hiring in December, offering further evidence of underlying strength in the economy as 2012 ended.

A last-minute surge in spending helped many major retailers report better-than-expected sales in December, a relief for stores that make up to 40 percent of annual revenue during the holiday period.

Stocks soared 2% Wednesday in the first trading of 2013, after Congress' last-minute passage of a plan to avert the brunt of the so-called fiscal cliff. The Dow Jones industrial average was up 234 points, or 1.8%, to 13,338 shortly after the opening bell on Wall Street. Wednesday morning's rally follows the Dow's 1.3% jump late in trading on New Year's Eve on signs of an emerging deal between President Obama and congressional leaders.

The average number of people seeking unemployment benefits over the past month fell to the lowest level since March 2008, a sign that the job market is healing. The Labor Department says weekly applications dropped 12,000 to a seasonally adjusted 350,000 in the week ended Dec. 22. The four-week average, a less volatile measure, fell to a nearly five-year low of 356,750.

The number of low-income preschoolers who qualify as obese or "extremely obese" has dropped over the last decade, new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show.

The U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of 3.1 percent over the summer as consumers spent more and state and local governments added to growth for the first time in nearly three years.

U.S. manufacturing grew at its swiftest pace in eight months in December, buoyed by increases in domestic and overseas demand, an industry survey showed on Friday.

U.S. consumer prices fell in November for the first time in six months, pointing to muted inflation pressures that should allow the Federal Reserve to stay on its ultra-easy monetary policy path as it nurses the economy back to health.

U.S. states are coming close to the end of a three-year trek back to the financial prosperity they enjoyed before the recession, according to a survey released on Friday that found the recovery is slow and uneven.

Americans spent more online in November to start the holiday season and began to replace cars and rebuild in the Northeast after Superstorm Sandy.