KEY TAKEAWAYS
Trump’s economic plan focuses on helping businesses through tax cuts and raising tariffs, aiming to bring back pre-pandemic job growth and prices.
Harris’s economic plan centers on helping middle-class families, with tax cuts, affordable housing, healthcare reform, and support for small businesses.
Voters are divided, with many believing Trump is better for the economy, but polls show people favor Harris’s policies when not tied to her name.
Trump vs. Harris Economic Plan
It is widely known that the economy is a primary concern for everyone in this election. Record high inflation and depleted pandemic savings have people looking to the two presidential candidates for solutions. Former President Trump promises to bring the country back to pre-pandemic prices and job growth while also trying to tie Vice President Harris to President Biden's economic record and the financial strain most Americans are feeling. On the other hand, Vice President Harris pledges to improve the country's economic conditions by continuing President Biden’s work, which she claims has helped the country recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The two candidates have different approaches influenced by their backgrounds. Vice President Harris, raised in a middle-class family, believes that investing in the middle class is the best way to build the economy. Her plans include:
Expanding the child tax credit to provide $6,000 in tax cuts to families with newborn children
Expanding the earned income tax credit to reduce taxes for anyone earning less than $400,000
Building more affordable housing, outlawing price fixing by landlords, and creating penalties for companies that drive up home prices by reducing their availability
Providing first-time homebuyers with $25,000 in down payment assistance
Creating a $5,000 to $50,000 tax deduction for new businesses
Passing a first-of-its-kind federal price gouging ban on food and groceries
Expanding the Affordable Care Act, capping the cost of insulin, and lowering healthcare premiums
Former President Trump, a savvy businessman and real estate heir, believes that the best way to boost the economy is by strengthening business owners; ability to grow their businesses and create jobs. His goals include:
Reducing the corporate tax credit
Exempting tips and social security benefits from tax
Increasing tariffs on all imports and goods by at least 10%
Raising current tariffs on China by at least 60%
However, which philosophy will govern the country for the next four years is largely up to the American public. Recent polls suggest that most Americans believe former President Donald Trump would be better for the economy, although in a blind study, most Americans favored Vice President Harris’s
policies.