Who is better for economy, Trump or Harris? Here's how their policies compare

Editor’s note: This is part of an occasional series examining where presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump stand on the biggest issues. Today’s segment focuses on the economy.

Former President Donald Trump, never shy to borrow from Ronald Reagan, asked supporters at a rally Saturday in Unity a simple question: “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?”

The answer was a resounding no. But by some economic measures, a majority of the country could say yes.

The Dow Jones and S&P 500, two of the most widely followed stock indexes, are up more than 25% under President Joe Biden.

Hourly earnings in the private sector have gone from $30 to $35 over that same time, and gross domestic product, a measure of economic output, has grown more quickly than the Trump years.

Furthermore, unemployment has hovered near 4% since late 2021, reflecting a robust rebound from covid-19 pandemic-driven layoffs and shutdowns.

But in at least one key respect, voters are justified in their dour economic appraisals.

Prices are still rising, albeit at a rate considered close to normal — even healthy — by some economists. That doesn’t erase the inflationary spiral that started in 2021 and lasted about two years, leaving families down on savings and loaded with credit card debt.

Voters of all political persuasions seem to be preoccupied with the economy, including in Pennsylvania. A mid-September poll from Spotlight PA/MassINC shows 69% of likely voters in the state are concerned about jobs, wages and the economy, beating out every other issue by at least 9 percentage points.

That same poll found 48% of respondents believe Trump knows how to manage the economy better than Vice President Kamala Harris; 41% of respondents said the Democratic nominee was better equipped.

The candidates have presented plans they say will tamp down inflation, cut taxes to unlock growth and restore confidence in the economy. The similarities in their proposals, however, pretty much end there.

Harris

The vice president has coined the term “opportunity economy” for her suite of tax cuts and price-lowering initiatives targeting working and middle-class Americans.

She wants to restore an expanded version of the Child Tax Credit, letting taxpayers to claim up to $3,600 per child under age 6 and up to $3,000 for older children, plus a $6,000 credit to families with newborn children.

Harris also is pushing a $25,000 credit for first-time homebuyers, a $50,000 tax deduction for new businesses and a more generous earned income tax credit.

At the same time, she has vowed to roll back the part of Trump’s tax cuts that she says disproportionately benefit the wealthy, implement a tax floor for billionaires and quadruple the tax on stock buybacks.

She has said she would not raise taxes on people earning less than $400,000, a carryover from President Joe Biden’s campaign.

The nonpartisan, nonprofit Tax Foundation is skeptical of Harris’ tax plan, estimating in a recent report that it would boost revenue by $1.7 trillion over the next decade but fail to address affordability challenges and hamper economic growth long-term.

It also decried complications to the tax code and lack of specificity on how she would handle next year’s expiration of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the 2017 tax bill that offered modest savings to most Americans and much larger ones to the richest.

When it comes to inflation, Harris has blamed large corporations for their outsized market power. She has proposed a federal ban on price gouging for food and groceries based on laws in 37 states that prohibit sudden price spikes for scarce goods.

In TribLive’s series on the causes and impact of inflation, economists said price gouging — also known as greedflation — has little to do with soaring prices in recent years.

Harris has shown support for raising the minimum wage — though she has not specified by how much — and ending sub-minimum wages for tipped workers and people with disabilities. Paid family and medical leave also are among her priorities, though her vision is again vague.

Medical costs have taken on a smaller role for Democrats this cycle, with the universal health care discussion having quieted substantially after a 2020 primary in which many candidates, including Harris, pledged to support Medicare For All with few or no caveats. The vice president still has put forth a few health care proposals, like capping out-of-pocket drug costs at $2,000 and insulin copays at $35 per month.

Amid a last-minute effort to shore up support from men of color, Harris has talked up her “Opportunity Agenda for Black Men” as well as her intention to help Latino men secure more small business loans, pointing to disproportionate barriers to building wealth for these demographics.

The programs she has proposed, however, would be race neutral.

Her plan targeting Black men calls for one million business loans that would forgive up to $20,000 for entrepreneurs, plus expanding access to banking options with lower fees and other obstacles to getting capital.

Trump

Taxes are out and tariffs are in for Trump, who has proposed a sweeping overhaul that would eliminate federal income taxes on the following: tips, overtime pay and Social Security benefits.

Harris, it’s worth noting, backs no taxes on tips as well. This policy has been widely panned by economists for inviting manipulation and administrative confusion, all while punting on tens of billions of dollars in annual revenue.

In a recent interview with sports media site OutKick, Trump said he would consider exempting some first responders, along with active military personnel and veterans, from income taxes.

Altogether, these reforms could leave about 93 million people spared from part or all of their incomes taxes.

To compensate for these lost funds, Trump has floated a 20% universal import tariff, along with a 60% rate just for Chinese goods.

The idea, he said earlier this month at an Economic Club of Chicago event, is to have a tariff “so high, so horrible, so obnoxious” that companies will build their facilities in the U.S. to get cheaper market access.

Trump insists these costs will be absorbed by foreign countries that produce these goods, but economists say consumers inevitably pay more once companies pass along the cost, countering his promise to make inflation “vanish completely.”

The reliance on tariffs is the Tax Foundation’s main gripe with the Republican nominee’s platform. It found the proposals would otherwise mildly boost wages, jobs and economic growth in the long term, despite costing $3 trillion in federal revenue over the next decade.

According to the Petersen Institute for International Economics, the tariffs would cost the typical American household $2,600 a year.

While working the fryer Sunday at a McDonald’s in Feasterville-Trevose in eastern Pennsylvania, Trump dodged questions about whether he would raise the minimum wage. He expressed support for a $10 hourly minimum in 2016 but has not made the issue a major plank of any of his campaigns.

Altogether, Trump’s estimated economic plan would add $7.5 trillion to the national debt in the next decade, compared to $3.5 trillion under Harris’ estimated proposals, according to a report from the Committee for Responsible Federal Budget, another nonpartisan and nonprofit group that has scrutinized the candidates.