By Emily Peck
In a speech on Friday in North Carolina, Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris will propose a raft of progressive economic proposals that echo and expand on President Biden’s agenda, campaign officials said.
Why it matters: Until now, Harris has offered little in the way of details on her economic plans.
State of play: The economic plan includes tax cuts for middle-class families, including a $6,000 child tax credit for families during the first year of a kid’s life — when expenses go up, and income often goes down while a parent steps out of the workforce for child care.
- Harris, echoing Biden, wants to bring back 2021’s expanded child tax credit, which was $3,600 per child under age 5 and $3,000 for those older, under the American Rescue Plan.
For lower-income adults who aren’t raising kids — a group often left behind by federal anti-poverty programs — the proposal would expand the earned income tax credit.
Zoom out: Both Harris and her opponent, former President Donald Trump, see fighting high prices and helping families as key to their campaigns.
- Harris’ big challenge: acknowledging high prices while avoiding the blame for inflation that President Biden often receives.
- Vice presidential candidate JD Vance has also said he’d like to expand the child tax credit, though he skipped a vote on a proposal to do just that earlier this month.
Other details of Harris’ broader economic plan emerged earlier this week — including a housing agenda that would encourage the construction of 3 million more units, tax incentives for businesses, and $25,000 in down payment support for homebuyers.
- Perhaps most controversially, Harris wants to ban price-gouging on food and groceries — though it’s not yet clear how that would work in practice.
