Vice President Kamala Harris has made it a point to emphasize over the past few weeks her plan to tackle America’s rising cost of living if she’s elected president.
In the midst of a two-day bus tour last week in Savannah, she sat down with her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, for her first in-depth, televised interview with a major media outlet since President Joe Biden ended his bid for reelection and endorsed her to become his successor in July.
Among the topics covered in the wide-spanning conversation with CNN’s Dana Bash, Harris elaborated on the economic policies she’s aiming to implement if she’s elected president — issues that weigh heavily on the minds of Black voters in Georgia.
“One of my highest priorities is to do what we can to support and strengthen the middle class,” Harris said when asked about her day-one aim of implementing an “opportunity economy.”
“I’ve already laid out a number of proposals in that regard, which include what we’re gonna do to bring down the cost of everyday goods, what we’re gonna do to invest in America’s small businesses, what we’re gonna do to invest in families,” she continued, reiterating talking points from previous campaign stops and at last month’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Some of those proposals are especially relevant to the financial challenges Black people in Atlanta are experiencing, which include affordable housing and inflated food prices. Here’s what Harris’ economic strategy could mean for residents within the city and throughout the state.
Tackling the housing crisis
From 2014 to 2023, metro Atlanta home prices have appreciated four times faster than metro Atlanta wages, according to the Community Foundation of Atlanta, an organization focused on addressing economic inequality in the city. Black residents face an increasing burden from high housing costs and low wages.
According to the city’s latest homeless census, which was conducted on Jan. 22, Black people represented 86% of the Atlanta residents living on the streets, in shelters, or in temporary housing.
Harris said she plans to push forward strategies to increase the housing supply and lift up first-time buyers.
“By the end of my first term, we will end America’s housing shortage by building 3 million new homes and rentals,” Harris said during a campaign rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, earlier this month. “While we work on the housing shortage, my administration will provide first-time homebuyers with $25,000 to help with the down payment on a new home.”
Harris also wants to create a $40 billion federal fund to help promote construction and expand an existing tax credit for businesses that build affordable rental housing. She’s proposing to make “federal lands eligible to be repurposed” for affordable housing developments.
“Any increase in affordable housing will go a long way to support families with children who are either homeless, on the verge of homelessness, or are in a low-income environment,” said Cameron Turner, the executive director of the Atlanta Children’s Day Shelter, a nonprofit that provides services like free child care to unhoused families.
Valerie Wilson, a labor economist with EPI Action, said that while increasing the housing supply is an important step in addressing the country’s housing issues, building 3 million homes and rentals is an “ambitious goal.” But she believes it is “worth pursuing,” adding that it’s more likely to come to fruition if Democrats gain a numbers advantage in both houses of Congress.
Wilson said Harris’ plan to offer $25,000 on a house down payment for first-time buyers could be a tactic used to help bridge the gap in homeownership between Black and white Americans.
“That down payment is often a major barrier for a number of first-time Black homeowners, because there is less generational wealth and they are less likely to be in a position where parents can provide that down payment support or even purchase a first home for you,” said Wilson.
Gregory Price, an economics professor at the University of New Orleans, said Harris’ proposed efforts to increase the housing supply are “sound ideas” on a federal level if they could be implemented, but warned that factors like a city’s zoning and housing code could be barriers for affordable housing to trickle down on a local level.
He said restrictions like a “minimum lot size requirement”— a regulation that stipulates the smallest area of land on which housing can be built — could present affordability barriers for some residents.
“There may be some people who want housing but can’t afford a 2,000-square-foot house and can only afford 1,000-square-foot housing, but zoning may not require that,” said Price. “Those are some of the things that could limit housing for some segments of the population — even when you increase supply.”
Algernon Austin, the director of race and economic justice at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, said Harris’ housing policies are a “good first step” in addressing the nation’s housing crisis, but more can and should be done to address housing for low-income and unhoused populations.
“We definitely need more housing units, likely even more than what Vice President Harris is calling for, particularly in terms of affordable housing,” he said. “But overall, I think those policies are addressing a very serious and important problem, and they should be effective.”
Reeling in grocery price gouging
Another issue Harris plans to address is the cost of food, which comes at a time in which Georgia food bank workers say they’re seeing increased levels of food insecurity.
According to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the cost of groceries has climbed by roughly 25% since February 2020. Kyle Waide, president and CEO of the Atlanta Community Food Bank, said nonprofit organizations are seeing an increase in demand for food assistance from Georgia residents — and that Black residents are being impacted greatly.
“There have been significant increases in food insecurity really across all demographic groups over the past couple of years,” Waide said. “But Black families are significantly more likely to experience food insecurity than white families, for sure, and more likely to experience food insecurity than any other large demographic group in our state.”
Earlier this month, Harris told the audience at her North Carolina rally that she would push for “the first-ever ban on price gouging on food,” although details of how she would do so are unclear. Additionally, her economic plan includes cracking down on food corporation mergers and acquisitions that undercut competition and allow for inflated grocery prices.
“Recently, there’s been attempted mergers of major grocery chains — I think that is something that contributes to higher prices with having fewer producers or providers in the market,” said Wilson. “To the extent that there can be policies that see that markets are competitive, then that is something that helps with pricing issues.”
Austin echoed Wilson’s sentiments and agreed that when it comes to lowering grocery prices, preventing mergers of food companies is “more promising” than a federal price gouging ban.
Increasing the Child Tax Credit
In Georgia, parents spend on average more than $8,400 per year for an infant in family child care and more than $11,000 per year for center-based child care, according to Child Care Aware of America, an organization that works for more affordable child care.
“Expenses for everything have gone up over the last four years, and so any kind of additional tax credit for low-income or homeless families is going to be instrumental in stabilizing that family and helping them long term,” said Turner.
“We do not charge anybody for our services and our child care because we want to alleviate the stress that the cost of child care has on low-income families,” she added. “By allowing that freedom of not paying $500 or $800 [per] week for child care, they can spend those resources on other things that they need.”
Harris’ plan to alleviate these financial burdens is to boost the Child Tax Credit to provide a $6,000 tax cut to families with newborn children in the first year of the child’s life.
She also wants to restore the expansion of the Child Tax Credit that was passed as part of the American Rescue Plan, which provided up to $3,600 per credit for some families.
Margot Crandall-Hollick, a research associate at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, said those with newborns face a “perfect storm” of financial struggles due to extra expenses coupled with a potential decrease in paid working hours.
“When people have children, their income often declines — and it can decline quite substantially,” Crandall-Hollick said, noting that many Americans don’t get paid when they take time off work to tend to a newborn.
“We know that investment in kids, when they’re really young, has big payoffs in terms of improving their health and education outcomes and even their future employment outcomes,” Crandall-Hollick added.
How do Trump’s policies compare?
Former President Donald Trump also unveiled some of his economic policies earlier this month.
According to a press release from his team, Trump is aiming to preserve individual and business tax cuts he enacted through the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. He also wants to bring down energy prices.
Trump has said throughout his campaign that he wants to impose new taxes on imported goods and to conduct mass deportations of immigrants.
Earlier this month, Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, mentioned the idea of increasing the Child Tax Credit to $5,000 — $1,000 less than Harris’ plan.
“Americans trust President Trump to lead the country in a positive direction because, unlike Kamala Harris, he already has the record to prove it,” said Janiyah Thomas, Black media director for Trump’s reelection campaign. “Our message to Black Americans struggling to make ends meet in this economy is simple: Vote for the candidate with the proven track record of economic success.”
Austin, with the Center for Economic and Policy Research, said he’s happy to hear Harris and Trump are both looking to expand the Child Tax Credit, which he sees as a useful tool to reduce childhood poverty. But Austin had concerns about some of Trump’s other policies.
“Those tax cuts had a disproportionate benefit to higher-income households, and if we keep them, they’re going to increase deficits,” Austin said in reference to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
Austin said Trump’s push to decrease energy prices should take into account the impact those plans could have on climate change. He also questions the impact mass deportation would have on the economy.
Adelaide Bullock, communications director for Harris for Georgia, said Trump’s policies favor corporations over working families and reelecting him would be “an economic disaster.”
The two presidential hopefuls will have a chance to lay out their agendas to voters in their first debate, which will take place on Sept. 10 at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.
