Kamala Harris's Economic Program
Since receiving the Democratic nomination in the wake of President Joe Biden’s decision to step aside in the 2024 American presidential race, Vice-President Kamala Harris has been striving to define her own policy platform to attract voters in the limited time remaining before the November 5th election. Since the economy is a central issue for American voters, Harris developed several propositions in that area.
- Though most macroeconomic indicators are positive after four years of the Biden administration, Americans tend to trust Republicans more than Democrats on the economy. This sentiment was compounded by Kamala Harris’s lack of concrete economic policy until the release of an 80-page document on September 23rd.
- Harris strives to differentiate herself from Biden’s legacy and Trump’s economic program. Her plan is both pro-middle class and pro-business, with numerous measures on housing, child tax credit, healthcare, small businesses and grocery prices; and a detailed project for developing critical industry and innovation.
- Following Trump’s 2017 tax reform, Harris proposes not to increase taxes on Americans earning up to 400,000 dollars, while ensuring the wealthiest individuals and companies pay more.
- Critics point to a lack of details on clean energy as well as trade and technology policies vis-à-vis China. They also express concern over the cost of her program though it would be less costly than Trump's plans, which incluse levying less taxes on the wealthy and corporations and imposing massive tariffs on importer goods.
Available in:
Themes and regions
ISBN / ISSN
Share
Download the full analysis
This page contains only a summary of our work. If you would like to have access to all the information from our research on the subject, you can download the full version in PDF format.
Kamala Harris's Economic Program
Author(s)
Laurence NARDON
Research Fellow, Head of the Americas Program, Ifri
Related centers and programs
Discover our other research centers and programs
Americas Program
Ifri's work on the Americas region focuses mainly on the United States. Indeed, for more than 20 years, Ifri's Americas Program has provided keys to understanding American society and domestic policy while shedding light on developments in the country's foreign policy, including transatlantic relations and trade issues.
Since 2023, a specific axis on Latin America structures more actively Ifri's research on this region.
Ifri's Canada program was active in 2015 and 2016.
Find out more
Discover all our analyses
IRA: Towards Clean Hydrogen Leadership in the U.S.
Although late in adopting clean hydrogen (H2) and defining a national strategy–a draft was presented by the Department of Energy (DOE) in September 2022–, the United States (US) has strongly reinforced its support to clean hydrogen with the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in August 2022.
Convince and Coerce: U.S. Interference in Technology Exchanges Between its Allies and China
The tough-on-China policy adopted by the Trump and Biden administrations has – and will increasingly have – important consequences for Washington’s allies, both on their infrastructure choices (5G, submarine cables...) and on their technological exchanges with China.
AUKUS Rocks the Boat in the Indo-Pacific, And It’s Not Good News
For anyone who still harbored doubts, Washington made crystal clear from the announcement of the new trilateral alliance with Australia and the UK (AUKUS) that countering China is its number one priority, and that it will do whatever it takes to succeed. Much has been said about the consequences of AUKUS on the French-US relations, but the strategic implications for the Indo-Pacific nations (including France), and for China especially, are also critical to consider.
Washington-Téhéran : l'élection de Joe Biden change-t-elle la donne ?
The recent assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the father of Iran's nuclear program, echoes that of Qassem Soleimani in January 2020 and illustrates the policy of "maximum pressure" which has prevailed these past four years. In this context, Joe Biden's election gives rise to high expectations for the appeasement of U.S.-Iran relations.