Here's what the economy could look like with a Harris or Trump presidency
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- Voters are concerned about issues like inflation and home prices ahead of the presidential election.
- BI analyzed Harris and Trump's plans for eight major economic categories.
- The analysis evaluated the candidates' past records and their campaign promises.
Americans feel uncertain about the economy. The nation's financial landscape is teetering between a soft landing and a possible recession. And prospective voters are apprehensive: They wonder how the economy's fate will impact their paychecks, monthly bills, and livelihoods.
With so much at stake, most will take their concerns to the ballot box this November.
Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump will go head-to-head for the presidency. As the two candidates outline their agendas in debates, rallies, and television appearances, their comments on the economy — from inflation to higher education and housing — are ones to watch.
For starters, inflation is keeping the cost of living high in many US cities, and astronomical home prices are preventing aspiring homeowners from buying. Issues like abortion access and tax policy are also a key consideration for many voters.
With the election just over two months away, Business Insider looked at Harris' and Trump's plans for eight major economic categories that affect Americans' daily lives: domestic manufacturing, higher education, healthcare, housing, labor, taxes, tariffs, and trade.
Business Insider reached out to both the Harris and Trump campaigns for this story. Spokespeople referred BI to the candidates' previous speeches and policy proposals.
This analysis is based on the candidates' past political records and their promises on the 2024 campaign trail.
Jump to a category: Domestic manufacturing | Higher education | Healthcare | Housing | Labor | Taxes | Tariffs | Trade
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Federal labor and business policy will shape the future of domestic manufacturing. Although the president doesn't have complete control over the economy, the White House has a role in shaping factors like job growth, tax incentives, and industry regulations. A March report published by The Economist and YouGov found that 22% of voters identified inflation and the price of goods as their most important issues this November. The poll is based on the responses of 1,594 likely voters between March 24 and March 26.
Major industries like auto manufacturing and steel — along with small businesses — are at the forefront of Harris' and Trump's policy proposals.
Harris will likely continue Biden's auto agenda, including stricter emission standards, infrastructure investments, and strong union support — Harris said she is "proud" to have the support of the United Auto Workers Union (UAW). While Harris has yet to release a detailed auto industry plan, she said in the debate that "building a clean energy economy includes investing in American-made products and American automobiles," as well as opening more auto plants to create manufacturing jobs.
Trump also expressed plans to protect American car manufacturers and push back against Mexican and Chinese auto industries in the debate. He previously said he plans to raise tariffs on foreign-made cars and suggested previously there will be a "bloodbath" in the domestic auto industry if he isn't reelected. The UAW has criticized Trump for being anti-union.
As electric vehicles gain popularity, Harris will likely continue the Biden administration's plan to make EVs more affordable and invest in charging infrastructure across the country. Harris has not proposed any EV manufacturing mandates, but she has previously advocated for clean school buses and highlighted her and Biden's recent clean energy investments in the debate. Trump, on the other hand, has said EVs could give Mexican and Chinese manufacturers an advantage and cut US auto jobs.
In light of the pending US Steel Corp sale to Japan's Nippon Steel for $14.9 billion, Harris has said steel should stay domestically owned. While Trump was in office, he made efforts to protect the US metals industry, placing tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. Trump has also stated opposition to the US Steel sale. The United Steelworkers Union has endorsed Harris.
The health of the country's domestic manufacturing industry also directly affects the labor market. Unemployment soared in many manufacturing industries during the pandemic but those jobs made a modest recovery during the remainder of Trump's time in office.
Harris has been vocal in prioritizing livable wages for American workers. Trump, instead, has proposed incentives and tax cuts for the wealthy major corporations. His suggestion to place sweeping tariffs on foreign imports could also raise prices for small businesses and American consumers.
As far as environmental regulations go, Harris hasn't rolled out a clear climate plan. She has previously been a supporter of the Green New Deal, renewable energy, and carbon taxes to mitigate climate change. "We know that we can actually deal with this issue. The young people of America care deeply about this issue," she said in the debate. Meanwhile, Trump has repeatedly said the climate crisis is a "hoax," calling for the dismantling of clean-energy and carbon-capture tax credits and more investment in fossil fuels. Neither Harris nor Trump plan to ban fracking.
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Harris and Trump have major differences in how they view education policy, particularly student-loan debt.
Since Biden and Harris took office, their Education Department enacted a series of reforms to student-loan-repayment programs. For example, after Trump's Education Department ran up a backlog in applications to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program — which forgives student debt for government and nonprofit workers after 10 years of qualifying payments — Biden's department established a limited-time waiver. The waiver allowed students' past payments that the department said were ineligible for the program after its establishment in 2007 to count toward debt forgiveness.
Additionally, the Education Department is carrying out one-time account adjustments for borrowers on PSLF and income-driven repayment plans to bring borrowers' payment progress up to date. It also implemented the new SAVE income-driven repayment plan in July, which includes a provision to shorten the timeline for borrowers to have their monthly pay reduced. Two conservative groups recently halted parts of the SAVE plan from being implemented.
During their term so far, Biden and Harris have canceled $168 billion in student debt for 4.7 million borrowers. And there's still more to come — Biden and Harris unveiled details in early April about a new student-loan-forgiveness plan after the Supreme Court struck down his first attempt.
However, that new plan has already run into legal roadblocks after a federal court placed a temporary restraining order on its implementation in early September. And should Trump win the presidential election, it could jeopardize Biden's relief efforts. After the Supreme Court decision on debt relief, Trump posted on his campaign website that the ruling was "only made possible through President Trump's strong nomination of three distinguished and courageous jurists to the Supreme Court."
While in office, Trump worked to weaken the borrower defense to repayment, an avenue for relief for thousands of borrowers who were defrauded by the schools they attended. For-profit schools like Corinthian Colleges and ITT Technical Institutes, for example, misrepresented their programs and forced students to take on debt they could not afford. While Biden's administration enacted a range of relief for defrauded borrowers, it's unlikely those efforts would continue under Trump if he were reelected.
More broadly, student-loan borrowers would likely face very different outcomes under a Harris or Trump presidency. While plans for relief would likely continue should Harris win a second term, a Trump presidency could halt the efforts Biden's Education Department already enacted — meaning borrowers would continue to repay their loans without new avenues for relief.
The Education Department would likely face more budget cuts under Trump. While in office, Trump proposed cutting billions of dollars from the department, which included eliminating PSLF.
Trump did support capping the amount parents can borrow through PLUS loans, which are loans parents can take out to cover up to the full cost of their kid's education. Those loans have the highest federal-student-loan interest rate, making them difficult to pay off. Trump's budget also called for an extension of the Pell Grant, a grant for those who demonstrate financial need, to incarcerated people.
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Healthcare is one of the policy areas where Harris and Trump differ the most. Still, a poll by Pew released in May found that healthcare is among the top agenda priorities for over half of American voters.
Harris plans to continue the Biden administration's efforts to expand the Affordable Care Act — colloquially called Obamacare — and make healthcare more accessible to families, the middle class, and people with preexisting conditions. Trump has said he hopes to "repeal and replace" the law and make cuts to Medicare. However, Trump has not publicly outlined an alternate affordable healthcare plan: "If we can come up with a plan that's going to cost our people, our population less money and be better healthcare than Obamacare, then I would absolutely do it," he said at the September 10 debate.
In July, at a rally in North Carolina, Harris emphasized her and Biden's actions to expand the 2022 PACT Act to provide healthcare for millions more veterans, including those who were exposed to toxins while in training or in active service during the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, Iraq, Afghanistan, and post-9/11 combat zones. This follows a 2018 law signed by Trump that allows some veterans to seek VA-funded care at their community medical facilities. Trump has not mentioned new veteran healthcare initiatives as part of his reelection campaign, and he has previously taken credit for a private-sector veteran healthcare program that was introduced under former President Barack Obama.
The price of pharmaceutical drugs is also a priority for voters, as some Americans say they are unable to access prescriptions due to high costs and drug shortages. Throughout her vice presidency and presidential campaign, Harris has vowed to ensure medications are affordable for all Americans, regardless of household income — alongside her proposal to erase medical debt for millions. Harris plans to build on the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which included provisions to lower the price of insulin to $35 a month. She is also part of the Biden administration's negotiations with Big Pharma companies over the price of 10 major drugs, including medications to manage diabetes, arthritis, and heart conditions: "Access to healthcare should be a right and not just a privilege of those who can afford it," Harris said at the debate. The Inflation Reduction Act would require Trump to continue these drug price negotiations should he win a second term. Trump has not focused on drug affordability in his 2024 campaign.
Two years after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Harris is emphasizing abortion access: "The freedom to make decisions about one's own body, should not be made by the government," she said at the debate. The Democratic nominee said she strongly supports reproductive autonomy — advocating for a restored constitutional right to abortion, as well as protections on medication and emergency abortion care. Harris is also the only sitting vice president or president to visit a Planned Parenthood clinic while in office, and has a history of defending reproductive healthcare while Attorney General of California.
Both Harris and Trump have stated support for IVF and fertility treatments following state court decisions earlier this year that called for frozen embryos to be considered people. Trump has even called for federally subsidized IVF — a proposal that is divisive among Republicans.
If re-elected, Trump has said he would not sign a nationwide abortion ban if it were passed by Congress, but his personal stance on the issue has varied during his time in the public eye — and many Americans worry about GOP efforts to limit reproductive healthcare access. At the September 10 debate, Trump said he is proud of overturning Roe vs. Wade, "I did a great service in doing it. It took courage to do it. And the Supreme Court had great courage in doing it," he said. Trump has maintained his position that abortion should be a state issue, which could allow state legislatures to continue passing bans that restrict abortions and place doctors who perform the procedure at risk of prosecution. In an April interview with Time Magazine, Trump also said he would "let red states monitor women's pregnancies and prosecute those who violate abortion bans." Project 2025, a policy plan proposed by Trump allies, also calls for significant national restrictions on abortion and birth control.
Additionally, Trump has said he will ban all gender-affirming healthcare and hormone therapies for minors if he returns to office. But Harris has opposed anti-LGBTQ legislation and is expected to expand on Biden's previous efforts to protect healthcare for transgender children and adults. She has a record of defending the rights of transgender people since her early career.
AP Photo/John Raoux, File
Housing costs present a major challenge for both Harris and Trump as millennials and Gen Zers are priced out of many markets.
The state of the housing market can be summed up by two compelling statistics.
A Gallup survey of 1,001 adults released in May 2024 showed that only 21% of Americans said it was a good time to purchase a home, while 76% said it was a bad time to buy one.
Millennials will play a crucial role this November as voters in their 30s and early- to mid-40s with growing families cannot live in the communities where they grew up because of the scarcity of available homes and elevated costs.
Affordable housing has been a top concern for Harris, who's aware of the saliency of an issue that could make or break her White House bid.
The current 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is currently under 7% — with rates having fallen in recent months — but many potential buyers simply aren't purchasing homes and are continuing to rent.
For decades, housing has failed to keep up with demand. After the Great Recession and throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the problem only grew worse. Now, many would-be sellers have decided to stay put, exacerbating a housing shortage that has become one of the most pressing public policy issues on the local, state, and federal levels.
In the swing state of Nevada, which Harris is hoping to win this fall, Biden earlier this year spoke about the administration's efforts to tackle the housing crisis, including the 1.7 million housing units currently under construction. He also noted that the administration planned to create an additional 2 million affordable homes, with thousands of the units poised to be built in the Silver State. However, there's no official timeline for when these homes will be completed.
Harris during the debate said that if elected, she would work with builders and the private sector to construct 3 million new homes by the end of her first term.
Housing affordability will also be a key issue in other battleground states including Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania.
The Biden-Harris administration last year also called for more office-to-residential conversions, adding that it would create a program to "help communities build and renovate housing or convert housing from empty office spaces into housing."
Such conversions have become increasingly popular in recent years. With legions of employees able to work remotely during the pandemic, many companies have opted to not renew their office leases.
As part of Harris' economic agenda, she's proposed a $25,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers, which she reiterated her support for during the debate. As part of Harris' pledge to create an "opportunity economy," she also touted a $6,000 child tax credit proposal that she said would help young families purchase necessities like cribs and clothes for their children.
Trump has also zeroed in on the issue of housing. While campaigning in Iowa last year, he said that the key to driving down housing costs was to lower energy costs.
"We'll get the prices way down," he said, referring to energy costs, "and then the interest rates down and then the home builders will start building again."
Trump's record on affordable housing has been mixed. In 2019, he created a White House council to remove impediments to the construction of affordable housing. But during his presidency, Trump also called for major cuts to the Department of Housing and Urban Development's budget. In 2020, he sought to end the Community Development Block Grant program — which offers annual grants to states and local municipalities to fund redevelopment and community services — in the next year's budget, arguing that housing policies were best handled at the state and local levels.
A second Trump term would likely mean the federal government would be more hands-off in shaping housing policy than a potential Harris administration.
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Harris long allied herself with organized labor, but Trump is aiming to chip away at the Democratic ticket's union support this fall.
Biden, who last year became the first sitting US president to walk a picket line, has been a dependable champion of labor unions. But as Harris looks to succeed Biden in the White House, she has taken steps to firm up support with this critical bloc of voters.
Along with Biden, Harris prioritized passage of the bipartisan infrastructure law, with one of its selling points being the creation of thousands of well-paying union jobs. And last year, the Biden administration's Department of Labor tweaked a rule in how it calculates prevailing wages for construction workers, with the changes affording them higher pay and more workplace protections.
In recent decades, public-sector unions have become increasingly diverse, with more female, Black, and Latino members who have often thrown their support behind Democratic candidates. After Harris' ascension as the Democratic presidential nominee, union mobilization became even more critical for her campaign — as she lacked the decades of relationships that Biden fostered with labor leaders.
Harris' outreach was on full display in early September, when she emphatically vowed to protect workers' rights during a rally in Michigan, the "blue wall" state that's a critical part of her electoral calculus.
But Trump has been successful in earning endorsements from influential police unions like the Police Officers Association of Michigan and the Florida Police Benevolent Association.
Trump's mission is clear: He wants to win over more union households in battleground states like Michigan and Wisconsin. During the September presidential debate, Trump sought to tie the immigration debate to unions, arguing that those in the country illegally were "taking jobs" from American union workers.
In 2016, Trump made strong gains with these voters, but Biden flipped many of them back into the Democratic column in 2020, promising robust support for the automobile industry. In January, Biden earned the backing of the United Auto Workers after joining them on the picket line, with UAW president Shawn Fain saying: "Joe Biden bet on the American worker while Donald Trump blamed the American worker." Trump responded that Fain "didn't have a clue."
After Biden's withdrawal from the presidential race, the UAW threw its support behind Harris.
In March, Biden gave the auto industry slightly more time to adopt strict new rules for tailpipe emissions, in a huge win for organized labor, as automakers and unions were concerned about meeting the administration's initial electric vehicle transition proposals. Harris had been seen as likely to continue the Biden administration's push to advance EV production, but her campaign indicated in September that she "does not support an electric vehicle mandate." Meanwhile, Trump has said that the transition to electric vehicles would decimate the auto industry and benefit China and Mexico.
A Gallup poll conducted in August found that 70% of Americans approved of labor unions, a marked increase from the 48% who backed unions in 2009.
With many Americans working multiple jobs and inflation continuing to take a toll on people, labor unions have fought for higher wages for employees. In a Gallup survey conducted in August 2023, 61% of Americans said that unions help the economy more than they hurt it, a figure that exceeded the previous high-water mark from 1999.
Trump has made the economy the hallmark of his campaign, touting low pre-COVID-19 unemployment numbers, especially among Black Americans. In both September 2019 and February 2020, the overall unemployment rate hit 3.5%, which at the time represented a 50-year low.
When Biden took office in January 2021, the unemployment rate, which rose sharply during the COVID-19 pandemic, sat at 6.4%. But unemployment hit a modern low of 3.4% in both January 2023 and April 2023, a figure that hadn't been seen since 1969. In April 2023, Black unemployment hit a record low of 4.7%.
The overall unemployment rate has risen since last year, and it sits at 4.2% as of August.
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Harris has released a slate of tax proposals in recent weeks intended to help small businesses and ensure the wealthy and corporations pay their fair share. She adopted Biden's plan to raise the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%, which differs from Trump's tax plan: His 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act established a 21% corporate income tax rate — a decrease from 35% — and Trump said during a September 5 speech that he would push to lower the corporate tax rate to 15%.
Harris has also proposed a long-term 28% capital gains tax, or a tax on assets households have owned for over a year that make over $1 million annually. The current rate stands at 20%, and Harris said during an early September speech that the tax "rewards investment in America's innovators, founders, and small businesses."
When it comes to small businesses, Harris also recently proposed a $50,000 small business tax credit and a goal of receiving 25 million new small business applications in her first term.
Harris also supports restoring the fully refundable expanded child tax credit, which was first enacted under the American Rescue Plan in 2021 and gave $3,000 per child to families with children over the age of 6, and $3,600 per child to families with children under the age of 6. She also said she would give low-and middle-income parents up to $6,000 in their child's first year.
Meanwhile, many of the provisions in Trump's 2017 tax law are set to expire in 2025. Like Biden, Harris said she would support extending Trump's tax cuts for households making under $400,000 a year, but some Republican lawmakers want all of Trump's provisions extended past 2025, and they introduced a bill last year to make the tax law permanent.
Aside from his tax law, Trump recently proposed a 10% tariff on goods coming into the US, along with a 60% tariff on all imports from China. The Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank, has said the proposed 10% tariff would raise taxes for Americans by over $300 billion a year. Trump recently said during an interview with Time Magazine that the 10% tariff could end up being higher.
Trump has called for eliminating taxes on Social Security benefits and tips, an idea Harris has also supported.
Given that Democrats and Harris are on board to extend some of Trump's tax cuts for low- and middle-income households, there's likely to be some bipartisan agreement over taxes under both a Trump or Harris presidency. But there's a significant divide over how much wealthy individuals and corporations should be taxed.
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During his presidency, Trump imposed sweeping tariffs on imported goods at a scale not seen in decades. The self-proclaimed "Tariff Man" has promised to repeat that approach if he returns to office, going so far as to say that the revenue generated from tariffs would help the nation defray the cost of childcare and inject the capital needed to start up a sovereign wealth fund.
Like Biden, Harris has been more supportive of using tariffs, though her campaign has said she would be more strategic than Trump about how she deployed them. She has argued that Trump's sweeping tariff plans amount to "a national sales tax, call it a Trump tax, that would raise prices on middle-class families by almost $4,000 a year."
During the first debate between the pair, Trump argued that if Harris truly hated tariffs then she and Biden would have ended his administration's tariffs on Chinese goods.
"If she doesn't like 'em they should have gone out and they should have immediately cut the tariffs but those tariffs are there three and a half years now under their administration," Trump said.
Harris responded by questioning Trump's larger trade policy, pointing out the high trade deficits under Trump's watch. She neglected to mention that the trade deficit has risen even higher under the Biden-Harris administration.
Unlike traditional Republicans, Trump is proudly a protectionist. While he's changed his views on many other policy issues, the former president has for decades bashed the US trade deficit and sweeping deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement, saying the agreements had harmed workers.
Trump's tariff barrage relied on Section 232, a provision of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which allowed his commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, to declare some imports a national-security risk. The former president wasn't afraid to use this power against US allies, which outraged European and Canadian leaders. In response, other nations imposed retaliatory tariffs. But Trump's approach helped secure the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement, a NAFTA substitute.
But those disputes paled in comparison to China's reaction. Beijing, by far the biggest target of Trump's tariffs and other trade actions, responded by suspending purchases of US agricultural exports and imposing other retaliatory tariffs. The Trump administration spent billions bailing out US farmers as it tried to manage the political and actual costs of the trade war. Trump and China eventually announced a deal to soothe tensions, but Beijing never purchased the additional US goods it said it would under the so-called "Phase 1" agreement.
In response to criticism, Trump argued that foreign countries were footing the bill. Many economists pointed out that tariffs are paid by US importers. Consumers are also likely to face higher costs on goods that are subject to high tariffs. Some economists have found evidence that Trump's actions caused a spike in the price of washers, dryers, new cars, furniture, and other goods. In an April interview with Time Magazine, Trump disputed that tariffs end up costing consumers more.
Many economists have long been skeptical about countries engaging in trade wars and the tit-for-tat cycle of tariffs that result. An analysis by CNBC suggested that Trump's tariffs were equivalent to one of the largest tax increases in decades based on the revenue they generated for the Treasury Department. Unsurprisingly, not everyone on Trump's team was on board: Gary Cohn, a former president of Goldman Sachs who served as a Trump economic advisor, resigned his White House post shortly after Trump announced high tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.
During her 2020 Democratic primary campaign, Harris tore into Trump over the costs economists found American consumers bore due to his tariffs, calling it "a trade tax." The Biden-Harris administration has left Trump's tariffs on China largely untouched. In May, the White House went even further by adding another $18 billion in tariffs on some Chinese products, including electric vehicle batteries, semiconductors, and steel.
If he returns to office, Trump wants to impose more tariffs. He's proposed everything from a flat 10% tariff on every product that enters the US to a 100% tariff on all imported cars.
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The US is not returning to a pre-2016 trade consensus, that much is clear.
Trump dramatically shifted the Republican Party away from its largely held belief that free trade would help all nations. Harris has said she is not a "protectionist Democrat," but she was also one of less than a dozen lawmakers who opposed the ratification of Trump's largest trade achievement, the rewriting of the sweeping North American Free Trade Agreement into the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement or USMCA.
Unlike Biden and Hillary Clinton, Trump's two previous general election opponents, Harris doesn't have a lengthy history on trade issues, making it more difficult to tie her to NAFTA and China's admission to the World Trade Organization, two historic moments that Trump has sharply criticized both parties for participating in.
According to The New York Times, Harris has said she would have opposed NAFTA in 1992. When she voted against the USMCA, she cited the agreement's failure to grapple with climate change. She was only one of 10 senators to vote against the deal. The United Autoworkers, a powerful labor union, cited Harris' opposition to USMCA in its endorsement of her over Trump.
Biden's White House has signaled that it favors a paradigm shift. The administration's focus is best seen in one of Biden's biggest trade shifts: withdrawing US support for digital trade principles that some progressive lawmakers, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren, say were hijacked by Big Tech companies. Other Democrats have criticized the administration's approach.
Biden has left some of Trump's tariffs in place, illustrating the protectionist bent that continues to take hold in Washington.
Overall, Trump's combative trade policy led to mixed results. He didn't see the fruits of his biggest trade deal, which went into effect in July 2020: the USMCA. Experts at the Brookings Institution have praised the treaty for growing regional trade. Unlike NAFTA, the USMCA also contains new provisions on digital trade and labor protections. The Biden administration has used the deal to push Mexico over its labor practices.
While Trump has bragged about brokering a historic trade deal with China, economists found that Beijing never lived up to its commitment to purchase an additional $200 billion worth of US exports. He successfully ended US support for the TransPacific Partnership, a massive trade deal that President Barack Obama supported with the hopes it would align much of the region more closely with the US. Trump has pledged to kill the Biden administration's new Asian trade talks, which the former president has dubbed "TPP two." Harris opposed the initial Transpacific Partnership deal, citing at the time the potential for the sweeping deal to undermine California's environmental laws.
Some Trump allies have signaled that he'll push the envelope even further if he wins in November. Politico reported that some of the former president's top economic advisors are discussing how to devalue the dollar to boost US exports. It's a risky proposition, as it could drive up the costs of some items that have already risen because of inflation.
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