Vice President Kamala Harris formerly accepted the Democratic Nomination for President of the United States last night, and her economic policy agenda announced last week is largely popular among Americans.
The platform focuses on cutting the cost of living: primarily for housing, health care, and food. Many of the proposals are bipartisan and receiving support on both sides of the political aisle.
A poll conducted just after she announced these plans conducted by YouGov found each of the policies asked about were either strongly or somewhat supported by at least half of Americans. The largest opposition to any of the policies was just 27%.
Health care were the most popular components of the agenda. Specifically, drug costs. Harris wants to increase the number of drugs that are eligible for Medicare price negotiations (82% support), cap insulin prices at $35 a month and cap out of pocket expenses for prescriptions at $2,000 (72% support).
73% of Americans support Harris’s proposal to expand the Earned Income Tax Credit for lower wage Americans. 59% support restoring the child tax credit of the pandemic era. The same number support her idea to give a $6,000 child tax credit to families with a baby under a year old.
Her housing plan is also popular-though less so than her health care plans. 63% are in support of expanding a tax credit for housing developers building affordable rental units, and 62% favor preventing landlords from price setting algorithms.
53%-59% support removing tax benefits for investors who buy single family homes en masse, increasing federal investment towards local efforts to address housing shortages, providing a tax credit for developers building homes sold to first time buyers, and directing the federal government to work with the industry to build 3 million homes in the next four years.
The biggest question mark of her proposals seems to be about food. Harris proposed a “federal ban on price gouging food”, a move that would be the first of its kind. However, that plan has been interpreted in many ways, leading to questions. The YouGov poll asked about “Capping increases on food and grocery prices” which was supported by 65% of Americans.
The plan resonates more strongly with Democrats than Republicans, though certain parts of her plan have drawn support from the other side of the aisle. Democrats in favor of each proposal range from 72% to 89%. At least half of Republicans support 9 of the 17 ideas, with support ranging from 28% to 81%.
Extending subsidies for the Affordable Care Act is proving the most divisive of policies, 80% of Democrats and 27% of Republicans say they support it.
75% of Democrats and 64% of Republicans support the Federal Reserve remaining independent. A policy that Harris supports but Trump has waivered on.
A survey of 27,579 U.S adults conducted after Harris announced her policies found that more Americans think she would be more likely to lower health care than Donald Trump would be (44% vs. 34%), the same is true for housing (40% vs. 36%). On who would lower food costs they are much closer: 39% say Harris but 38% say Trump.