Where Vice President Kamala Harris stands on key issues

With Election Day 2024 quickly approaching, we're taking a look at what voters should know about the presidential candidates' stances on key issues.

JUMP TO: ECONOMY l IMMIGRATION l ABORTION l HOUSING

Polls show a razor-thin margin in the presidential race between former president Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.

But where does each candidate stand on several important issues, including the economy, immigration, abortion and housing?

US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris waves as she arrives in Las Vegas, Nevada, on October 20, 2024. (Photo by RONDA CHURCHILL/AFP via Getty Images)

Here's where the vice president stands on the key topics:

Check here for real-time race results on Election Day!

Where Harris stands on the economy

Harris announced a set of economic proposals that included building homes, cutting taxes, and lowering the cost of groceries, and other basic needs for people.

With the issue of housing costs affecting the nation, the vice president debuted a new ad amplifying her plan to build 3 million new homes over four years to manage inflationary pressures. 

Harris is also proposing the government provide $25,000 in assistance to first-time homebuyers. 

According to the Associated Press, the vice president’s plan would establish tax breaks for homebuilders focused on first-time buyers and expand existing incentives for companies that construct rental housing.

The AP reported that with local zoning limiting the supply of houses, Harris would double the available funding to $40 billion to encourage local governments to remove the regulations that prevent extra construction.

Inflation

The vice president promoted a plan for a federal ban on price gouging by food producers and grocery stores. She touted this as part of her overall economic policy, to ease inflation and lower the cost of living during a North Carolina rally on Aug.16.

Democratic presidential candidate, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a CNN Presidential Town Hall at Sun Center Studios on October 23, 2024 in Aston, Pennsylvania. With less than two weeks to Election Day, Harris spent the day in Philad

Harris' grocery pricing proposal would instruct the Federal Trade Commission to penalize "big corporations" involved in price spikes, and it singles out a lack of competition in the meat-packing industry for driving up meat prices.

Consumer prices rose just 2.4% in September from a year earlier, down from 2.5% in August, and the smallest annual rise since February 2021. Measured from month to month, prices increased 0.2% from August to September, the Labor Department reported Thursday, the same as in the previous month.

Wages

Harris called for raising the minimum wage in a Las Vegas speech in early August, but her campaign has not specified how high she believes it should be raised.

The vice president promised to work to eliminate taxes on tips paid to restaurant and other service industry employees, like Trump has.

Vice President Kamala Harris takes the stage to speak at her presidential campaign rally at the Oakland Expo Center in Waterford, MI on October 18, 2024. (Photo by Adam J. Dewey/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Harris' campaign told the Associated Press that if she is elected president, she would work with Congress to draft a proposal that includes an income limit and other terms to keep hedge fund managers and lawyers from structuring their compensation to try to take advantage of the policy. Harris also would push for the proposal alongside one to increase the federal minimum wage.

Taxes 

Harris is pledging tax cuts for more than 100 million working and middle-class households. She will do this by restoring two tax cuts designed to help middle-class and working Americans: the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit, per Harris' campaign website

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The vice president wants to make the Child Tax Credit permanent. This would give families as much as $3,600 per child and offer a special $6,000 tax credit for new parents. Harris says her administration would expand tax credits for first-time homebuyers and push to build 3 million new housing units in four years, while wiping out taxes on tips and endorsing tax breaks for entrepreneurs.

According to the AP, Harris also wants to raise the corporate tax rate to 28% and the corporate minimum tax to 21%. The current corporate rate is 21% and the corporate minimum, raised under the Inflation Reduction Act, is at 15% for companies making more than $1 billion a year. But Harris would not increase the capital gains tax as much as President Joe Biden had proposed on investors with more than $1 million in income.

Social Security

If lawmakers don’t want millions of Americans to see their benefits automatically cut by 17% in 11 years, there are essentially two options: pay more or get less. 

Since becoming the nominee, Harris hasn’t laid out a plan to address Social Security, but Democrats have proposed raising Social Security taxes on the wealthiest Americans to cover the gap. 

Americans pay Social Security taxes on incomes up to $168,000 a year; anything earned above that amount is not subject to Social Security taxes.

A House proposal – the one Harris said she supported in March 2023 – would only raise Social Security taxes for those making above $400,000 a year.

Vice President and Democratic candidate for President of the United States Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign rally at Washington Crossing Historic Park in Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania, United States, on October 16, 2024. (Photo by Nathan Morris

As a senator, she supported a similar measure under the Social Security Expansion Act, but that act calls for raising Social Security taxes on people making more than $250,000 a year.

The Social Security Expansion Act that Harris backed would also change the way Social Security benefits are calculated. Currently, cost-of-living adjustments (COLA) are based on the CPI-W, which tracks monthly price changes in goods and services for urban wage earners and clerical workers.

Lawmakers have proposed using the CPI-E, which measures price changes based on the spending patterns of Americans who are 62 years and older. Democrats say it would increase benefits for millions of older Americans and give a more accurate picture of how seniors spend their money, weighing more on things like prescription drug costs. 

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The National Committee to Preserve Social Security & Medicare endorsed Harris for president in a July 24 blog post.  

"As Vice President, she has championed the administration’s policies on behalf of older Americans — including strengthening Social Security and Medicare and lowering prescription drug prices for seniors," the committee said on its website. 

What Harris says about border security

Harris has not given many specifics as to how she plans to tackle the border crisis.

She previously promoted a border security bill that a bipartisan group of senators negotiated earlier this year, which Republican lawmakers ultimately opposed en masse at Republican nominee Donald Trump’s behest.

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