In a sparsely furnished row house in North Philadelphia, Saiyda Bey makes herself comfortable on a gray chaise longue. The house smells of incense and her black kitten Kit Kat runs up and down the room.
Bey, 33, proudly wears a “Blacks for Trump” hat she bought for $20 earlier this week before the JD Vance rally in Pennsylvania. She’s nervous as she looks through some notes she took in preparation for this interview, but she’s happy to share her thoughts on the upcoming presidential election.
“I think life would be better under Donald Trump because he plans to create more jobs in impoverished neighborhoods,” says Bey, who, like many Americans, struggles with the high cost of living and blames the current administration for the economic situation.
“I’ve always had problems. Under Donald Trump’s administration, I simply had fewer problems.”
Americans are divided over which presidential candidate can make life more affordable for middle- and low-income families. Neither Donald Trump nor Kamala Harris has presented a detailed economic program, but polls suggest that many Americans believe Republicans will focus on the economy and tax cuts while Democrats promise to tax the rich and corporations.
The North Philadelphia neighborhood where Bey was born and raised has an employment rate of 39 percent, according to U.S. Census data, and the median annual income was just over $28,000 in 2022. Most people there are African American and live below the poverty line.
At competing Democratic and Republican rallies, U.S. voters are voicing serious concerns about their economic future as the cost of living quickly becomes a dominant issue in the 2024 presidential campaign.
The economy under Biden
Under the Biden administration, food prices have soared and interest rates have risen to their highest levels since 2001, making it harder for some Americans to pay their mortgages or buy a home. But things are improving: The Federal Reserve has now announced that a long-awaited interest rate cut is on the table for September that will reduce borrowing costs.
“What we are seeing right now is a very low unemployment rate and an inflation rate that has reached normal levels,” said Francesco D’Acunto, holder of the A. James Clark Chair in Global Real Estate at Georgetown University in Washington DC.
Inflation in the US is currently around three percent and trending downward toward the target rate of two percent. Two years ago it was nearly ten percent – a 40-year high.
However, according to D’Acunto, wages are rising faster than inflation, and middle-class households should therefore already be seeing an upturn in their bank accounts.
“Over the last few months, they should have seen a reversal of that imbalance,” he said.
According to D’Acunto, inflation began to rise during the pandemic when borders were closed and China could not ship goods to the US, Canada or other countries. This dramatically increased the prices of goods, while the war in Ukraine drove up energy prices.
“These causes were neither Trump’s fault, when inflation began to rise, nor Biden’s,” D’Acunto said.
3 jobs to pay the bills
Bey works three jobs. She works part-time as a membership director at the YMCA and bartends at two different bars. To make ends meet, she sometimes has to rent a car so she can also deliver food for Uber Eats or InstaCart.
“Just for rent and utilities, like electricity, gas and water, the cost is between $1,200 and maybe $1,600 to $1,700,” Bey said. “And that’s just in this area.”
She says that’s the price of living in a suburb or higher-income area in the past.
After paying her bills, Bey says she has about $100 a week left for food and transportation. Still, she’s better off than some of her friends who, she says, were forced to move out of the neighborhood.
“The quality of life in this neighborhood is already below average,” said Bey. “So it’s a problem if you can’t afford a sustainable and comfortable life in this neighborhood.”
Dismissed and trying to get by
Pierce Hacking worked as a currency manager at TD Bank until he was laid off last June. He now lives below the poverty line and cares for his father, who was diagnosed with cancer after suffering a stroke.
“We’re a normal family trying to make ends meet,” says Hacking, who volunteers for Harris’ campaign.
Hacking, 32, lives in the Maple Shade community of New Jersey, where the employment rate is 63 percent and the median annual income is $71,748, according to census data.
He will vote for Harris in the upcoming election and is convinced that she is the right person to lead the country.
“She has a degree in economics,” Hacking said. “And that never seems to come up.”
Harris has announced that she will support paid family leave and affordable child care. She has also said that building the middle class will be a “defining goal” of her presidency.
As a senator for California, Harris proposed the LIFT Act in late 2018 to boost the incomes of low- and middle-income earners by creating a refundable tax credit that would offset up to $3,000 in income for unmarried workers and up to $6,000 for married workers. The bill never made it past the introduction stage.
She had also proposed a refundable tax credit to help people who have to spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent.
“Kamala Harris has given me so much hope,” Hacking said.
He believes she will stand up for all Americans and continue to implement tax breaks and programs that help those in need.
As a Harris-Trump contest becomes likely, The National’s Ian Hanomansing asks US political experts Cornell Belcher and Chris Cillizza to analyse how the election might turn out and what a possible path to victory for Kamala Harris might look like.
So which party is better for the economy?
Hans Noel, an associate professor of government at Georgetown University, says that while Republicans are traditionally seen as better for the economy, historically the U.S. economy has performed well under both parties.
“The Democrats actually have a pretty good record on economic issues, at least on some measures like economic growth and … income distribution,” he said.
Noel says inflation is high around the world and the U.S. economy has recovered from the coronavirus pandemic better than some other democracies. But he notes that voters have historically blamed incumbent parties for things that went wrong under their watch.
He believes that voters ultimately need to find out where each party stands on the issues they represent and then vote for the candidate who best reflects their views.
Bey says when Trump was president, she received unemployment benefits from the government during the COVID crisis, which helped her make ends meet. In 2020, Trump signed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, a $2.2 trillion stimulus package.
But Bey has been a fan since Donald Trump was elected president in 2016. She believes his economic background makes him best suited to lead the country out of inflation and improve the lives of Americans.
“He is committed to making a change in America that does not take us back to where we came from,” she said.
