“… In the pandemic-era programs, now mostly expired or reduced, Ms. Harris and other Democrats found reinforcement of their faith in the government’s power to ameliorate hardship. If elected, she would seek to sustain or expand many of them, including subsidies for food, health care and housing, and revive a change to the child tax credit that essentially created a guaranteed income for families with children. Those policies helped temporarily cut the poverty rate by more than half from prepandemic levels.
She backs a $15 federal minimum wage, which Republicans have fought, and is a vocal supporter of programs like subsidized child care and paid family leave meant to help balance work and family.
Mr. Trump says little about his role in pandemic-era poverty programs, which many Republicans view as having been excessive and fraud-ridden. Instead, he touts his 2017 tax cuts, which he credits for boosting the economy and reducing poverty to a prepandemic low, and he has vowed to extend them when they expire next year. Most of the direct benefit from those cuts went to corporations and the wealthy.
Mr. Trump’s poverty plans are otherwise vague, but his record is one of animosity toward the programs Ms. Harris would defend or expand. He sought to remove millions of people from Medicaid and food stamps, many of them low-wage workers. He has sought to reduce the number of people with subsidized housing and raise their rents. …”
