Harris makes a middle class economy pitch: 3 takeaways from North Carolina policy rollout

WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris said the inflation-battling agenda she spelled out on Friday is just the beginning of her economic plans that she'd try to turn into policy should she win the White House in November.

More detailed proposals to increase wages, help small business owners and fight poverty are still to come, the 2024 Democratic nominee for president suggested.

"In the weeks to come, I will address in greater detail my plans to build an opportunity economy," Harris said during an event in the 2024 battleground state of North Carolina.

Harris tailored her policy rollout to topics intended to help middle class Americans stretch their money further. Her proposals included a federal ban on price gouging of food and groceries and tax credits for new parents and lower-income workers.

Food, rent, gas, back to school clothes, prescription meds — it all adds up, she said.

"Today I will focus on one element that's on the minds of many Americans as they pay their bills at the kitchen table or walk the aisle of a grocery store. And that is lowering the cost of living," Harris said in Raleigh.

Here are three takeaways from her speech:

Harris puts housing front and center

Harris pledged that "by the end of my first term, we will end America's housing shortage" by building three million new affordable homes and rentals.

"And we will make sure that those homes actually go to working and middle class Americans, not just investors," she said.

Harris also said she would target artificially high rentals by fighting for a law that cracks down on the use of price-fixing software.

In one of the more detailed plans that Harris put forward on Friday, she said would offer up to $25,000 to first-time homebuyers to put toward down payments.

Emphasis on the middle class

Harris said for most of her childhood, her mother Shyamala was a renter. Her mother saved for more than a decade, Harris said, to buy her first home.

"I grew up in a middle class household," Harris declared on Friday.

It was one of several anecdotes Harris has shared to make the case that she understands the needs of voters.

Harris said she worked at McDonald's while she was in college. She did it for spending money, she said, but saw first-hand how hard it was for coworkers who were raising families on their paychecks and working multiple jobs.

Turning the tables on Trump

Former President Donald Trump's campaign has labeled Harris' proposed price controls as "socialist" and argued that her pledge to punish businesses accused of breaking the rules are rooted in authoritarianism.

At her event on Friday, Harris hit back. She described Trump's proposed tariffs as a "national sales tax" on everyday goods that Americans import.

Harris said his plan would cost a typical family $3,900 a year, a statistic included in a report that was released this week by the liberal Center for American Progress.

"At this moment when everyday prices are too high, he will make them even higher," she said.

Trump had hammered Harris in a North Carolina speech of his own and at a Thursday news conference that served as a prebuttal to the debut of her economic plans.

But on Friday, as she sough to turn the tables, she said, "He offered no serious plans to reduce costs for middle class families. No plan to expand access to housing or healthcare."

"And that, I think actually for most of us was not surprising," Harris added.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Harris tries to woo swing voters with economic pitch: 3 takeaways