What’s expected to get more and less expensive under Trump or Harris

Donald Trump and Kamala Harris both have proposals they say will lower costs for Americans. 

While the pace of inflation has slowed, Americans continue to struggle with high prices at gas stations, grocery stores, and more.

Those high prices have become a key issue for voters as the presidential election approaches. Both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris have outlined plans they say will lower costs for Americans through various policies.

This is the second installment of B-17’s five-part series for the final stretch before the election. Monday’s post focused on investments, and now B-17 is looking at how each candidate would impact how much things cost.

From the Democratic perspective, an economic-policy book released by the Harris campaign said she and her vice-president pick, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, “know that prices are still too high for middle-class families, which is why their top economic priorities will be lowering the costs of everyday needs.”

When reached for comment, the Harris campaign referred B-17 to remarks on previously announced policies.

On the other side, Trump’s platform — which was adopted by the Republican National Committee in July — outlined 20 principles the former president would prioritize in a second term, one of which is to “end inflation, and make America affordable again.”

Taylor Rogers, a Republican National Committee spokesperson, told B-17 in a statement that “Trump will once again cut taxes and unleash American energy to lower prices on groceries and other goods when we send him back to the White House.”

Here’s how a Trump or Harris presidency would impact how much a handful of things cost, based on economic policy proposals the candidates have released.

Groceries

High food costs have remained a key concern for voters. In a Pew Research Center survey of more than 9,000 adults conducted from the end of August to early September, 74% of respondents said they were concerned about the high costs of groceries.

In August, Harris released a plan to tackle high food costs by implementing a federal ban on price gouging for groceries during national emergencies.

Dan Scheitrum, an associate agribusiness professor studying grocery price gouging at California Polytechnic State University, previously told B-17 that Harris’ proposal might not help much outside a crisis, such as a natural disaster or pandemic.

“If you were to try and cut down grocery prices today, there’s no state of emergency. So most price-gouging protections wouldn’t apply at all,” Scheitrum said.

Trump, on the other hand, said during a town hall in September that he’d lower grocery prices by restricting food imports to bolster domestic producers. “Our farmers are being absolutely decimated right now. And, you know, one of the reasons is we allow a lot of farm product into our country,” Trump said.

When asked more recently during a Pennsylvania town hall in October how he’d lower grocery prices, Trump’s wide-ranging answer largely focused on immigration while saying that “we’re going to do a lot of things” to manage high grocery prices.

While details are minimal on Trump’s plan to restrict food imports, it’s on par with the former president’s commitment to bolster tariffs in a second term — and it’s faced criticism from experts who have said it would actually boost inflation.

Housing

High housing costs are another key issue. Harris’ economic-policy book said she’d reduce rent and mortgage prices by building 3 million new housing units and expanding the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, which allows private and nonprofit developers to build affordable rental housing.

“Right now, a serious housing shortage is part of what is driving up cost,” Harris said at a Las Vegas campaign event in September.

Additionally, according to her campaign, Harris plans to give Americans up to $25,000 in down-payment assistance to help them finance their purchase of a home.

Trump’s platform said the former president would address housing affordability by promoting “homeownership through Tax Incentives and support for first-time buyers” and cutting “unnecessary Regulations that raise housing costs.” The platform didn’t specify which regulations Trump would cut, but he said during a speech at the Economic Club of New York in September that “regulation costs 30% of a new home, and we will open up portions of federal land for large-scale housing construction.”

Rogers, the RNC spokesperson, told B-17 that Trump would “secure the border, ban mortgages for illegal immigrants who drive up the price of housing, and eliminate federal regulations driving up housing costs” and reiterated the promise to open up federal land for building.

Imported goods

Trump has pledged to impose a broad-based tariff ranging from 10% to 20% on all imports, potentially hiking the prices of most goods brought in from other countries.

Imported goods that could be affected by the tariffs span a wide range of products. According to the Census Bureau, major US import categories that would be impacted include automobiles ($320 billion so far this year), drugs for human and veterinary use ($155 billion), food and beverage ($140 billion), furniture ($27 billion) and household appliances ($25 billion).

And it’s not just popular consumer goods that would cost more. Economists are also worried about the impact on imported iron and steel-mill products. If those become more expensive, so would the products that use them as components.

While Trump has insisted that other countries would pay for the tariffs, a wide range of economists agree that the price increases would largely fall on American businesses and households. For example, an analysis from the Tax Policy Center found that all income groups would pay higher taxes as a result of Trump’s tariffs, with the lowest-income households paying about $320 more in taxes and middle-income households paying $1,350 more.

Harris hasn’t offered much detail on her tariff plans. President Joe Biden, however, implemented increased tariffs on products such as steel, aluminum, and semiconductors, and Harris would most likely continue those actions if she wins the election.

Trump and Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, the GOP vice-presidential nominee, have pointed out that the Biden administration has maintained Trump-era tariffs on Chinese goods — in fact, Biden increased tariffs on roughly $15 billion of Chinese imports.

Gas

Few prices are more closely watched in politics than the cost of filling up at the gas station. Gas prices have spiked at times during the Biden-Harris administration, including in the summer of 2022, when they peaked at a national average of more than $5 a gallon before sliding back down to roughly $3 a gallon.

Energy prices are also notoriously tricky because presidents don’t have the power to control complex global and regional markets. Even when the White House taps the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, it’s more of a symbolic gesture.

Trump has promised to “drill, baby, drill,” vowing to empower the fossil-fuel industry by cutting regulations and issuing more leases for drilling on federal lands.

It’s unclear how much more appetite oil producers have for expanding production. The Biden-Harris administration has also presided over a record high for US oil production.

Harris has vowed to go even further, calling for more permitting reform. She also supports more federal subsidies for renewable energy.

Prescription drugs

As a candidate in 2016, Trump repeatedly promised to give the federal government the power to negotiate prescription-drug prices, though he didn’t push through that measure as president.

In the White House, Trump initially broke with the pharmaceutical industry by proposing to tie Medicare drug prices to international standards, but he has since backed away from the ambitious cost-controlling policy. Vance has talked up drug pricing transparency.

Harris has promised to expand two provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act, allowing Medicare to negotiate some drugs’ prices. She wants to expand the law’s $2,000 cap on drug spending and $35 monthly cap on insulin to all Americans.