Fact Check: Kamala Harris Claims Trump Economy Only Benefits the Rich

SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH - OCTOBER 07: Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. Kamala Harris
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CLAIM: “Joe Biden believes that you measure the health and strength of America’s economy based on the health and the strength of the American worker and the American family. On the other hand, you have Donald Trump, who measures the strength of the economy based on how rich people are doing,” Kamala Harris said at Wednesday’s vice presidential debate.

VERDICT: False.

President Donald Trump has frequently cited record-low black unemployment, record-low female unemployment, and record-low Hispanic unemployment as major achievements of his administration. What’s more, the gap between black and white unemployment contracted to the lowest level on record during Trump’s presidency.

Americans’ incomes rose sharply last year and fewer people were living in poverty.

USA Today reported that:

Median U.S. household income increased 6.8% to $68,700, the U.S. Census Bureau said Tuesday. That followed advances of 3.1% in 2016, 1.8% in 2017 and 0.9% in 2018. On an inflation-adjusted basis, median income last year was the highest on records dating to 1967

Breitbart News’s Charlie Speiring reported the income gains for middle-class Americans during the Trump administration:

According to statistics revealed by Sentier Research, the median or average-income family has seen their annual income grow by about $5,000 since Trump took office.

Under eight years of George W. Bush, income gains only increased $400, and under eight years of Obama, the gains were only $1,043.

Working-class Americans are also experiencing wage gains under Trump’s economy for the first time in a decade, and most Americans got a tax cut as a result of Trump’s tax reform.

Breitbart News’s Neil Munro recently reported:

Lower- and middle-income Americans gained ground in President Donald Trump’s first-term economy, while upper-income Americans gained the most under President Barack Obama, according to a survey by the Federal Reserve banking system.

“Families near the bottom of the income and wealth distributions generally continued to experience substantial gains in median and mean net worth between 2016 and 2019,” says the report, titled “Changes in U.S. Family Finances from 2016 to 2019: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances.”

Harris’s claims are wrong.

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