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The 2024 election could be won or lost on the strength of the Black vote, which could in turn be won or lost based on the strength of the American economy. So it is no surprise that candidates are paying a lot of attention — and lip service — to which of the past two administrations did more to improve the lives of Black workers.
Former President Donald J. Trump, the Republican candidate, makes big claims about the gains Black workers made under his watch, saying that he had the “lowest African American unemployment rate” and “the lowest African American poverty rate ever recorded.” But those measures improved even more under the Biden administration, with joblessness touching a record low and poverty falling even further.
“Currently, Black workers are doing better than they were in 2019,” said Valerie Wilson, a labor economist whose work focuses on racial disparities at the liberal-leaning advocacy organization EPI Action.
That may sound like an unambiguous victory for Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, especially when paired with a recent increase in homeownership rates for Black families and the fact that the Black unemployment rate dipped in September.
But even with those notable wins, the economy has not been uniformly good for all Black Americans. Rapid inflation has been tough on many families, chipping away at solid wage growth. Although the labor market for Black workers was the strongest ever recorded for much of 2022 and 2023, the long shadow of big price increases may be keeping people from feeling like they are getting ahead.
In fact, nearly three in four Black respondents rated the economy as fair or poor, a recent New York Times/Siena College poll of Black likely voters found. And that is notable, because Black voters do tend to prioritize economic issues — not just for themselves, but also for the overall welfare of Black people — when they are thinking about whether and how to vote.
“For voters as a whole, the most influential is how they say the national economy is doing,” said Matthew Wilson, associate professor of political science at Southern Methodist University. “For Black voters the national economy is important but their assessment of how Black people specifically are doing is equally important.”
The Record Is Hard to Read
Black voters still overwhelmingly support Democrats, but that is slipping.
Nearly 80 percent of Black voters nationwide said they would vote for Ms. Harris in the recent New York Times poll — a notable increase from the 74 percent of Black voters who said they would support Mr. Biden before he dropped out of the race in July. But that remains lower than the 90 percent of Black voters that Mr. Biden carried in 2020.
And the economy ranks as the most pressing concern for Black voters, the poll showed. While voters may focus on the candidates’ economic promises, they are also likely to consider their records.
Comparing the two administrations economically is difficult. Any White House has only a partial impact on how the economy performs on its watch, and that has been especially true recently because of volatility tied to the pandemic.
The Trump administration benefited from timing: It inherited an already-improving labor market from the Obama administration. Then the pandemic walloped the economy starting in early 2020. Lockdowns meant to contain the coronavirus sent unemployment skyrocketing during Mr. Trump’s final year. Mr. Biden took charge of a damaged but swiftly recovering economy.
Given that, the closest one can get to an apples-to-apples comparison is probably by contrasting the final year before the onset of the pandemic — through February 2020 — to the latest 12 months. And neither period is the clear economic winner.
Black unemployment was roughly the same on average across both periods, at a historically low 5.9 percent.
The Biden administration’s solid job market has done more to pull in Black workers: The share of Black people in their prime working years who are employed is now at a record high.
But wage growth was stronger back in 2019 and early 2020, under Mr. Trump, after accounting for price increases. Weekly earnings gains for the typical Black worker averaged about 3.1 percent after adjusting for inflation in the year leading up to the pandemic, whereas they have averaged 2.3 percent over the most recent four quarters.
Inflation Troubles Hit Hard
That’s partly because faster inflation has chipped away at recent raises.
Price increases were anemic throughout most of the 2000s and 2010s, but they picked up starting in early 2021. First, strong demand collided with supply chain snarls to push product prices up. Then inflation spread and deepened in 2022, with rent and grocery prices climbing sharply.
The burst may have been particularly painful for Black families. Black people are much more likely to rent, and they also skew toward lower incomes. Low-income families devote more of their budgets to necessities, which makes climbing food and shelter costs especially painful for them.
More than seven in 10 Black voters in the Times poll said that they had cut back on groceries because of cost, and 56 percent had cut back often.
But it is tough to guess exactly how voters will react to inflation on Election Day. Consumer sentiment data make clear that Americans hate price increases — but they may not solely blame the Biden administration. Government spending contributed to strong consumer demand, but price increases were a global phenomenon made worse by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
And inflation is now cooling notably, bringing relief to households. As price increases ease, the Federal Reserve has begun to cut interest rates, making it cheaper to take out a mortgage or an auto loan.
Feeling Good About the Current Economy
Add it all up, and the past eight years have left behind a complicated legacy for Black voters to assess.
Many still think that Ms. Harris would do a better job on their most important issue, which is typically managing the economy, several recent polls suggest. That comes in stark contrast to white voters, who tend to rate Mr. Trump much more highly on economic issues.
Some of that optimism probably comes from people who think that the past four years have gone well economically — and who see Ms. Harris as part of that legacy. Christopher Owens, 44, sees a bustling economy when he looks around Phoenix, and he credits the Biden-Harris administration.
Mr. Owens was working as a spoken-word artist on college campuses and city centers when the pandemic hit in 2020, causing his business to grind to a halt. But government policy came through for him: He was able to stay home and draft a business plan for a co-working space. The pause in student loans — started under Mr. Trump but extended under Mr. Biden — allowed him to save money to secure a building to open his business. In December, Mr. Owens opened the CultureHUB, which now has 50 members. “You started to see more Black-owned businesses, especially in just during the last two years,” Mr. Owens said.
Inflation is top of mind for him, he said, but he’s navigated the higher prices by becoming savvy with grocery discounts. He doesn’t fault the Biden administration for higher costs; he attributes that to “corporate greed.”
He plans to vote for Ms. Harris and feels that her economic policy will be a “continuation, if not an advancement” of what he’s already seen.
Economically Conflicted, but Voting for Harris
Other voters feel bad about the recent economy, but either separate Ms. Harris from the legacy of the last few years or plan to vote for her for other reasons.
That includes André Murray, 34, in Atlanta, who said he did well economically during the Trump administration.
Mr. Murray was working as an independent consultant upgrading technology systems of hospitals, and his business boomed as his clients benefited from newly-passed tax cuts. Gas was cheaper. And interest rates were lower — an important factor for Mr. Murray, who has struggled to buy a larger house for his growing family.
Higher interest rates were the Federal Reserve’s attempt to wrestle inflation back under control, not a White House policy. And Mr. Murray doesn’t pin the higher costs of living entirely on the Biden-Harris administration.
But like many voters, Mr. Murray said the current administration could have done more to mitigate climbing costs.
He said Mr. Trump seemed to be focused more on “concrete” accomplishments and “substantive” changes for the economy. The programs the Biden administration put forth related to business owners, he said, felt more “philosophical.”
“I’m underwhelmed, honestly,” he said, pointing to housing affordability as an example of why. “When you look at Biden and Harris, I think that there were a lot of promises that were made to the Black community.”
Yet Mr. Murray is still leaning toward Ms. Harris this November. “I have to look holistically at their policies,” he said.
Voting Trump Based on the Economy
Other Black voters do feel bad enough about the direction the economy has been taking under Democrats that they are planning to vote Republican.
Paul James Jr., 36, is president of the local Young Republicans in Bexar County, Texas, home to San Antonio. Originally from the Virgin Islands, Mr. James voted for former President Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012.
But after years of struggling to find steady work in the oil and gas industry, he changed course and wrote in a vote for Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who ran in 2016. After Mr. Trump won that year, it felt like the oil and gas industry was re-energized, with companies looking forward to deregulation.
“He wasn’t even in office yet, and people were calling and trying to hire you,” Mr. James said. “My vote for him in 2020 was based on seeing his policies.”
Mr. James faults the Biden administration’s spending on pandemic relief and other priorities for fueling rapid inflation. He thinks Ms. Harris is against fracking. And while he said he knows that Mr. Trump’s name “evokes a certain sentiment” for many people, he thinks that people need to stop voting based on emotion, and that Mr. Trump has been better for the economy.
The Question for Democrats
While Mr. James is in the minority, based on polling data, he illustrates an important risk for Democrats. If Black people feel like the current economy isn’t working out for them, they may not be enthusiastic enough to vote.
Christopher Towler, an associate professor at California State University, Sacramento, runs the Black Voter Project, which produces polling data specifically on how Black people are feeling about political issues. To win, he said, Harris may need to inspire a big number of Black voters to show up at the polls, the way Mr. Obama did. Black turnout fell sharply in 2016, after Mr. Obama’s elections, though it rebounded slightly in 2020.
“Harris has dramatically changed things, both in enthusiasm and in vote choice,” he said, but he added that the key is whether she has moved the needle enough.
What Ms. Harris says about the economy in the coming weeks could be a decisive factor for voters like Amanda Johnson, a caregiver and a mother of three.
Ms. Johnson has been having a hard time, economically: She moved to Peoria, Ariz., from Bakersfield, Calif., to escape high rents, and grocery prices remain a major burden for her.
Before 2020, “I was comfortable, not having to worry about struggling so hard, not having to worry at the end of the month, how am I going to feed the kids the rest of the month,” Ms. Johnson said.
Still, she is likely voting for Ms. Harris. She is basing that decision on what Ms. Harris could mean for the future, not what has happened during the years of her vice presidency. For her, what Ms. Harris says about economic policy — especially as it relates to single parents — will be a big factor in her final decision.
“I will vote,” she said. But, “I don’t want to go out there and vote and waste my time and nothing really happens.”
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