If you live in Georgia, here’s how Kamala Harris can impact your wallet

With America’s Electoral College system, most modern presidential elections come down to five-figure vote counts in a half-dozen crucial swing states. Anyone who doubts the outsized attention swing-state voters receive has not endured the bombardment of political ads that dominate their television screens during the campaign season.

Perhaps nowhere is the battle for every vote more fierce than in the swing state of Georgia.

Watch: I’m an Entrepreneur: Here’s How a Harris Administration Can Help Me Succeed

For you: 9 things you need to do to grow your wealth in 2024

In 2020, President Biden defeated Donald Trump in the Peach State by fewer than 12,000 votes. The former president’s alleged actions in response to the razor-thin decision led prosecutors to charge Trump with conspiring to unlawfully change the outcome of the presidential election in Georgia.

The state provided a crucial victory for Biden’s national victory, and if Vice President Kamala Harris can repeat her current boss’s success in Georgia in November, she will extend her path to victory on a much more forgiving electoral map, while they are stifling Trump’s path to the election. White House.

If she succeeds, here’s how a Harris presidency could impact the finances of the 10.9 million Americans who call Georgia home.

Struggling homebuyers in Georgia could get a five-figure boost

Vice President Harris has unveiled a sweeping economic plan that US News and World Report calls an “ambitious populist agenda aimed at lowering costs for working people and building the middle class.”

The agenda includes a $25,000 incentive for first-time homebuyers, which would be welcome news for many would-be buyers in a state where homeownership is becoming increasingly out of reach.

In August, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that rents across Georgia were soaring, making it difficult for renters to keep up with their leases — but that “owning a home is even harder.”

In Metro Atlanta, the median home price is $415,000. Assuming a 7% mortgage loan, principal and interest alone – excluding property taxes, insurance and home repairs – would be about $2,200 per month. That’s after a 20% down payment of $83,000.

In a state where half of all renters spend more than 30% of their income on housing, many first-time buyers can’t save enough for a down payment no matter how hard they try.

Harris’ plan would provide up to $25,000 in down payment assistance to first-time homebuyers who have paid their rent on time for two years, while more generous assistance is proposed for “first-generation” homebuyers whose parents did not own a home. The Biden-Harris administration proposed giving $25,000 to 400,000 first-generation homeowners, on top of a proposed $10,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers.

Read next: 5 things experts say you should stop wasting money on if Kamala Harris wins in November

A new tax credit would give families with newborns $6,000

According to the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Kids Count Data Book 2024, Georgia ranks a dismal 37th in the nation when it comes to the overall well-being of families and children. Child poverty, low birth weight, high teenage mortality rates, chronic absenteeism, undereducation, underemployment and household unemployment plague much of the state. Georgia ranks in the bottom ten states for child health, family and community issues.

Harris has proposed expanding the child tax credit and giving a $6,000 credit to families with newborns, which she said could lift millions of children out of poverty. According to the United Health Foundation, Georgia is one of the eighth largest states in America, where 20.2% of children live in poverty. By comparison, the national child poverty rate is 16.9%.

1 million diabetics in Georgia could save hundreds of people on insulin

According to the American Diabetes Association, Georgia is home to more than 1.02 million of the 38 million Americans living with diabetes. More than 12% of the state’s adult population has been diagnosed with diabetes.

President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act limited the monthly cost of insulin for seniors receiving Medicare to $35 per month. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, 45,625 seniors in Georgia saved more than $21.76 million, or $477 in average out-of-pocket expenses per enrollee.

That leaves nearly a million diabetics in Georgia who don’t qualify for the price cap, but Harris wants to change that.

On her campaign website, Harris pledges to “build on the Biden-Harris administration’s successes in lowering the cost of life-saving prescription drugs for Medicare beneficiaries by eliminating the $35 cap on insulin and $2,000 on out-of-pocket expenses for seniors to extend to everyone. Americans.”

Editor’s Note on Election Coverage: GOBankingRates is nonpartisan and committed to covering all aspects of the economy objectively and presenting balanced reporting on politically focused financial stories. Learn more about this topic at GOBankingRates.com.

More from GOBankingRates

This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: If you live in Georgia, here’s how Kamala Harris can impact your wallet