On Economic Policy, Harris Has Played Limited Role

President Biden has not given his vice president an expansive economic portfolio. But she has engaged on issues of small-business lending, help for parents and more.

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How Vice President Kamala Harris would approach economic issues will become increasingly important ahead of the election.

Shortly after the Biden administration took office in 2021, Vice President Kamala Harris started calling the chief executives of large banks, including JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America.

The federal government was making hundreds of billions of dollars available for banks to lend to small businesses to keep them afloat during the pandemic recession. Ms. Harris told the executives they needed to be lending more, faster, particularly to minority-owned businesses that data suggested were struggling to gain access to the money.

The calls represented one of the earliest and most visible forays Ms. Harris made in devising and carrying out the Biden administration’s economic agenda, and illustrated the sort of economic policy niche that she has filled as vice president.

Current and former administration officials, progressive leaders outside the White House and allies of Ms. Harris roundly agree that the vice president, who is now the leading candidate to secure the Democratic presidential nomination, did not play a major role in the creation of the sweeping economic legislation that has defined President Biden’s time in office.

Ms. Harris was rarely a loud voice in major economic debates, like the ones over how to counter soaring inflation in 2021 and 2022. She did sometimes attend economic briefings, but was not always a big contributor in them. One attendee recalled her coming to an economic briefing, but simply listening to the presentation while Mr. Biden asked questions.

Other officials say Ms. Harris largely focuses her questions for economists on how certain policies affect workers and families at a personal level — a trait she shares with the president.

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