WASHINGTON >> A Pennsylvania poll released Thursday offers encouragement for Vice President Kamala Harris on the economy, even as residents still say former President Donald Trump will do a better job fixing it.

In the Franklin Marshall Poll, registered voters said Trump was better prepared than Ms. Harris to handle the economy 50% to 39%. That margin virtually was unchanged from a month ago.

But the percentage of respondents saying that they expected to be better off next year rose to 24%, its highest level since October 2020 during the pandemic-induced economic downturn. And 15% who expect to be worse off is the lowest percentage since then as well.

“What’s clear is people do still feel pessimistic about their finances, but they’re expecting things to get better,” said Berwood Yost, director of the FM poll. “That could be consequential. ...You still have time before the election. Do people start to feel they’re in better financial condition?”

Ms. Harris received good news from a Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday, which showed that she erased the deficit with Trump on which candidate likely voters thought was better able to handle the economy. Trump led, 50% to 48%, within the poll’s margin of error.

“Likely voters now see little daylight, in most cases, between Harris and Trump,” Quinnipiac University Polling Analyst Tim Malloy said.

The FM survey of 890 registered Pennsylvania voters was conducted Sept. 4-15 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points. Quinnipiac’s poll of 1,331 likely Pennsylvania voters was conducted Sept. 12-16 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.7 percentage points.

The Federal Reserve announced Wednesday that it was cutting interest rates by a half-point, thus lowering borrowing costs for consumers and businesses. And August’s inflation rate reached pre-pandemic levels.

Despite voters’ unease about the economy, Ms. Harris led Trump 49% to 45% in the FM poll of registered voters and by 51% to 46% in the Quinnipiac poll of likely voters, albeit all within the margins of error.

Ms. Harris acknowledged during an interview with members of the National Association of Black Journalists in Philadelphia Tuesday that prices remained too high and said she was working to reduce the cost of living, even as she emphasized that she had helped President Joe Biden bring the U.S. out of the pandemic-induced economic downturn that Americans were experiencing in 2020, four years ago.

While welcoming the economic news, White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients also said there was more work to do to reduce costs and continue to make economic progress.

“This is not meant to be a declaration of victory,” Mr. Zients told reporters on a Zoom conference call.