Vice-President Al Gore and Governor George Bush have clashed over their economic policies against a background of gyrating stocks on Wall Street and concern over rising oil prices.
In a major economic address in New York, "to set the stage for the home stretch," Mr Gore brushed aside suggestions that the turbulence on the stock markets is a warning sign about the long-running economic boom.
"As long as we keep the fundamentals sound, the markets will respond ultimately in a favourable way. I think that prosperity is on the ballot."
"If we balance the budget and pay down the debt and invest in priorities like education, then, the fundamentals being good, the rest of the economy will pretty much fall into place."
Mr Gore said that Mr Bush's proposals for tax cuts and social security reform "are not just unfair, they are unsound and would hurt the American economy".
"If you want to see the basic shape of social security completely altered in a way that could cause its bankruptcy in a single generation, that is what I am going to say is the likely expected outcome of the plan that is proposed by my opponent, Governor Bush."
But Mr Bush, who is edging up in the polls after the third Presidential debate, riposted against Mr Gore's attacks on his plan to reform social security by allowing workers to invest part of their payroll taxes in stocks.
"Maybe if you've been in Washington too long, you lose your ability to count real money," Mr Bush said of the Gore criticism as he campaigned in Michigan. "His first instinct is to question whether young workers can be trusted to make their own investment decisions. This is analog thinking in a digital age, 28 K thinking in a broadband era, an eight-track ideology in an MP3 world, and our nation must move beyond that thinking," Mr Bush said.
Hitting out at Mr Gore's record as a Washington-based politician, Mr Bush said that "some politicians want to take credit for the new economy. But I don't see government starting new companies, writing new software, inventing new technology, opening new factories. I've always thought those things were done by, well, the people who did them. Our new economy was not created in a Senate sub-committee or a vice-presidential commission."
Mr Gore said that the election was "one of the biggest choices America has faced in a generation, a choice of priorities, a choice of values, a choice as fundamental as prosperity itself."
"Let's get to the heart of the matter. The difference is my plan targets the middle class and Governor Bush's plan targets the wealthy."
Meanwhile, a Reuters/MSNBC tracking poll shows Mr Bush edging up after this week's presidential debate. In the one-day sample taken after the debate, Mr Bush led by 48 per cent to 45 per cent. Over a three-day period, the lead averaged 44 per cent to 43 per cent. The Green Party candidate, Mr Ralph Nader, polled five per cent and Mr Pat Buchanan of the Reform Party one per cent.
Mr John Zogby, who conducted the poll said that allowing for the margin of error, the election was a "dead heat" between the two main candidates. But "on the strength of Bush's gain among parents and married voters, he has narrowed the gender gap dramatically."
Fifteen per cent of those polled said they were likely to change their vote before election day on November 7th. A CNN/USA Today tracking poll taken on the three days before the debate on Tuesday shows Mr Bush leading by 48 per cent to 42 per cent.