New polls show that voters in Ohio and other states considered battleground states in the presidential election want to hear from candidates’ campaigns on plans to improve child care.
Child welfare group First Five Years Fund commissioned the poll from two research teams to survey registered voters in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Montana, Arizona and Nevada.
The researchers found that “voters show a strong relationship between expanding access to high-quality child care and a strong economy.”
“Across all demographic groups, voters expressed strong support for solutions including increasing funding to states to expand child care options and modernizing the tax system to support child care and early education,” the First Five Years Fund said in announcing the poll.
The survey found that 85% of voters “in states that will be crucial to the makeup of the U.S. Senate,” including Ohio, “say they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who supports increased federal funding for states to expand child care.”
Overall, 89% of voters in states surveyed “want candidates to have a plan or policy in place to help working parents afford high-quality child care,” researchers found, with all political affiliations surveyed giving at least 80% support.
The poll found that 82% of Trump voters support affordable child care policies, while 96% of voters chose to vote for Biden, who supports further improvements to the child care system.
Affordable child care is “essential/very important” to a strengthened economy, according to 68% of all voters surveyed.
“The most important messages supporting increased federal funding for child care and early education include providing children with a solid foundation, the financial burden on families paying for child care, low wages for child care workers, and restrictions placed on parents in the workplace when they cannot find high-quality and affordable care,” the study said.
When asked about specific programs, 85% of survey participants would like to see increased federal funding to expand programs such as the Child Care Expansion Block Grant. This includes 96% Democrats, 86% registered independents and 74% Republicans.
At the federal level, the U.S. House of Representatives voted in favor extend the child tax credit earlier this year, but the measure was left in place stuck in the US Senate Republicans criticized the provision that allowed people who had no annual income to still qualify for the tax credit.
The argument came as reports showed that child care costs outpaced wages nationally, with the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics showing a 214% escalate since 1990.
According to advocates, Ohio has seen rising child care costs and reduced staffing in child care settings, creating a complex situation requiring urgent attention.
Both Republicans and Democrats have introduced measures to try to address Ohio’s child care problems, including a state tax credit proposed by Democrats in October that would give a family $1,000 a year for each child ages 0 to 5 and $500 per year for a child aged 6 to 17.
People with a maximum annual household income of $65,000 would be eligible for full benefits, which, if the bill passes, would phase out up to a maximum of $85,000 per year.
Republicans recently unveiled their own attempt to address child care issues, introducing a bill to ensure costs are shared between employers, employees and the state.
Under companion bills passed in the Ohio House and Senate, $10 million would be allocated to launch a volunteer program to encourage companies to invest in child care and attract employers who have left under the burden of child care costs back into the labor market.
Employers would choose which employees would benefit from the program, and to qualify, those employees must not qualify for publicly funded child care.
The bill has the support of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce and the children’s advocacy group Groundwork Ohio, which praised the bill at a news conference announcing the proposed measure.
