Washington, D.C. — Today, the Center for American Progress, the Center for Community Change, and Make It Work released a new report detailing the findings of a public opinion survey on the state of child care in America and voters’ priorities for improving the system. The poll was conducted by GBA Strategies and surveyed 1,657 registered voters, with oversamples of African American and Hispanic women. A few key findings include:
- More than 7 in 10 parents say that finding quality, affordable child care is a serious problem.
- Nearly 8 in 10 voters support increasing funding for quality, affordable child care or other early childhood education programs—with roughly 7 in 10 voters saying that they would be “more likely” to vote for a candidate who supports increasing funding.
- Increasing funding for child care is not a partisan issue. Two-thirds of Republicans, 73 percent of independents, and 89 percent of Democrats support additional funding.
- Voters are roughly twice as likely to believe that state and local elected officials are better positioned to improve child care quality and affordability than Congress, the private sector, or nonprofit organizations.
“Too many families are struggling to find affordable, high-quality child care, and that is impeding parents’ ability to find higher-paying jobs, get additional education or training, and provide for their families,” said John Halpin, senior fellow at CAP. “This poll finds broad, bipartisan support for investing in programs to improve child care affordability, quality, and accessibility—and it provides strong evidence that voters will reward candidates who support these policies.”
The release of the findings comes a day before the one-year anniversary of the Child Care for Working Families Act, the leading piece of federal legislation to improve child care quality and affordability for working families. A new CAP analysis finds that, under the legislation, 40 million children would be income-eligible for child care assistance, and the median family’s weekly child care payment in every state would not exceed $45.
For a complete analysis of the poll results, please click here to read “Affordable Child Care and Early Learning for All Families” by John Halpin, Karl Agne and Margie Omero. CAP will release state-specific polling results for Georgia, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, and Ohio tomorrow.
For more information on this topic or to connect with an expert, please contact Colin Seeberger at [email protected] or 214.223.2913.