Last week, the First Five Years Fund (FYFF) released the results of a new national poll.
The good news, “a broad coalition of national and swing state voters overwhelmingly support a number of specific proposals related to early learning and care,” a press release explains, adding:
“There is widespread support among voters for Congress and the Biden administration to pursue a variety of early childhood education policies, big and small, to improve access, affordability, and quality.”
This common ground includes:
• 86% of respondents agree that child care should be made more affordable by providing financial support to help working families cover some or all of the costs of high-quality care.
• 88% support paying higher salaries to attract, retain, and support quality early childhood educators and caregivers as well as providing professional development opportunities through ongoing training, education, and certification
• 85% support increasing affordability by providing a tax credit to help working parents pay for child care
• 84% support providing preschool to all three- and four-year-olds at no cost to interested parents
• 87% support providing a tax credit to businesses that help employees access and afford quality child care
“Even the most ideological of voters on either end of the political spectrum want to see their elected representatives work across the aisle to improve early learning and child care opportunities, with virtually no political risk to Democrats or Republicans for supporting the proposals we tested,” Sarah Rittling, FFYF’s executive director, says. “Voters see this moment as a crucial window to address the challenges facing America’s working families and the child care industry, and support a variety of ways to do just that.”
Please share these findings with your networks. You can use FFYF’s:
• full slide deck
• social media graphics, and
And please remind your elected officials that investing in #childcare and #earlylearning has solid, bipartisan support.
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