The First Five Things To Know About: A New Poll Showing Montana Voter Support For Child Care Funding

The vast majority of Montana voters believe it is important for working parents of young children to be able to find and afford quality child care programs.  A full 94% of Montana voters believe it is important for working parents of young children to be able to find and afford quality child care programs. Fully 60% say it is extremely important, and the overall sentiment clearly cuts across party lines, with 92% of Republicans, 94% of Independents, and 98% of Democrats saying finding quality child care programs for children or working parents is important.

Voters believe federal funding for child care and early learning programs should be increased. Even after acknowledging concerns about the federal deficit, 79% of Montana voters say they still believe that “increasing funding for child care and early childhood education programs is an important priority and a good use of tax dollars.” Again, this sentiment cuts across party lines, with 76% of Republican voters, 74% of Independent voters and 87% of Democratic voters agreeing on the issue.

Montana voters believe that resources directed to child care and early learning programs benefit not just the family, but the overall community. Almost two-thirds of Montana voters (61%) say that resources directed to child care and early learning programs benefit both the individual family/children and the overall community, while 21% say the resources only benefit the community and 11% say they only benefit the individual family.

There is broad support for each of five child care policy proposals tested. Montana voters provide clear bi-partisan support to each of five child care reform policies proposed. Each proposal wins easily across gender and generational lines, as well as across both ideological and partisan lines. In fact, even ’24 Trump voters provide at least 70% support for each of the five policies tested. These include:

• Providing tax incentives to businesses which provide or help their employees find and afford quality early childhood education programs – 86% support (including 88% of Republicans and 88% of Democrats)
• Increasing the federal funding to states to expand current programs that directly help low-income children (also known as the Child Care & Development Block Grant, or CCDBG) – 86% support (including 74% of Republicans and 92% of Democrats)
• Increasing the tax credit specifically designed to help working parents offset the cost of child care (also known as the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit, or CDCTC) – 84% support (Including 85% of Republicans and 92% of Democrats)
• Increasing the Child Tax Credit, a tax benefit for families with children which can be used on any household expense – 78% support (including 79% of Republicans and 83% of Democrats)
• Providing greater funding to Head Start and Early Head Start to support families with the greatest needs. – 79% support (including 76% of Republicans and 90% of Democrats)

One reason for such strong and broad support – voters recognize the impact that child care can have on a family’s household economy. Previous polling has shown that business owners and voters feel strongly that child care is important for the local and national economy. In this poll, we see it also hits even closer to home. Almost one-third of Montana voters polled (31%) said they or a family member had to miss work because of child care issues, while 15% of all Montana voters say they have missed or cut back on work because of child care issues. Finally, well over half of non full-time working parents say they would go back to work full-time if their child had access to quality child care at a reasonable cost.