Child care worker Marci Then helps her daughter, Mila, 4, put away toys. (File photo by Elaine S. Povich/Stateline.)

New polling of Ohio voters shows vast support and demand for action to improve child care access and affordability on the federal and state level.

The research firm Public Opinion Strategies has released poll results taken in 2024 asking questions about child care and its impact on family dynamics, the ability for parents to work and the implications for the overall economy if child care solutions aren’t found.

“This has an undeniable impact on the state economy,” said Jarrett Lewis, a partner at Public Opinion Strategies, in a joint meeting with child advocacy group Groundwork Ohio on Tuesday.

Parents who participated in the study said they are buying fewer groceries, deferring or delaying medical care, and struggling to pay housing costs because of the high costs of quality child care.

But that’s just for those who can afford it. Many parents polled, including 61% of non-full-time working mothers said they would gladly go back to work if not for the need to stay home with their kids because child care is out of reach.

According to the polling, nearly 5 in 10 parents surveyed said they’ve had to cut back on work hours because they needed to care for their children. Lewis said using U.S. Census data numbers, that accounts for more than 1 million parents in the state.

“Ohio voters agree that labor shortages in the state are in part due to a lack of access to quality, affordable child care,” Lewis said.

In fact, 86% of those polled agreed that increasing access to good quality child care that’s affordable “will help strengthen Ohio’s economy and help its workers.”

Lewis said Ohio parents saw work performance decline, have refused a job opportunity or promotion, had to call off or miss a shift, or have had to leave the workforce all together, all due to the lack of necessary child care. The study found that 68% of Ohio parents with children under five noted at least one of those impacts on their working life.

For all voters in the study, controlling inflation and the cost of living rose above other issues like reducing the tax burden or reducing illegal drugs flowing into the state.

Looking at parents of young children specifically, inflation and the cost of living topped a list of concerns, but early childhood education programs and child care ranked higher than they did for overall Ohioans in terms of priorities for the state to address.

Reports of issues accessing high quality child care have gone up since the survey was conducted last year. In December 2024, 66% of parents with children under five or who were pregnant said they were having access issues, compared to 56% in February 2023.

The lack of access is also leading Ohioans to express concern about the readiness of children to enter school, with 86% of voters polled saying “we can do a better job of preparing young children for learning when they enter kindergarten.”

The survey showed overwhelming and bipartisan support for child care tax credits and increased funding for childhood education programs.

“Voters who support increased state funding focus on building the next generation of Ohioans who will form the backbone for the state’s workforce and leadership,” according to Lewis. “Further, they argue that increased access to affordable, quality child care allows more parents, particularly women, to remain employed, providing economic benefits to their families and to businesses in the state.”

The desire for a child tax credit above the federal child and dependent tax credit spans political ideologies, with 84% of all voters supporting a state-level tax credit. Of those, 83% of Republicans supported it, along with 78% of independents and 94% of Democrats.

Having state support through a tax credit might become even more important since the federal tax credit is “up for debate,” as Brittany Boulton, Groundwork’s managing director of advocacy and engagement, put it.

A list of options being considered during federal budget reconciliation and obtained by Politico shows the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee could be considering eliminating the child and dependent care tax credit, under which taxpayers can claim up to $2,100 in credit for child and dependent care expenses.

Troy Hunter, managing director of policy for Groundwork, said the study’s findings came as no surprise to the group, which has been advocating for improvements to child care access and the system of child care workers as well for years.

Goals to improve child care in Ohio were included in Groundwork’s newest policy agenda for the Ohio General Assembly.

Hunter said one of the biggest priorities Groundwork has, and the group thinks the state should have, is increasing the publicly funded child care eligibility window from 145% of the federal poverty level to 200%.

Increasing access to full-time public preschool slots and creating a better payment practice for child care programs are also on the list of goals for Groundwork, Hunter said.