PBPC commissioned Data for Progress to do a poll of likely voters on a limited number of issues that are at play in the current budget negotiations. The polling memo is below.
There are three things to note.
First, there is overwhelming support (73%) for putting the minimum wage on a path to $15 per hour over four years and thereafter having a yearly cost of living increase (77%).
Second, there is overwhelming opposition to cutting corporate taxes. Seventy percent of voters prefer tax increases for billionaires and corporations; only 25% want to see them cut. More than 78% of likely voters want to see the Delaware loophole closed so that multinational corporations can no longer hide their Pennsylvania profits from our Corporate Net Income Tax. And when asked whether some of the $12 billion accumulated state surplus should be devoted to cutting taxes on corporations and the wealthy, only 2% said yes, lower than the 3% received by “none of these.”
Third, there is support for reducing taxes on the middle class and for additional funding for education at all levels, health care, affordable housing, and clean energy jobs. Because the poll question played investments in one policy area against the others, which is only partly offset by allowing respondents to make two choices, no one policy area received a great deal of support. But the results track our previous polls (here) which have shown majority support for investments that address our current inadequate and inequitable funding of K-12 education and higher education.
This new polling technique enables us to estimate public opinion in every state House and Senate district. We will be posting these results over the next few days with links to those results here.