By pairing a new state tax credit with a federal incentive, Utah advocates have created a politically viable way for employers—especially small businesses—to help working families afford child care.
For years, Utah families have struggled to find child care that is both affordable and accessible. Parents who need to work face high costs, limited public assistance, and too few high-quality options. Employers feel the effects too, as workers reduce their hours, leave jobs, or struggle to stay focused when reliable care falls through.
During Utah’s 2026 legislative session, advocates secured a new tax tool designed to bring businesses more directly into the solution. House Bill 190 expanded a state tax credit for employers that help their workers pay for child care. The credit can be combined with a federal employer child care tax incentive, allowing qualifying businesses to recover a significant portion of what they contribute toward an employee’s care. Under the new policy, eligible small businesses may receive a state credit covering up to 88 percent of their child care contribution, while larger employers may receive up to 50 percent. A small employer that contributes $1,000 a month toward an employee’s child care could get $800 of that back through the state credit.
A Second Shot at the Legislation
This wasn’t advocates’ first attempt at the idea. A tax credit that expanded child care seats passed in the prior legislative session, but businesses never meaningfully used it. Rather than let the credit sit unused, The Policy Project, the nonprofit that led the HB190 campaign, repurposed the existing credit and redesigned it to work in a more practical and attractive way.
“The big question,” says Emily Bell McCormick, president of The Policy Project, “is how do we get businesses involved in the child care conversation in a way that allows the businesses to stay true to their core mission–which is doing business. If you are an auto parts store, you shouldn’t have to build a child care facility. You’re not good at child care—you’re good at auto parts.”
This distinction–helping employees cover the cost of care rather than asking businesses to provide it–became the strategy’s foundation. It also lined up with a new federal opportunity: an expanded federal tax credit for employers who help cover child care costs. The Policy Project saw a chance to design a Utah credit that would stack on top of the federal one, lowering the real cost to employers while increasing what workers could receive.
Utah has a strongly business-oriented legislature, and advocates knew a proposal emphasizing the business incentive function of the program could be successful. “It’s a great complement to what is happening at the federal level,” says Elizabeth Garbe, Vice President of Public Policy at United Way of Salt Lake and Promise Partnership Utah. “In a state like Utah, giving an incentive to a business that is also putting something in is always a win.”
Moe Hickey, chief executive officer of Voices for Utah Children, says tax credits are also more politically viable in general, but is careful not to oversell what the credit accomplishes. “It only addresses a piece of the problem,” he says. Because the benefit is employer-driven, for example, it’s likely to reach salaried employees at companies with the resources to offer it more easily than hourly workers at smaller businesses without dedicated HR staff.
Advocates designed the credit’s sliding scale specifically to address that potential issue. Small businesses employ most of Utah’s workforce but have the least room to absorb new costs, so The Policy Project built in a steeper incentive—80 percent versus 50 percent—to make participation worthwhile for them.
Strong and Coordinated Support for the Bill
After settling on the approach, The Policy Project recruited a sponsor in the legislature with a strong track record on business and child care issues. The organization worked with the sponsor, legislative staff, and leaders in both chambers to draft the proposal well before the session began.
The Policy Project organized community events across six counties, deliberately including both the densely populated Wasatch Front and Utah’s rural areas. Residents learned what the credit would mean for them as employers or employees, and many wrote personalized letters describing their own child care struggles to their legislators—letters that reached rural lawmakers who don’t always encounter the issue directly. Advocates also convened nonprofits, local government officials, and representatives from the Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity, including staff focused on rural communities, to pressure-test the proposal before it reached a committee room.
Once the 2026 session began, The Policy Project shifted into high gear–tracking lawmakers’ likely votes, meeting with legislative leadership, and making sure a constituent testified at every committee hearing. The organization also produced one-page policy briefs answering the questions legislators actually ask—what the bill does, what it costs, why it matters, and what constituents are saying.
Funding was the hardest part. Utah faced an unusually tight budget, and securing ongoing investments for child care is difficult under the best circumstances. Advocates ultimately helped secure a projected $2.9 million annual investment through the state’s tax credit, but getting there required making the case to legislative leadership months before the session started. The Policy Project understood they needed to lean on partners with deeper roots in child care policy for this push.
Voices for Utah Children, a longtime Alliance for Early Success ally, supplied data and research, and Hickey contacted the bill’s sponsor directly to register support. “We might not always be the best lead messenger,” Hickey says. “But we might be the best support partner.” That meant Voices stayed in a supporting role—educating lawmakers and the public on what the bill would and wouldn’t do—while The Policy Project continued to lead the charge.
The wider coalition included the Care for Kids Network, a statewide coalition of child care providers that Hickey’s organization helped establish, along with United Way of Salt Lake. For Garbe, the case for the credit always came back to what happens on the ground for kids and families. “We want to make sure every child is not only in a safe setting, but in a setting that is going to promote brain development and get a child ready for kindergarten,” she says. Families also need “the peace of mind when they’re at work” that comes with knowing their children are in dependable care.
Advocates insist that HB190 is an incremental step, not a final solution.
For Voices for Utah Children, it’s the latest entry in a much longer campaign that has included the earned income tax credit, the child tax credit, and other family economic supports—an effort Hickey has now worked on for seven years. Data, he says, is what moves a legislature that isn’t naturally inclined to see child care as a public responsibility. With roughly 70 percent of Utah parents of children under six in the workforce, the case stops being philosophical. “The two prime beneficiaries of having a good child care system are the family and the businesses—or the economy,” Hickey says.
The Important Role of Implementation Advocacy
With HB190 signed into law, advocates have turned to implementation. The credit only works if employers know it exists, understand how to use it, and can navigate the process without a dedicated HR team—a real obstacle for the small businesses it was designed to help most. “You have businesses that have to buy into being a part of it so their employees can take advantage,” Garbe says. “Making it easy for them is going to be important.”
The Policy Project plans to work with roughly 10 businesses, large and small, to pilot the process and build a practical playbook other employers can follow. It’s also partnering with local chambers of commerce and business associations to pitch the credit as a recruitment and retention tool—particularly relevant in a state that has struggled to recruit and retain women in its workforce. At the same time, advocates are pushing employees to ask their own employers to sign on. “Your employer probably does not know about this,” McCormick says. “Tell them. Tell them you want it.”
Advocates believe wider employer participation could eventually strengthen Utah’s child care supply, too: more families with resources to pay for care gives providers more financial stability and more reason to open or expand. But HB190 only addresses one half of what The Policy Project sees as the larger goal—giving businesses a reason to invest in their employees’ care. The other half, still ahead, is building more financial flexibility for families who want more time at home with children under five.
For advocates in other states, Hickey’s advice is to look past any single legislative session. “You might not get the platinum plan in year one,” he says. “But stay focused on that as the long-term objective.”