The advocacy group behind laws to get free period products in schools and limit students’ phone use on campus has a new rallying cry: affordability for families.
“It’s getting harder to raise a family in Utah,” said the Policy Project’s founder and president, Emily Bell McCormick, at a Nov. 19 rally inside the Utah State Capitol.
The state’s policies, she said, have not kept up with the increased cost of living.
For the past several years, The Policy Project has focused on one issue each legislative session, leading statewide campaigns to rally support and convince lawmakers to get behind their ideas. In 2026, they have their sights set on making things less expensive for Utah families, proposing a handful of bills they’d like to see lawmakers pass.
They also want more access to child care, a big need in the state.
Utah, which state leaders often call the most “family-friendly” state, has a child care crisis, according to a 2024 report commissioned by lawmakers. Historically known for its large families, Utah also has a declining birth rate — even as the population continues to grow.
“What happens to our families when they feel limited in their ability to have children because they are unsure how they would afford them or care for them?” McCormick asked. “It's not OK, and it's impacting all of us.”
Things are expensive. McCormick cited a 2022 statistic from the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute that 74% of Utah parents with young children said they needed two incomes to cover expenses.
“Too many parents are being pushed into impossible trade-offs between earning a living and being present for their children,” McCormick said. “Families deserve real options, the choice to work or to raise children at home based on what's best for them.”
But it’s not an issue the Legislature has historically embraced. In recent years, child care advocacy groups have expressed frustration at the lack of political action to help Utahns with young kids.
The Policy Project hopes they can get lawmakers to budge. In 2026, they have a number of ideas for the state to pursue: Double paid maternity leave for state employees and educators, so that it’s up to 12 weeks. Increase the income cap for Utah’s child care tax credit so more families are eligible. Help families access federal tax credits. And create a grant program for home-based child care programs, something McCormick said would help get more up-and-running and help make sure they’re meeting safety and licensing requirements.
Melissa Hunt, a single mother who attended the rally with her group, Powerful Moms Who Care, said she was most excited about a proposed child care grant program to increase the number of spots. To her, tax credits provided short-term help, but safer child care is a needed long-term solution.
“It is a struggle,” Hunt said, with one of her kids hanging onto her leg. “I can only work part-time because of child care issues.”
Republican Rep. Tracy Miller spoke at the rally and said she’ll run legislation to expand Utah’s child tax credit.
Republican Rep. Ariel Defay recalled her own experience quitting her job in government because child care cost more than she was getting paid. She’s backing the increased paid maternity leave for state employees, which she hopes will send a signal to private industry.
McCormick with the Policy Project expects that this year will be a little bit of a battle.
“We're asking for a new kind of thinking about a topic that has been talked about for a long time,” she told KUER.
She hopes they can convince lawmakers to tackle these issues by tying them to other things. While child care is sometimes talked about like an individual family problem, McCormick said it’s part of the state infrastructure. These kids, she said, are the future workforce and matter for the state’s future health.
“Children have everything to do with every single topic that the Legislature cares about, that the state of Utah cares about. And so in order to have Utah thrive, we've got to have family thrive,” McCormick said.
With affordability concerns on a lot of people’s minds right now, McCormick hopes lawmakers will be more receptive this year.
Family affordability and child care will be a long-term initiative for the Policy Project, McCormick said, instead of just one Legislative session.
“It will take a lot of years to get this done in the way that we want it to be done, but we wanted to start somewhere where we felt like we could really move the needle.”
The group’s chosen issue last year, cell phone bans in schools, was also one that lawmakers had been hesitant to touch in the past. Eventually, they changed their tune.
Moe Hickey, executive director for the advocacy group Voices for Utah Children, supports the Policy Project’s requests, which he called “beyond reasonable.”
His only concern is that the Legislature might slip something in those bills that the child care community does not like. For example, in 2024, lawmakers expanded the child tax credit — which advocates like Hickey supported — but in the same bill expanded unlicensed child care and loosened regulations, which brought up safety concerns for advocates. It wasn’t the first time lawmakers expanded the number of children an unlicensed provider could care for.
“I support anything that supports child care as long as we're not changing those guidelines again.”
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