PRINCETON, NJ -- Americans widely support each of three job creation proposals, including offering tax breaks to businesses that create jobs in the U.S. and a program that would put people to work on urgent infrastructure repair projects. Support for these programs is only slightly lower in a variant of the question that asks respondents if they are in favor of spending government money to pay for the programs.

The data are based on Gallup polling from March 2-3 and March 4-5. The job creation items were included with other policy proposals in a Gallup issue referendum, asking respondents if they would vote "for" or "against" the proposal in a hypothetical vote on the issue. The items asked March 2-3 did not mention the need for government spending on these programs but the March 4-5 items did. The explicit mention of government spending reduced support for the programs by three to five percentage points. This suggests Americans' support for job creation outweighs concerns they may have about government spending.

President Obama offered all three of these job creation proposals in his 2013 State of the Union address. He also put forward some of the same proposals -- including business tax breaks and infrastructure programs -- in a nationally televised speech on jobs legislation he gave in September 2011. Americans were about as likely to support those proposals at that time as they are now. Interestingly, though, support for Obama's 2011 job package as a whole was significantly lower than it was for most of the individual proposals included in it.

Majority of Party Groups Favor Each Jobs Proposal

A majority of Democrats, Republicans, and independents support each of the three job creation proposals tested in the poll. Republicans are much more supportive of business tax breaks than the new job programs, and Democrats are more likely to favor the job creation programs, while independents show roughly equal support for all three.

Democrats' support for the job creation proposals are as high when mentioning government spending as when not mentioning it, while independents' and Republicans' support declines when spending is mentioned.

Implications

Job creation proposals enjoy widespread public support, including majority backing among all party groups, even when the issue of government spending is raised in an era when deficit reduction is one of the major priorities for the federal government. Despite the high levels of support for the job creation proposals, the political realities in Washington are such that Congress has not passed any of the proposals since President Obama first advocated many of these more than a year ago. The major sticking point with jobs legislation -- as with most other measures being considered in Washington -- may not be whether the programs should be pursued but whether the government should pay for them through increased taxes or cuts in other government programs.