Employment and the economy are the leading issues among registered voters in Pennsylvania who expect to participate in November's presidential election, according to a poll prepared for release today.

The survey of 500 registered voters, conducted last month by Washington pollster Bennett, Petts & Blumenthal, found that 31 percent of the respondents named jobs and the economy as the most important issue in deciding which presidential candidate they would support.

Homeland security and terrorism was the next highest concern, selected by 22 percent of the respondents. The war in Iraq was rated third with a 14 percent response rate, followed by health care at 10 percent. Education, taxes and Medicare together accounted for the remaining 19 percent.

When asked what should be done to improve the economy, slightly more than four of 10 voters chose providing tax credits to companies that keep jobs in Pennsylvania as the best alternative. Cleaning up abandoned industrial sites to attract new business was the choice of 22 percent, while providing job training was favored by 17 percent of the respondents.

The poll was commissioned by The Workforce Alliance, a Washington-based group that advocates for work force development and job training initiatives. It claims the poll has a 4.4 percent margin of error.

The alliance is sponsoring a news conference today with Sandi Vito, Pennsylvania's deputy secretary for workforce development; Pennsylvania AFL-CIO President Bill George; and David Malone, chief financial officer of Gateway Financial Corp. in Pittsburgh and chairman of the Pennsylvania Workforce Investment Board.

They want to make training a campaign issue and will key on survey findings that show 82 percent of participating voters believe that providing education and job training so people can move out of minimum wage jobs is a good idea.

A majority of respondents also favor providing training to the jobless, extending unemployment benefits and stopping "unfair foreign trade deals" that cost U.S. jobs. "From my view, the issue that is at the top of the pile in Pennsylvania is developing a work force that meets the needs of our employers," Malone said.

Barry Ciccocioppo, a spokesman for the state Department of Labor and Industry, said the poll reinforced the importance of Pennsylvania's job training programs, which receive 60 percent of their funding from the federal government. "It's clear we need to continue federal funding at that level or above," he said.

The Workforce Alliance is an eclectic mix of employer organizations, labor unions and public sector and community-based groups, said Jason Walsh, director of field operations.

"They have come together ... because they all view from different perspectives that work force development is really the country's economic development; and if we are going to grow our national and state economies in a positive way, we need to pay closer attention to work force development as public policy," Walsh said.

The pollster said 39 percent of the respondents described themselves as Democrats, 38 percent said they were Republicans and 22 percent identified themselves as independent voters.

Taking into account the poll's 4 percent margin of error, Republican President Bush and the presumed Democratic nominee John Kerry were running neck and neck among the respondents.

The pollsters said 50 of those who responded to the poll said they would vote for Kerry if the election were held that day, while 46 percent indicated they would vote for Bush. The rest were undecided.