Increasing New Jersey’s minimum wage from $7.25 to $8.25 per hour would give nearly half a million working New Jerseyans a crucial leg up in high-cost New Jersey while pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into the state’s economy.

Given the well-documented positive impact and high rate of return from public investments in preschool, Congress should strongly consider a program like the president’s that would help New Jersey and other states expand high-quality preschool programs to all three- and four-year-olds.

The fact that New Jersey will rely on a federal exchange to determine eligibility and the level of subsidized premiums to be paid under ACA does not relieve it of responsibility. It just means that it will receive minimal federal funding to discharge those responsibilities.

In an effort to stimulate job growth and investment in New Jersey, the state has over the past three years aggressively accelerated the pace at which it awards tax incentives to businesses that fulfill certain job obligations to New Jersey.

Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) more than 300,000 New Jersey residents who don’t have health insurance could have affordable health coverage starting next year, and the state economy would get average annual boost of about $1.7 billion – money that the federal government has set aside for New Jersey to provide this coverage. These benefits alone should persuade Governor Christie to accept available federal funds to expand Medicaid. However, there is another crucial reason to do so: immediate and major budget savings over the next decade.

Expanding Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) would not only provide health coverage to 307,000 newly eligible low-income New Jerseyans, it would benefit the economy in all parts of the state and create many jobs. The Medicaid expansion would bring an estimated $15.4 billion to New Jersey from 2013 to 2022, an average of $1.7 billion a year. The economic potential would be equivalent to building the Meadowlands’ MetLife Stadium, a casino the size of The Borgata, or three large hospitals every year in New Jersey.

The New Jersey workers who would benefit from the expansion work in a range of industries, from restaurants and retail to construction and education. Expanding Medicaid would not only benefit these workers, it would provide an economic boost to some of the largest industries in New Jersey by creating a healthier and more competitive workforce. In fact, not expanding Medicaid would put the state at a distinct disadvantage since many businesses would be more likely to locate in other states that provide health coverage for their employees though the Medicaid expansion.

There is no question New Jersey needs to accept the Medicaid expansion – it would be a boon to the state’s uninsured, and it’s bottom line. For a quick rundown of the top nine reasons, check out our new fact sheet.

While opponents of raising the minimum wage suggest that most workers who would benefit from a minimum wage increase are part-time teenagers working to finance their nights out or upgrade their cell phones, the facts paints a very different picture.

New Jersey has among the largest gaps in the nation between the highest and lowest income households, and that gap has grown significantly in the last 30 years, according to Pulling Apart, a comprehensive new state-by-state analysis of income trends by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) and the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).