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.

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).

Real incomes were lower in 2010 than in 2007 for most households. Only high-income households were better off. Unemployment was at its highest rate in 35 years, and the number of children living in poverty increased by 16 percent in just two years.

What happened?

NJPP’s new report identifies specific benefits of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and makes recommendations about how New Jersey can maximize its benefit under the new federal law. If you like our reports, please consider a tax-deductible contribution to NJPP. Please click here to download the full report.

By Raymond J. Castro This report identifies the major provisions in the health reform bills passed by the House and Senate. It estimates and explains the impact of each provision in these bills on New Jersey and includes recommendations by the NJ Consumer Voices for Coverage coalition (see members page 4) in terms of which [...]

It is important for New Jerseyans to understand what is going on in Congress to reform health care. Unfortunately, the debate on this issue has often centered on the concerns raised by interest groups that have a political agenda or a major financial stake in the health industry which now represents about one sixth of the nation’s economy. What is lost in this debate is how health reform will affect typical working Americans.

By Norman J. Glickman The U.S. economy is badly broken: Americans have lost 4.4 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007. Unemployment reached 8.1 percent in February 2009, the highest in a quarter century — and many economists expect it to keep rising at least into 2010. Welcome to The Great Recession. New [...]

Submission to the New Jersey Minimum Wage Advisory Commission from The Raise the Wage Campaign When New Jersey raised its minimum wage to $6.15 in 2005 and $7.15 in 2006, the state took an important step in the right direction for hundreds of thousands of working families. But, despite this increase, the minimum wage has [...]

By Anastasia R. Mann Like many other parts of the nation, Mercer County has experienced a surge of immigration in recent years that poses fundamental challenges in the schools, health care, social services, housing, criminal justice and other fields. The Sandra Starr Foundation shared the sense of many in the region that these challenges have [...]