NJ’s Public Pensions Remain at Risk Because There Are Fewer Active Workers Per Retiree; So Taxpayers Will Pay More
May 6, 2022
Harvard Study: NJ Among the States with the Most School Closures and Learning Loss. What Will Gov. Murphy Do About It?
May 17, 2022
The Tax Foundation shared its property tax rankings today, and Sunlight thought it made sense to reconfirm what kind of property-tax burden New Jersey taxpayers are bearing. For 2022, New Jersey was 44th among the 50 states, and has been 44th or worse since 2019 (see chart below).
The Tax Foundation evaluates state and local taxes on real and personal property, net worth, and asset transfers, and is particularly focused on the harm high property taxes do to businesses, which own many different types of property.
Here are the rankings:
| State | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 |
| New Jersey | 44 | 46 | 44 | 44 |
| Massachusetts | 45 | 44 | 45 | 45 |
| New Hampshire | 46 | 45 | 47 | 46 |
| New York | 47 | 47 | 46 | 47 |
| Illinois | 48 | 48 | 48 | 48 |
| Vermont | 49 | 49 | 49 | 49 |
| Connecticut | 50 | 50 | 50 | 50 |
Note how consistently these states have been in the bottom seven in the nation, and note that save for “purple” New Hampshire, all the states are “blue” states with powerful, taxpayer-funded government unions. And New Hampshire has no sales tax, a low 5% flat income tax and a low 7.6% corporate tax, which places New Hampshire as the 6th-best tax climate overall. New Jersey is 50th overall.
New Jersey taxpayers know all this because they pay their exorbitant taxes every year. So who benefits? Big government, big government unions and the politicians they support, like Gov. Murphy, who infamously said that if high taxes are your issue, maybe New Jersey isn’t the state for you. Sadly, far too many New Jerseyans are taking Murphy at his word and moving to lower-tax states.