Sunlight Blog
The Special Interests Win Again: New Legislation Would Increase Public Union Power … and Property Taxes
Posted On06/29/2021 byThe Press of Atlantic City reports that Senate President Steve Sweeney is sponsoring a bill that would broaden public employee bargaining rights. Both the NJ Association of Counties and League of Municipalities oppose the bill because it would expand collective bargaining to issues that had previously been non-negotiable, such as personnel transfers and assignments. Proponents…Read More
NJ’s New State Budget Serves Our Politicians’ Needs But Does Little to Address Our Long-Term Problems
Posted On06/25/2021 byThe big news in New Jersey is the passing of the record $46.3 billion state budget. That is a 15% increase in spending over last year. As reflected in numerous reports, the passing of the budget was a typical backroom Jersey political deal, with little notice to the public, little debate and input only from…Read More
Does the NJEA Care About Learning Loss for Minority and Low-Income Students?
Posted On06/21/2021 byRemote learning during the pandemic has indeed taken its toll on NJ students. The New Jersey Globe reported that based on interim tests 37% of NJ students were below grade level in language arts and math. What is even more alarming is that more than half of Black and Hispanic students were below grade level…Read More
Because It Can, the NJEA Spends $198,000 in Support of Republican Betty Lou DeCroce
Posted On06/17/2021 bySunlight must admit that this came as quite a surprise: it appears that ASW Betty Lou DeCroce, Republican Assemblywoman from the 26th legislative district, received massive support from the NJEA for her 2021 Republican primary election campaign. All told, the NJEA’s Super PAC, Garden State Forward spent $198,000 on mailings and digital ads in LD26…Read More
North American Van Lines: 64% of NJ Movers During the Pandemic Left the State
Posted On06/15/2021 byNorth American Van Lines came out with its survey of 2020 moving patterns – the first to encompass a full year of the pandemic – and unfortunately for New Jersey and other high-tax, “blue” states, the outmigrations continues. In a piece by the Daily Mail, NAVL reported that 64% of New Jersey’s movers in 2020…Read More
Wirepoints Study: NJ Has a Serious Problem with People and Wealth Leaving the State
Posted On06/11/2021 byWirepoints came out with a new study on IRS data for 2019 that clearly shows New Jersey’s loss of people and wealth. For 2019, NJ lost -26,528 people, and as shown in the graph below, a net $3.1 billion of adjusted gross income, 4th worst in the nation. The top of the list of…Read More
Fortune 500 Companies Are Fleeing NJ, and So Are Jobs and Wealth
Posted On06/09/2021 byNew Jersey is losing major corporations to other states. That’s the take-away from Tom Bergeron of ROI-NJ’s report that New Jersey has seen the number for Fortune 500 companies headquartered in NJ fall from 22 in 2006 to 15 today. That’s a 32% drop. Think of all the jobs and wealth that have left our…Read More
Tax Foundation: NJ Pensions Are the Worst Funded in the Nation. Why Is Gov. Murphy Pouring in Billions of Good Money After Bad?
Posted On06/07/2021 byJust as Politico is reporting that Gov. Murphy is considering making a payment even larger than last year’s $6.4 billion (14% of the entire state budget) into NJ’s broken public pension system, the Tax Foundation came out with a report that underscored how Murphy is throwing billions of good money after bad. The report determined that…Read More
As NJ Continues to Lose Wealth, It’s Premature to Judge the Full Impact of the SALT Cap
Posted On06/03/2021 byBloomberg News came out with a report titled “SALT Cap Confounds Doomsayers as Fears of Exodus Prove Overblown.” The main take-away is that in NJ, as well as in other high-tax states like CA, CT and NY, the capping of state and local tax deductions (SALT) at $10,000 has not led to the feared…Read More
When It Comes to Employment, NJ’s COVID Recovery Lags the Rest of the Nation
Posted On06/02/2021 byThe US Bureau of Labor Statistics came out with its most recent state employment data and unfortunately New Jersey continues to lag the rest of the nation when it comes to umemployment and a shrinking labor force. The overall unemployment rate for the nation was 6.1% in April 2021, but in NJ, it was 7.5%….Read More