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July 23, 2024According to CNBC, New Jersey continues to be a lousy place to do business under Gov. Murphy. And it is getting worse.
CNBC came out with its annual Top States for Doing Business and New Jersey ranked 25th, which is down from 19th in 2023. The categories where New Jersey needs improvement:
- Business Friendliness: 49th. Grade: F. Down from 48th in 2023. Only NY was worse.
- Cost of Living: 37th. Grade: C-. Down from 30th in 2023.
- Cost of Doing Business: 42nd. Grade: D. Up from 44th in 2023.
- Infrastructure: 30th. Grade: C+. Down from 21st in 2023.
New Jersey did particularly well in Quality of Life (3rd), Education (8th), and Access to Capital (7th); and reasonably well in Workforce (15th) and Economy (17th).
But New Jersey’s business unfriendliness and high cost of living/doing business are worrisome. The Tax Foundation has ranked New Jersey last in the nation for its tax climate for businesses for 8 straight years and for every year of Gov. Murphy’s tenure. The CNBC rankings confirm New Jersey’s inhospitality towards businesses.
And remember that Murphy latest budget just hiked New Jersey’s top corporate tax rate to 11.5%, the highest in the nation. So New Jersey is likely to continue its downward descent in CNBC’s rankings next year.
This unfriendliness towards businesses has broader negative consequences for the state. As we noted last week in our piece on the continuing outmigration of people and money from New Jersey, businesses provide jobs and tax revenues. If New Jersey is not an attractive place to do business, the state and its budget will suffer, regardless of some of the state’s inherent attributes (like Quality of Life). Again we ask: who will provide the tax revenues for the unsustainable, upward trajectory of government spending under Murphy?
Murphy is a status quo governor who was elected with the support of New Jersey’s powerful, taxpayer-funded government unions (especially the NJEA) and he has largely governed for their benefit. He has shortsightedly perpetuated and worsened the state’s lousy business environment because his priorities are elsewhere. This bodes ill for New Jersey’s future.
But Murphy doesn’t seem to care. He will be off chasing higher office — no doubt with government union support — when the reckoning comes.