New Jersey's Sky-Scraping Housing Costs

When you think of New Jersey, you may think of the breezy shore, the smell of many delicious restaurants, and the bustling boardwalks. Sounds like a captivating place to live, right? You may say that, until you take a glance at the cost of living in New Jersey. New Jersey is one of the most expensive states to live in, mainly because of its high tax rates. According to the Tax Foundation, “The state ranks second for highest state and local income tax burdens as a percentage of income, and 24th for state and local sales tax rates.” New Jersey is not only an expensive place to live, but it is even an expensive place to die! If you die in New Jersey and your assets total more than $675,000, the state will take a substantial amount of estate taxes out of your bank account. On the contrary, states such as Pennsylvania, Florida and North Carolina have no estate tax at all! Moreover, according to the Rutgers Center for Government Services, the average property value in New Jersey totals an astounding $344,499.66, and the average cost of property taxes in the state was $8,161 in 2014, according to The Department of Community Affairs. Now, if you’re thinking that renting in New Jersey may be a more suitable action for you to take, don’t even bother. A 2014 study conducted by the National Low Income Housing Coalition ranked New Jersey as the fifth most expensive state to rent in, providing data that shows that a family must earn $51,838 a year to be able to afford a two-bedroom apartment that costs $1,296 per month. Another 2014 report was conducted- this time by the online research firm, FindTheBest.com- that provided statistics which ranked New Jersey as having the second highest percentage of households that earn more than $150,000 per year with 18% of the state earning that amount. However, the high incomes are nullified by the high cost of living. The report also mentions how the number of New Jersey residents who spend over $2,000 per month on housing costs is more than double the national average. It is hard to make a sufficient amount of money that could be put toward those sky-scraping housing costs when New Jersey is also ranked as the ninth worst place to earn a living by a report conducted by a firm that provides information for investors, MoneyRates.com.
With New Jersey’s cost of living being the third highest in the country and the unemployment rate being the 10th highest, you would suppose that politicians would be working to better those statistics and to provide help with housing costs to those who need it. Though there are some housing subsidy programs- such as the State Rental Assistance Program (SRAP)- they mostly only cover extremely low-income residents that have to meet a list of requirements (i.e. veteran, disabled, etc.), are put on a waiting list, and are put through a computerized selection (lottery) process. Clearly, New Jersey doesn’t have broad enough systems that are equipped to cover more individuals at more efficient rates. New Jersey should provide more housing assistance to New Jersey residents that can’t afford to keep living in the Garden State. All New Jersey residents deserve the right to be able to live comfortably in the state with a variety of safety net programs that prohibit them from having to pay astounding costs of living. In an era where economic assistance programs are becoming a more frequent topic of discussion between politicians, New Jersey should be more progressive with their cost-of-living subsidies. A plethora of more right-wing politicians may make the argument that community assistance programs could give some individuals an incentive not to work as diligently for the money they would’ve needed to work hard for in order to pay for full costs of living, because they would feel they always have these safety net programs to fall back on. This has a possibility of occurring, however, with the cost of living burden reduced, individuals will now have an incentive to work just as hard for other basic needs and costs- such as education, food, and medical care- now that they don’t have to focus as diligently as before on paying costs of living.
New Jersey’s Green Party Gubernatorial candidate, Madelyn Hoffman, and her running mate for Lieutenant Governor, Heather Warburton fully support creating affordable housing, cancelling rent, stopping evictions and stopping gentrification, while her opponent candidates do not. In fact, current New Jersey Governor, Phil Murphy, defended taking $46 million away from Affordable Housing in the 2018 budget, according to NJ Advance Media. Even with that money being diverted to the Department of Human Services, housing advocates have widely expressed concern that the diversion will worsen the state’s already long-existing affordable housing shortage. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic has sent any progress made on affordable housing back to square one, and after Governor Phil Murphy’s 2020 moratorium on housing evictions during the pandemic ends, an estimated 200,000-300,000 evictions will be pending across the state, according to the president of the New Jersey Tenants Association, Matt Shapiro. Furthermore, now more than ever, with gentrification rising in cities in New Jersey such as Hoboken and Jersey City, New Jersey needs politicians who will protect lower-income individuals and prevent the transformation of their cities. Gentrification is an active process in which a low-income area undergoes a transformation by incoming wealthy individuals taking over, electing new politicians, changing the culture, and jacking up the housing prices in order to run the low-income longtime residents out of their own neighborhood. Gentrification results in higher rent rates, unaffordable housing for longtime resident low-income individuals, and the fate of eviction. Madelyn Hoffman and Heather Warburton are New Jersey’s only hope for alleviating unaffordable housing, rent costs, evictions, and gentrification!

https://www.nj.com/inside-jersey/2015/03/the_high_cost_of_jersey_why_we_go.html
https://www.nj.gov/dca/divisions/dhcr/srap_vouchers.html
https://www.nj.com/politics/2018/05/lt_gov_defends_46m_taken_from_affordable_housing_t.html
https://www.nj.com/coronavirus/2021/03/nj-could-soon-face-a-historic-housing-crisis-a-city-devastated-by-covid-19-might-be-the-epicenter.html