‘Tax The Rich’: NJ Advocates Pressure Lawmakers As Budget Season Heats Up

ESSEX COUNTY, NJ — New Jersey is confronting a big problem as it wrestles with a $3 billion budget shortfall. But according to advocates, there’s also a big solution: taxing the rich.

On Monday, dozens of activists and community leaders rallied outside the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark ahead of a state Senate budget committee public hearing.

Their goal? To push for higher taxes on the state’s biggest businesses and richest residents.

“Families are struggling with the cost of child care, health care, housing and underfunded schools, while corporations and the ultra-wealthy continue to benefit from a rigged system,” said Eric Benson of the For The Many Coalition.

Benson insisted that households with incomes of millions of dollars per year and massive, multi-national corporations can afford to “pay their fair share” in a time of desperation.

“There is no shortage of need in New Jersey – only a shortage of political will,” Benson said.

The rally comes at a critical moment in New Jersey’s budget process, with Gov. Mikie Sherrill recently pitching her proposed spending plan in Trenton. According to figures from the governor, the state is looking at an estimated $3 billion structural deficit – one of the worst budget gaps in the nation.

Sherrill has outlined a two-pronged approach to attacking the gap: making spending cuts, and bringing in more cash. According to the governor, her budget proposal includes nearly $2 billion in tough-but-necessary cuts. Meanwhile, she wants to raise more than $700 million in new revenue from “closing corporate tax loopholes.”

• Related: Sherrill Looks To End Crisis: 5 Takeaways From NJ Budget Address
• Related: Business Fees In Sherrill’s First Budget Raise Concerns

It was a message that advocates zeroed in on during their press conference on Monday.

“The New Jersey legislature and Gov. Sherrill must support working families by instituting a super millionaire’s tax and by closing corporate tax loopholes that allow them to get away with not paying their fair share of taxes,” argued Health Professionals and Allied Employees secretary-treasurer Alexis Rean-Walker said.

“Proceeds from this tax on the wealthy must then be allocated toward funding critical needs in our state,” Rean-Walker added.

• Related: NJ Can Raise $4B By Taxing The Rich And Hiking Sales Tax, Study Says

Advocates also said they want more transparency from state lawmakers as they hammer out the final budget, pointing out that hearings began before the full details were publicly available. Meanwhile, lawmakers have shifted hearing schedules and locations with little notice, making it harder for everyday residents to participate.

“Right now, the process is opaque, inconsistent, and shuts the public out,” said Erik Cruz Morales, director of democracy at the League of Women Voters of New Jersey.

“Decisions are being made without transparency or meaningful public input,” Morales said. “New Jersey deserves a budget process that is open, accessible, and accountable to the people it serves.”

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Other advocates and lawmakers in New Jersey have taken the opposite stance, demanding that the governor’s office abstain from raising taxes on any person or business – wealthy or otherwise.

Among them is the New Jersey Republican leadership, which has been pushing the governor to prioritize cuts over raising taxes.

“We hope the governor remains true to her commitment to prioritize spending discipline over tax increases,” Senate GOP leader Anthony Bucco recently said. “If that is achieved it will mark a genuine change to the past eight years of failed policies under a Democrat-controlled legislature.”

Other Republican lawmakers such as Assemblyman Christopher DePhillips have called for New Jersey to loosen up its “worst-in-the-nation” 11.5 percent corporate business tax. DePhillips has also opposed the additional 2.5 percent corporate transit fee charged to businesses earning over $1 million.

“Businesses that stay in New Jersey have to cut costs somewhere and unfortunately that is translating to job loss, because that is what they can control,” he said. “The unemployment rate indicates that New Jersey is moving in the wrong direction and the only way to correct course is to cut taxes.”

• Related: NJ Faces Severe Budget Crunch; Some Want 'Billionaire Tax' – Others Demand Cuts

In the video below, New Jersey Republican leaders respond to Gov. Mikie Sherrill's first budget proposal on March 10, 2026

While the debate over taxing the state’s richest residents and businesses rages on, the average “middle class” New Jersey resident continues to see their cost of living rise.

According to an annual study from SmartAsset, the Garden State ranks second in the nation for the highest income a household can earn and still be considered middle-class: $208,588. Meanwhile, it takes $69,529 to cross the lower threshold into middle class in New Jersey.

Watch footage from Monday’s rally below, or view it online here.

• Related: Raise Or Lower Business Taxes In NJ? Experts Disagree
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