With ongoing inflation and excessive prices in the housing market, New Jerseyans continue to feel the squeeze on their wallets.
As U.S. households continue to grapple with an increased cost of living, those living in New Jersey, are feeling more pressure as the state is near the top of the list as the most expensive along with Hawaii, California, and Massachusetts, while West Virginia, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Kentucky are listed as the most affordable.
“Over phone calls and at kitchen tables throughout the Garden State families are all having similar conversations: we simply cannot afford to live in Phil Murphy’s New Jersey,” said Lisa McCormick, the progressive champion who took four of ten votes away from indicted US Senator Bob Menendez in the 2018 Democratic primary election.
“Under Phil Murphy, our housing costs have gone through the roof, while at the same time the Wall Street multi-millionaire Governor signed off on billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded giveaways to the same investment companies and developers price gouging us out of our homes,” said McCormick.
“Seniors can barely put food on the table or afford the price of their prescriptions, but Phil Murphy slashed the tax bills for giant corporations and he more than doubled spending on corporate welfare,” said McCormick.
Murphy’s decision to let the Corporate Business Tax Surcharge expire and his support for legislation rewriting New Jersey’s corporate tax code have provided significant financial advantages for the largest and most powerful businesses in the state.
“We need a governor and a senator who will focus on lowering costs for consumers, raising working class wages, and creating an affordable future for all of us, but Phil Murphy has proven that he only cares about his own political ambitions and the billionaires and corporate elites who line his own pockets with campaign cash,” said McCormick. “The people of New Jersey deserve to know the truth about where the Governor has been spending his time while they struggle to pay the bills, see the doctor, and wonder why the state government cannot afford programs to improve their lives.”
Murphy’s wife—a Virginia Republican who gave $95,000 to the GOP in support of the Bush-Cheney re-election effort in 2004—is lining up establishment support to replace Menendez in the US Senate, even though they supported the crooked lawmaker when McCormick waged her people-powered campaign that earned more votes than the entire turnout in the 2015 Democratic primary election.
A new report reveals that while the average U.S. household spends $24,557 annually on the most essential household bills—which is 35% of the U.S. household median income of $70,784—and roughly $2,046 per month, many New Jerseyans spend well above this figure.
The average New Jersey household spends $2,727 per month on household bills.
The report, which reflects actual bill payment activity across more than 97% of U.S. zip codes, reveals the most and least expensive states for Americans to live in based on average spend per month on actual household bill payments.
Highlighting the end of a yearslong trend of declining hunger in the United States due largely to federal policies like the expanded Child Tax Credit and universal school meals, a report published Wednesday details how the expiration of these programs has fueled a resurgence in food insecurity.
Hunger Free America’s (HFA) 2023 National Hunger Survey Report found that “the number of Americans without enough food over a seven-day period was an average of 40% higher in September and October of 2023 than in September and October of 2021.”
The number of Americans who didn’t have enough to eat over two one-week periods increased by 40.8 percent between September 2021 and September 2023, according to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau Household Pulse Survey.
Hunger Free America attributes that surge to the expiration of the expanded Child Tax Credits and universal school meals, coupled with the impact of inflation.
McCormick is a Democrat with a long record of civic involvement in New Jersey. She spearheaded anti-gun violence, consumer protection, and banking reform efforts as a member of MoveOn.org.
McCormick served on the legislative staff of now-Senate President Nicholas Scutari; was a candidate for County Clerk, who led the Democrats for Change team that captured 47 percent of the vote in Union County’s 2010 primary election; and she was also the PTA secretary at her son’s elementary school, an ardent environmental activist, and an involved member of her local community.
McCormick says she was compelled to become “a political candidate because of the gravity of problems confronting our world and the inadequacy of our government leadership.”