Nearly 1 million New Jersey residents are living in poverty. Not surprisingly, the hardest hit are the state's urban areas.
"Poor" is a relative term when it comes to the incredible patchwork of Garden State counties.
In Bound Brook, the municipality rated the poorest in Somerset County according to the 2011-2015 Census of Median Household Incomes, the lowest-earning family brought in $62,000 a year. Poverty rate: 10.7 percent
Travel just 75 miles south and you'll be in Camden, median household income $25,042, poverty rate 39.9 percent.
It's no secret that New Jersey has the 13th highest income disparity in the nation, but looking at the state as a whole, it's astonishing just how wide that gap is.
Nearly 1 million New Jersey residents are living in poverty. Not surprisingly, the hardest hit are our urban areas, with Atlantic City, New Brunswick, Newark, Passaic and Union carrying the "honors" as the poorest in their respective counties.
Trenton was up there on the list as well.
Income gap between rich and poor one of the biggest
The city that houses our state's highest offices grapples with a poverty rate of 28.3 percent, with a median household income of $34,257.
But poverty is more than numbers on a census-data chart, especially in a state with one of the highest costs of living in the U.S.
It's agonizing over whether to buy your medicines versus paying your rent. Struggling to stretch another meal or three out of last night's pork chop. Taking three busses to get to your minimum-wage job and praying the last bus doesn't break down on the way.
Last year, a report on entrenched urban poverty suggested that the epidemic could be reversed if cities were permitted to take a few bold steps.
These include supporting a $15 minimum wage, providing a tax credit for child care, and expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit, a refundable tax credit for low- to moderate-income working couples.
The findings were compiled by the Anti-Poverty Network of New Jersey and the John S. Watson Institute for Public Policy at Thomas Edison State University.
Trenton was singled out in the report, as were Bridgeton, Passaic and Perth Amboy - all metropolitan areas where the poverty rates are double or triple the state's average.
"These cities offer us important insight into the perpetuating cycle of concentrated poverty, depleted resources and the inability to invest in needed services," Serena Rice, then executive director of the Anti-Poverty Network, said when the report was released.
The researchers also recommended that our cities follow the lead of their Pennsylvania counterparts that impose taxes on people who use the resources of the city, rather than solely on the people who live in them.
We're not saying that these are the only solutions, or even the best. But they certainly deserve further exploration, especially as our state gears up for gubernatorial and legislative elections whose results will determine fiscal and social policy for years to come.
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