Feeling stressed in New Jersey? Join the club

A new poll confirms what you might have already figured out on your own — a lot of Garden State residents feel completely stressed out.

“Just over a quarter of people say they are very stressed. Another 40 or so percent say they are at least somewhat stressed,” said Joel Cantor, the director of the Rutgers University Center for State Healthy Policy.

The survey finds more than 1.5 million New Jerseyans, 27 percent, indicate they’re living with a great deal of stress in their lives.

“People who report they don’t have enough money to make ends meet have the highest level of stress, 21 percent,” he said.

“And people who report health problems have very high levels of stress. People who rate their health as fair or poor, about 40 percent of those, say they feel a great deal of stress," Cantor said.

Another factor making people feel uneasy is not having enough time to do the things they want and need to do

“About 21 percent of the state feels a great deal of stress around time,” Cantor said. We also see African Americans a little higher than average compared to other racial and ethnic groups.”

He said the results of the survey go hand-in-hand with ongoing concerns expressed by many that New Jersey is a very expensive state, and that making the Garden State more affordable place to live is important.

“When you see 1.5 million New Jersey adults saying they felt a great deal of stress in the last month, that seems like a lot to me," Cantor said.

The survey also finds non-citizens have higher levels of stress than citizens, and family is more of a comfort than a significant source of stress.

Only 15 percent of respondents said family members caused them a great deal of stress, while 56 percent said their family did not cause them much, if any stress at all.

The poll also finds almost 1 in 5 New Jerseyans, 18 percent, say their job or searching for employment is very stressful.

Cantor pointed out there were few differences in reported stress across differ rent parts of New Jersey, “although people in the south part of the state report greater time- and family-related stress.”

The poll is part of a Health & Well-Being project funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

You can contact reporter David Matthau at David.Matthau@townsquaremedia.com.