As Job Production Drops In Jersey, Poverty Rises [AUDIO]

A new report by New Jersey Policy Perspective finds economic conditions for working families are a lot worse now than they were a decade ago.

The report, The State of Working New Jersey 2011: The Lost Decade, offers data on the state's economy, including employment, wages, pay gaps relating to gender and race, and poverty. It also puts New Jersey's economy during the first 11 years of the 21st century in a national context, showing how the state has fared compared to other states around the country.

Despite income growth during the early 2000s, New Jersey was not adding many new jobs, report author Helene Jorgensen notes. This was due to the dual speculative bubbles of the housing market and stock market; when both bubbles ultimately burst, the ripple effects spread far across New Jersey's economy and wiped out any job gains the state had experienced in the first part of the decade.

Deborah Howlett, the President of New Jersey Policy Perspective, says "the decade has been lost - so all of the gains that have been made have now been given back , and New Jersey is in a particularly bad spot when it comes to the economy…unemployment is at a rate higher than the rest of the nation, job creation is down…the report points up "just how few resources there are available to residents who are struggling, and even how much those resources have been cut because of budget constraints…the economy has been difficult for people and unemployment benefits are running out they are just running out of resources to cope."

She says unfortunately "there is a choice being made in New Jersey of corporations over people - and we think that's the wrong policy direction…while 51 thousand private sector jobs have been created, there have been a nearly equal number of manufacturing, construction and public sector jobs cut -that have resulted in a job growth of very miniscule proportions… I think it is very important to remember that New Jersey lags behind almost every other state in job creation …the unemployment rate in New Jersey has remained higher than the national unemployment rate for the last year and hasn't declined as rapidly."

Howlett adds "there needs to be job creation in New Jersey, and there needs to be a different focus in effective job creation…a job is a job, whether it's a public sector job or private sector job - if that job is lost, whoever held that job no longer has the purchasing power to go out and buy the consumer goods that will help drive the economy."

You can read the report online.