New study: NJ is 5th in this surprisingly nice category

Being one of the most expensive places to live in, New Jersey residents tend to have extremely busy lives trying to make ends meet.

We are generally dual-income households with some of us even running around to side hustles like DoorDash or other delivery services.

This means that when it comes to our own homes, we can be neglectful.

Personally, I have about 1,000 projects that I need to complete in my home and just haven’t had the time.

And my husband, who would usually be my go-to for these types of small home projects, is even busier than I am.

Like a lot of New Jerseyans, I gotta a call someone for help.

So who you gonna call? An independent contractor. A carpet cleaner, mover, a handyman doing minor home repairs— the list goes on.

Taskrabbit is a digital platform connecting people to skilled, reliable people who provide quality services around the home.

They conducted a study to recognize the impact that the relationships with independent contractors have on customers’ lives.

How people across the country appreciate them. Or not. It’s really interesting. And kind of surprising.

Because even though New Jerseyans are thought of as brusque and rude in other parts of the country, residents of New Jersey significantly increased their usage of independent contractors and ranked #5 for showing appreciation towards gig workers.

They got these numbers from researching the number of tasks completed and satisfaction ratings for home improvement projects on the industry-leading TaskRabbit platform.

To identify the most appreciative states, they looked at indicators like average tip amount, work recommendations given, frequency of good reviews, and number of polite phrases used.

You read that correctly. “Polite phrases used.” Take that, Jersey Nay-sayers.

Not only that, we are the fifth highest tippers in the whole country. I was pretty impressed with that.

The states that were the most tip-positive (scored highest on the Tip Index) were:

• Wyoming
• Vermont
• West Virginia
• Florida
• New Jersey

What’s the take away here?

While New Jerseyans are busy running around in this gig economy, we need and expect appreciation.

So let’s not forget that those independent contractors who come to do work in our homes may also be getting by one gig at a time.

Let’s make sure we continue to appreciate them, too.

Oh, and also: As much as we may like to show a different image to the rest of the country, we’re nice here.

But let’s keep that between us.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Judi Franco only.

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