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Rutgers-Eagleton: largest percentage of voters cite jobs and unemployment as state’s toughest problem
In today’s Rutgers-Eagleton 40th anniversary poll, voters assess the state’s most important problems. Twenty-seven percent name unemployment and jobs first, followed by 25 percent who cite taxes first, and 10 percent who express concern about the economy in general.
Crime, cited first by 16 percent in 1971, beat taxes by only 2 percent. Today just 3 percent put crime at the top of the list. The environment, named by 10 percent in 1971, receives first mention from only 1 percent of Garden Staters today.
In the very first Rutgers-Eagleton Poll in September 1971, crime and drug addiction topped taxes as the single most important problem in New Jersey. Forty years later, crime is barely mentioned as jobs and the economy are now New Jersey’s top problem. Taxes, which consistently have been listed first or second over 40 years, continue to vex New Jerseyans, ranking just behind jobs as the state’s biggest problem. (Pizarro, PolitickerNJ)
