Ridgewood NJ, New Jersey ranked dead last in the nation in economic growth last year. The latest Census data shows that while the household median income in 2015 went up by 5.2 percent nationally, the household median income in New Jersey remained flat to stagnant.
The ugly reality is that New Jersey’s median income hasn’t increased or decreased in a statistically significant way since 2011. Before then, it had been in freefall since 2008 thanks to the recession.
In Bergen County Medium Household Income dropped from $89,452 in the 2005-2009 period to $85,806 or down -4.1% in the 2011-2015 period. That still beats the state average of a drop of 5% during the same period statewide and at the Federal level a decline of -4.7% .
While many young people are leaving the state for better job opportunities and lower cost of living environments the state still has the highest percentage of millennials living with their parents.
N.J. led nation in construction-job loss last year
APRIL 23, 2014 LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, APRIL 23, 2014, 1:21 AM BY LINDA MOSS STAFF WRITER THE RECORD
* Job losses tied in part to a very tough winter
Despite hopes that rebuilding after Superstorm Sandy would boost New Jersey’s construction industry, that sector shed more jobs in the past 12 months here than in any other state in the nation.
From March 2013 through March this year, New Jersey lost 4,600 construction jobs, a 3.4 percent drop year-over-year, according to an analysis of federal Bureau of Labor Statistics data by the Associated General Contractors of America, a trade group. New Jersey construction employment sank to 131,500 from 136,100 during that 12-month period, the trade group said.
Economic experts blamed the Northeast’s particularly severe winter with putting a damper on construction in New Jersey, as well as the red tape and bureaucratic delays that have thwarted the reconstruction of homes and businesses damaged by Sandy. In addition, the state’s office market is depressed, capping that kind of development.
Charles Steindel, chief economist for the New Jersey Department of Treasury, was one of the experts who blamed the tough winter for resulting in construction-job losses. In a normal year the number of construction workers on the job in New Jersey in midwinter is more than 10 percent lower than in the fall, he said.
“The numbers everybody looks at are corrected for this normal seasonal variation,” Steindel said. “But this winter has been far from normal. The average temperature in New Jersey from December to March was 31.7 degrees, 4 degrees colder than the average for the last 20 years. With such bitter cold, compounded by the heavy snowfalls in January and February, construction was at an unusually low ebb. We anticipate that the spring thaw will be reflected in better construction numbers.”
Kenneth Simonson, chief economist for the Arlington, Va.-based AGC, also said that even though the labor statistics are seasonally adjusted, based on averages from prior years, this year that may not have been enough to offset the impact of the winter.
– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/business/bleak-construction-figures-for-state-1.1000998#sthash.OgFEQxpp.dpuf
