People are fleeing N.J. faster than any other state, moving company says
By Jeff Goldman | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on January 05, 2015 at 1:30 PM, updated January 05, 2015 at 4:56 PM
Nearly two of every three families making an interstate move involving New Jersey last year were leaving the Garden State, the highest rate in the country.
New Jersey had the greatest percentage of outbound moves of any state nationally last year with almost 65 percent departing, according to a company which bills itself as the largest transporter of household goods in the country.
The Garden State has led the nation in outward migration for the fourth time in five years.
In all, United said it tracked 4,003 moves out of New Jersey in 2014 compared to 2,169 inbound.
Nearly half of those leaving New Jersey were bound for Florida (15 percent), California (14), Texas (9) and North Carolina (7.5), spokeswoman Melissa Sullivan told NJ Advance Media.
Retirement and jobs were the top reasons to leave the state last year, according to a United Survey of departing New Jerseyans.
About 42 percent reported leaving for a new job or company transfer. Forty-one percent attributed their move to retirement. More than half (56 percent) of people leaving New Jersey were over the age of 55, with 22 percent older than 65.
December 28, 2014, 6:58 PM Last updated: Sunday, December 28, 2014, 6:58 PM
By JULIE PACE and NANCY BENAC
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — It was supposed to be a joke. “Are you still president?” comedian Stephen Colbert asked Barack Obama earlier this month.
But the question seemed to speak to growing weariness with the president and skepticism that anything will change in Washington during his final two years in office. Democrats already are checking out Obama’s potential successors. Emboldened Republicans are trying to push aside his agenda in favor of their own.
At times this year, Obama seemed ready to move on as well. He rebelled against the White House security “bubble,” telling his Secret Service detail to give him more space. He chafed at being sidelined by his party during midterm elections and having to adjust his agenda to fit the political interests of vulnerable Democrats who lost anyway.
Yet the election that was a disaster for the president’s party may have had a rejuvenating effect on Obama. The morning after the midterms, Obama told senior aides, “If I see you moping, you will answer to me.”
People close to Obama say he is energized at not having to worry about helping — or hurting — Democrats in another congressional election on his watch. He has become more comfortable with his executive powers, moving unilaterally on immigration, Internet neutrality and climate change in the last two months. And he sees legacy-building opportunities on the international stage, from an elusive nuclear deal with Iran to normalizing relations with Cuba after a half-century freeze.
“He gained some clarity for the next two years that is liberating,” said Jay Carney, who served as Obama’s press secretary until this spring. “He doesn’t have as much responsibility for others.”
In early October, President Obama warned his supporters to “make no mistake: these policies [of mine] are on the ballot. Every single one of them.” After the November elections, he probably wishes he hadn’t said that. The scale of the liberal defeat is remarkable, as are its causes.
In 2008, Obama had long coattails: When he took office in 2009, the House of Representatives had 256 Democrats. In 2015, it probably will have 188.
But the underlying reasons for Obama’s failure run deeper than the normal swings of the political pendulum. Four of them are vital. The first is that a good part of Obama’s appeal in 2008 was that he was supposedly above politics. He was compared to Abraham Lincoln, a canny politician we now misremember as being above the partisan fray.
This was nonsense. If you want to get anywhere in politics, you have to be a politician. And the essence of politics has not changed since Aristotle’s time. That doesn’t mean that politicians are all liars. But it does mean that anyone who looks for salvation in a politician is going to be disappointed. Obama was hyped so high in 2008 that he had nowhere to go but down.
Another reason for Obama’s failure was that he sought, in his words, to begin “the work of remaking America.” The entire American political system was designed by the Founding Fathers to frustrate his plans. The Constitution, with its checks and balances and its separation of powers, was intended to limit the government and prevent transient majorities from having their way.
Within those limits, Obama has actually – and from a conservative perspective, regrettably – done a lot: Obamacare itself is proof of that. But inevitably, having set out to, as he claimed, fundamentally transform the United States, Obama has come up short. He has increasingly resorted to unilateral executive actions precisely because he resents the system’s constraints, but that just feeds the narrative that he’s more emperor than president.
The third reason for Obama’s failure is that most of his ideas were wrong. There were no shovel-ready jobs waiting for the stimulus spending. Fixing health care did not require ripping apart the insurance market. The answer to a weak economy was not expensive green energy.
Iran was not waiting for an outstretched hand of friendship. Russia wanted a reset for malicious reasons of its own, not because it wanted to be our friend. Al-Qaida was not on the run. The Arab Spring was not a new democratic dawn. The European Union was not a force for prosperity. Israel was not the reason the Middle East is so troubled.
Everyone makes mistakes. But it’s hard to bounce back from so many fundamental errors, especially when – and this was Obama’s fourth error – the administration has been terrible at the boring business of being competent.
The fiasco of Obamacare was bad enough. But then there was the Veterans Administration scandal, the Secret Service’s prostitute parties, the Internal Revenue Service targeting of conservative groups, Ebola and the Justice Department’s gun-running into Mexico, to name only a few of the screw-ups that have tainted the administration.
We should never attribute to malice what can plausibly be explained by incompetence. And conservatives aren’t shocked when governments make mistakes: It’s what we expect them to do. But incompetence wears more heavily on liberals, because they are the ones who always want government to do more. The evidence is overwhelming that government can’t do it well.
Obama came into office wanting, in his words, to make government cool again. But as respected U.S. political analyst Michael Barone points out, since Watergate and with the exception of the 9/11 aftermath, trust in government peaked under Ronald Reagan, precisely because Reagan sought to limit government. Under Obama, it has fallen to near-historic lows.
The conservative triumphs in 2010 and 2014 have not irrevocably set America’s destiny: there are no permanent victories in politics. But there was a fundamental contradiction between the apolitical fantasy that Obama embodied and the real-world desire of the American people to support liberal policies, especially when incompetently administered.
Once the fantasy wore off, reality set in. And for liberals, reality is often bad news.
New York man indicted for allegedly operating a brothel in Paramus
DECEMBER 19, 2014, 5:46 PM LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2014, 6:32 PM
THE RECORD
Print
A New York man was indicted this week for allegedly operating a brothel in a residential neighborhood in Paramus.
A grand jury in Hackensack charged Mei Zhi Zheng, 37, of Nanuet, N.Y., with promoting prostitution and transporting or possessing more than $2,000 believed to be derived from criminal activity.
The indictment said he promoted the prostitution of Feng Q. Liu by owning, controlling, managing, supervising or otherwise keeping a house of prostitution at 12 North Farview Ave.
Increased evening traffic to the home by men ranging in age from 20 to 50 prompted neighbors to alert police to the unusual activity. Police began surveillance at the small, pale blue house in August. Several weeks later, local and county detectives visited the brothel posing as johns and were allegedly offered sexual acts at the rate of $160 an hour.
Sorry Millennials: All Net Jobs Growth Since 2007 Has Gone to Immigrants
By Ryan Lovelace
December 19, 2014 11:15 AM
All of the net gains in in jobs since 2007 have gone to immigrants — both legal and illegal — according to a new report from the Center for Immigration Studies, meaning that fewer native-born Americans are working today than were at the end of 2007.
From November 2007 through November 2014, the number of employed native-born Americans has decreased more than 1.45 million, while the number of employed immigrants has risen by more than 2 million (as the immigrant population grew rapidly, too), according to data compiled by the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“Native employment has still not returned to pre-recession levels, while immigrant employment already exceeds pre-recession levels,” the report says. “Furthermore, even with recent job growth, the number of natives not in the labor force (neither working nor looking for work) continues to increase.”
Kidville Hosts Grand Opening Celebration for Ridgewood, NJ Location
Ridgewood, NJ; December 10, 2014) Kidville — named ‘best of’ by New York Magazine, WINNER – 2014 Parents Magazine Best Birthday Party Places and given a five star “extraordinary” customer rating in The Lila Guide: New Parent Survival Guide — will open its doors at The Old Post Office, 38 Oak Street, Ridgewood, New Jersey on Saturday, January 17, 2015. Owners Michael and Jessica Pickholz, Ridgewood residents, have organized a day full of free festivities for the public including live Rockin’ Railroad concerts, a magic show, art table fun, open play in Kidville’s state-of-the-art children’s gym, a bouncy house, giveaways and refreshments. The Celebration starts at 10:00 am.
“We are thrilled to bring Kidville to Ridgewood, and to give the community a safe, creative, upscale haven for our children to learn, play and grow,” said Mr. Pickholz. “Our facility will be the second largest Kidville in the United States. Centrally located in the historic Old Post Office building on Oak Street in downtown Ridgewood, the facility will have space for multiple art and dance studios, a theater room, a parent lounge with a flat screen TV and free wifi, a state-of-the-art gym and a unique retail boutique with products designed to enhance and foster all aspects of early childhood development including physical, mental, emotional, and social growth. Our facility and programs encourage and allow children to engage in educational, fun and stimulating activities with top-quality music, art, dance and physical education instructors in a bright, clean, nurturing atmosphere.”
Kidville offers a range of classes for children ages 0-6.
On Saturday January 17th, Kidville will host a grand opening celebration from [10:00am – 5:00pm], kicking off with a ribbon cutting ceremony. The event is open to the public and includes complimentary live Rockin’ Railroad concerts, a magic show, art table fun, open play in Kidville’s state-of-the-art children’s gym, a bouncy house, giveaways and refreshments from healthy mama® brand, East Coast Burger and Max Brenner Chocolate Bar.
“As residents of Ridgewood and the parents of two girls, both of whom are Kidville alumni, Michael and I are delighted to bring the versatile Kidville concept to our neighbors and other local families with young children. We are providing programs, classes and events that parents, like ourselves, want our children to experience and in which to participate,” said Mrs. Pickholz.
Kidville offers a wide range of developmental classes including Rockin’ Railroad, which features a live 4-piece band. Other signature programs include Run Wiggle Paint & Giggle, My Big Messy Art Class, Big Muscles for Little Babies, Kidville Gymnasts, Kidville Sports and Kidville University (Kidville’s Pre-School Alternative Program). The Ridgewood location features multiple studios, a state-of-the-art indoor playspace, retail boutique, and 16 different blowout birthday party themes including the Ultimate All-Star Gym Party, Royal Princess and Knight Party, Superhero Birthday Bash and the Sizzling Spectacular Science Party. Silver Membership is free with enrollment in any Kidville class, and upgrades to Gold, Platinum and Diamond levels are also available.
About Kidville
Kidville operates large, upscale facilities, catering to young children and their families. In addition to offering a wide range of developmental classes for newborns through six year olds, including Rockin’ Railroad, Run Wiggle Paint & Giggle, My Big Messy Art Class, Big Muscles for Little Babies, Ballet Tea Party, Kidville Gymnasts, Kidville Sports, Camp Kidville and Kidville University (Kidville’s Pre-School Alternative Program), Kidville also features an indoor playspace, birthday parties for children up to age nine, and a retail Boutique. Silver Membership is free with enrollment in any Kidville class, while upgrades to Gold, Platinum and Diamond levels are also available.
Kidville operates locations across the globe including New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, Toronto and Dubai.
Visit Kidville on the web at www.kidville.com/ridgewood.
Another Company looks to leave High Tax Bergen County
Mercedes-Benz reportedly weighing move to Atlanta from Montvale
DECEMBER 16, 2014 LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2014, 10:24 PM
BY LINDA MOSS
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
The German luxury automaker Mercedes-Benz is looking to move its 1,000-employee North American headquarters from Montvale to Atlanta, several sources said Tuesday.
The Atlanta Business Chronicle first reported on Tuesday that Mercedes-Benz USA is considering the move. A company spokesman declined to comment on the report, but several sources told The Record that Mercedes-Benz was indeed considering leaving Bergen County. One source within the company told The Record that an announcement on a move may come in January, at a company reception.
“As a matter of policy, the company does not comment on rumors or speculation,” said Mercedes-Benz spokesman Rob Moran.
If the reports are accurate, Mercedes-Benz would be the latest in a string of major companies to move their corporate headquarters from Bergen County to the South. The car-rental company Hertz moved from Park Ridge to south Florida, and the BubbleWrap maker Sealed Air is moving from Elmwood Park to Charlotte, N.C., both with the help of tax incentives from those states.
Montvale would be losing its second-largest private employer, behind the accounting giant KPMG, according to the Bergen County Economic Development Corp. Mercedes-Benz is among the top 10 corporate employers in the county and paid $916,700 in local taxes on its properties this year, according to the borough’s website.
As Robots Grow Smarter, American Workers Struggle to Keep Up
DEC. 15, 2014
Claire Cain Miller
A machine that administers sedatives recently began treating patients at a Seattle hospital. At a Silicon Valley hotel, a bellhop robot delivers items to people’s rooms. Last spring, a software algorithm wrote a breaking news article about an earthquake that The Los Angeles Times published.
Although fears that technology will displace jobs are at least as old as the Luddites, there are signs that this time may really be different. The technological breakthroughs of recent years — allowing machines to mimic the human mind — are enabling machines to do knowledge jobs and service jobs, in addition to factory and clerical work.
And over the same 15-year period that digital technology has inserted itself into nearly every aspect of life, the job market has fallen into a long malaise. Even with the economy’s recent improvement, the share of working-age adults who are working is substantially lower than a decade ago — and lower than any point in the 1990s.
1 in 5 Millennials Live in Poverty, Census Bureau Says
December 15, 2014 – 1:09 PM
By Ali Meyer
(CNSNews.com) – One in five young adults – ages 18 to 34 years old – live in poverty, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
“More millennials are living in poverty today, and they have lower rates of employment, compared with their counterparts in 1980,” the Census states. “One in five young adults lives in poverty (13.5 million people), up from one in seven (8.4 million people) in 1980.”
The data comes from a new Census release called “Young Adults: Then and Now,” which “illustrates characteristics of the young adult population (age 18-34) across the decades using data from the 1980, 1990 and 2000 Censuses and the 2009-2013 American Community Survey.”
In 1980, according to the Census, 14.1 percent of the total population ages 18 to 34 were living in poverty, which is determined by the millennial’s income in the past 12 months. In 1990, the percentage of millennials in poverty increased to 14.3 percent. In 2000, it climbed to 15.3 percent. And in 2009-2013 it reached the highest level recorded in the dataset of 19.7 percent.
Employment metrics, along with poverty metrics, have worsened for millennials. “Today, 65 percent of young adults are employed, down from 69 percent in 1980,” reports the Census. In 1980, 69.3 percent of the population ages 18 to 34 were employed. In 1990, the percentage climbed to 70.6 percent. In 2000, it dipped to 68.7 percent, and in 2009-2013 it dipped again to 65.0 percent – the lowest level recorded in the dataset.
The Incredible Shrinking Incomes of Young Americans
It’s repetitive for some to hear, but important for everybody to know: You can’t explain Millennial economic behavior without explaining that real wages for young Americans have collapsed.
American families are grappling with stagnant wage growth, as the costs of health care, education, and housing continue to climb. But for many of America’s younger workers, “stagnant” wages shouldn’t sound so bad. In fact, they might sound like a massive raise.
Since the Great Recession struck in 2007, the median wage for people between the ages of 25 and 34, adjusted for inflation, has fallen in every major industry except for health care.
A clear symptom of a state in decline; ravaged by high taxes and fiscal policies which erode both opportunity and the quality of life for its residents. https://s.nj.com/IoOo8Fk
N.J. young adults more likely to live with parents, less likely to marry than rest of U.S.
By Stephen Stirling | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
New Jersey’s young adults are better educated than they were 30 years ago, but are earning less and are far more likely to live with their parents than the previous generation, according to new data released today by the U.S. Census Bureau.
The new figures, released as part of the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, take a look at the young adult population across the country from a period of 2009 to 2013. They paint a fascinating picture of the state’s rapidly evolving 18 to 34 year-old demographic, one that will likely dictate the future of the Garden State but is still suffering the lingering effects of the Great Recession.
Nearly 30 percent of New Jersey’s 18 to 34 year-olds now hold a Bachelor’s degree, the new data show, compared to 19 percent in 1980 and 22 percent across the rest of the country.
DECEMBER 3, 2014 LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2014, 6:13 PM
BY HUGH R. MORLEY
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
A private sector employment report showing the nation has added jobs at a healthy clip since the start of the year also shows just how far behind New Jersey remains in the economic recovery.
The nation added 208,000 private sector jobs in November, taking the total added to 2.26 million this year, according to the monthly survey released Wednesday by ADP Research Institute, a division of Roseland-based payroll company ADP.
The employment increase of about 2 percent for the year so far, very close to the official government figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, is the latest evidence that the recovery from the Great Recession is continuing at a good pace.
Meanwhile, New Jersey’s private sector employment has increased by slightly more than a third of that amount – just over 0.7 percent – as several key sectors have lost jobs this year, according to the state’s latest employment report, which covers the year through October. The sectors in which New Jersey’s private employment has fallen this year included construction, manufacturing and leisure and hospitality.
New Jersey lagged in particular in the “goods producing” sector, which has fallen by just over 1.1 percent so far this year, losing about 4,200 jobs, compared to a gain of 1.86 percent nationwide, according to the ADP report.
November Jobs Report Gives Insight into Why Most Americans Think the Economy Is Lousy
James Sherk / @JamesBSherk / December 05, 2014
The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ November employment report showed solid economic growth, but also provides clues about why many Americans report unhappiness with the economy.
The headline figures contained mostly good news. The household survey reported the unemployment rate remaining flat (5.8 percent) at the lowest rate since July 2008. Labor force participation also remained flat at 62.8 percent as did the employment to population ratio—remaining 59.2 percent, the highest since mid-2009 but well below pre-recession levels.
The average duration of unemployment has remained stubbornly high, rising to 33 weeks in November.
The payroll survey reported employers created 321,000 net new jobs in November—the most in any month since April 2011. The professional and business services (+86,000), retail trade (+50,000), healthcare (+29,000) and food services and drinking places (+27,000) showed the greatest gains. The payroll survey also found the average work hours increasing a tenth of an hour to 34.6 a week—the highest level since early 2008. In more good news, revisions to the September and October surveys showed that employers created 44,000 more jobs those months than previously believed.
Nonetheless, polls suggest that most Americans consider the economy in poor shape. The exit polls from the midterm elections found that 70 percent of voters see America’s economic condition as either “not so good” or “poor.”
Over the past year, average wages have grown by 2.1 percent—only slightly above the rate of inflation.
The November jobs report gives some insight into why. The average duration of unemployment has remained stubbornly high, rising to 33 weeks in November. The median unemployed worker has been looking for work for almost three months—almost twice as long as before the recession hit. Unemployment has become more painful for workers; those who lose their jobs have much greater difficulty finding new ones.
Additionally, average hourly wage growth has slowed to a crawl during the recovery. In November, average wages rose just 9 cents an hour. Over the past year, average wages have grown by 2.1 percent—only slightly above the rate of inflation. Thus, the real buying power of American workers has hardly improved.
This also shows why claims that this represents the strongest economic growth since the tech bubble are misleading. Yes, the economy has added jobs a good pace – welcome news after the deep recession and anemic recovery. But wages grew far faster and the unemployed found jobs far more quickly in the mid-2000s. This does not feel like a booming economy because it is not.
All told, November’s employment report brought welcome news about labor market improvements—but the economy still remains far from a satisfying recovery.
Garrett bill on SEC disclosure rules sails through House Streamlining Paperwork for Startup Companies
DECEMBER 3, 2014 LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2014, 12:02 AM
BY HERB JACKSON
WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT |
NORTHJERSEY.COM
The Securities and Exchange Commission would be required to simplify some of the disclosures that public companies must make under a bill sponsored by Rep. Scott Garrett that won unanimous approval in the House.
Garrett, R-Wantage, was one of the sponsors of a 2012 law intended to make it easier for startups to raise funds through financial markets, and the law included a section directing the SEC to study disclosure simplification.
On the House floor Tuesday, Garrett said the SEC produced a study in December 2013 that did not call for any changes but did call for more study.
“I believe we need to stop studying and start taking action,” Garrett said. “Simplifying and streamlining disclosure requirements will enable companies to divert fewer resources to compliance, freeing up additional capital to create American jobs.”
The Disclosure Modernization and Simplification Act, which was approved in a voice vote on Tuesday, directs the SEC to allow public companies to submit a summary page of annual reports on Form 10-K that cross references the contents of the report, Garrett said.
It also directs the SEC to revise Regulation S-K “to better scale disclosure rules for emerging growth companies and smaller issuers.”
Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., said the SEC’s 2013 report showed that the commission had studied ways to streamline disclosure in 1969, 1977, 1992, 1996 and 2007.
“What this history demonstrates is that the process of scaling and streamlining the reporting requirements for smaller companies is something that we all need to focus on in order to keep pace with the ever-evolving marketplace,” she said.
Obama’s Amnesty Will Add As Many Foreign Workers As New Jobs Since 2009
10:37 AM 11/20/2014
President Barack Obama’s unilateral amnesty will quickly add as many foreign workers to the nation’s legal labor force as the total number of new jobs created by his economy since 2009.
The plans, expected to be announced late Nov. 20, will distribute five million work permits to illegal immigrants, and also create a new inflow of foreign college graduates for prestigious salaried jobs, according to press reports.
Obama has already provided or promised almost one million extra work permits to foreigners, while his economy has only added six million jobs since 2009.
Under the president’s new amnesty plan, “up to four million undocumented immigrants who have lived in the United States for at least five years can apply. … An additional one million people will get protection from deportation through other parts of the president’s plan,” according to a Nov. 19 report in The New York Times.
The five million total was attributed to “people briefed on his plans,” the Times reports.
The five million work permits will add to Obama’s prior giveaways, which have provided work permits to almost one million foreigners.
