Poverty Rate – New Jersey

Poverty numbers are grim in N.J., By Alfred Lubrano, May 20, 2012, Philadelphia Inquirer: “More New Jersey residents lived in poverty in 2010 than ever before, according to a report released Sunday. A record 885,0000 people in the state, nearly 300,000 of them children, lived below the poverty line, say authors of an analysis by the Legal Services of New Jersey Poverty Research Institute in Edison, which is based on the most recent numbers available. Overall, the poverty rate increased from 8.7 percent in 2008 to 9.4 percent in 2009, and finally to 10.3 percent in 2010. (By comparison, the percentage of Pennsylvanians living in poverty jumped from 11.6 in 2007 to 13.4 percent in 2010, according to the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center.) The report offers a portrait of a New Jersey devastated by recession and unemployment, particularly among adults aged 18 to 24, whose jobless rate was nearly 15 percent, compared with 9 percent for all adults in the state. More than half the total unemployed population of New Jersey had been out of work for more than six months…”