Where people in prison come from: The geography of mass incarceration in New Jersey.
New Jersey Institute for Social Justice (June, 2022)
The New Jersey Institute for Social Justice and the Prison Policy Initiative released a new report, Where people in prison come from: The geography of mass incarceration in New Jersey. The report highlights New Jersey’s efforts to circumvent prison gerrymandering to ensure a representative democracy. The report also provides eight detailed data tables including neighborhood-specific data for Newark and Jersey City that serve as a foundation for advocates, organizers, and policymakers to analyze how incarceration relates to other factors. Read more here.
$600k To Damage Our Kids Forever
New Jersey Institute for Social Justice (June, 2022)
$600k To Damage Our Kids Forever, a recent report by The New Jersey Institute for Social Justice highlights the large investment that goes into incarcerating an individual in the state’s failed youth justice system. The report draws upon the stories of those impacted by youth incarceration, offering a list of recommendations that provide alternative solutions to this significant systemic issue. Read more here.
New Jersey’s Teacher Pipeline: The Decline in Teacher Candidates Continues
New Jersey Policy Perspective (June, 2022)
New Jersey Policy Perspective released the report, New Jersey’s Teacher Pipeline: The Decline in Teacher Candidates Continues, analyzing the teacher shortage and providing recommendations that would improve the recruitment and retention of teachers. Read more here.
Black Homeownership Matters: Expanding Access to Housing Wealth for Black New Jerseyans
New Jersey Institute for Social Justice (May, 2022)
The New Jersey Institute for Social Justice released the report, Black Homeownership Matters: Expanding Access to Housing Wealth for Black New Jerseyans. The report examines the present-day barriers that limit access to and financial rewards from homeownership. These barriers include the racial wealth gap, limiting access to homeownership; high housing costs; higher home lending costs; and credit scoring systems. Even when Black New Jerseyans are able to overcome these obstacles and purchase homes, their homes are often undervalued due to ongoing segregation and are more vulnerable to foreclosure. Read more here.
Electric School Buses and the Grid
Environment New Jersey Research and Policy Center (May, 2022)
Electric School Buses and the Grid, a report by Environment New Jersey Research and Policy Center argues that transitioning to electric school buses would provide numerous benefits to communities and the environment with the potential to bring even greater benefits if equipped with technology that allows them to deliver power to buildings and back to the energy grid. Read more here.
Trends and Outlooks 2022
New Jersey Center for Nonprofits (May, 2022)
The NJ Center for Nonprofits released its annual New Jersey Nonprofits: Trends and Outlooks 2022 report. The report is the latest in a series of annual surveys designed to gauge trends, experience, and expectations among New Jersey nonprofit organizations and explore the effects of the economy on New Jersey’s charitable community. Read more here.
The Gap: A Shortage of Affordable Homes
Housing & Community Development Network of New Jersey (April, 2022)
The Gap: A Shortage of Affordable Homes, a new report released by the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) and the Housing and Community Development Network of New Jersey (the Network), finds a national shortage of nearly seven million affordable and available rental homes for extremely low-income (ELI) renter households. According to The Gap, in NJ, only 31 affordable and available rental homes exist for every 100 extremely low-income renter households. The report shows how these lowest-income renters were uniquely positioned to suffer disproportionately from lost income and housing insecurity during the pandemic. Read more here.
The Future is Electric
New Jersey Conservation Foundation and Acadia Center (April, 2022)
The Future is Electric, a new report commissioned by New Jersey Conservation Foundation in partnership with Acadia Center confirms that electrifying the building sector is beneficial to all, making buildings healthier and safer while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The report finds that transitioning away from fossil fuels to electric is key to significantly reduce emissions from buildings, the second-largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the state. Read more here.
A Vision of Justice
ACLU-NJ (April, 2022)
ACLU-NJ released its annual 2021 report, A Vision of Justice, highlighting the organization’s accomplishments, while centering the experiences and stories of partners and community members who have faced various inequities and been disenfranchised. Read more here.
Breaking Down Murphy’s FY 2023 Budget Proposal
New Jersey Policy Perspective (March, 2022)
New Jersey Policy Perspective released a report Breaking Down Murphy’s FY 2023 Budget Proposal. The report analyzes the different spending priorities by category and explains the impact that the $48.9 billion budget would have on the lives of New Jersey residents. Read more here.
Education Law Center
Education Law Center (March, 2022)
Education Law Center released a new report, Black and Latino Students Endure the Brunt of New Jersey Public School Underfunding. The report finds that Black and Latino students in New Jersey are far more likely to attend schools that are spending well below the level set as “adequate” in the state’s school funding formula, while white and Asian students typically attend districts spending at or even above the adequate funding level. Read more here.
Get the Lead Out: Contaminated Drinking Water in Atlantic County Schools
Environment New Jersey Research and Policy Center (March, 2022)
Get the Lead Out: Contaminated Drinking Water in Atlantic County Schools, a report by Environment New Jersey Research and Policy Center found that contamination has been particularly pervasive in Atlantic County, with lead detected in 92% of schools in the county that provided testing data. Forty-five percent of the faucets and fountains tested in Pleasantville, and Galloway Township schools detected lead. Read more here.
State of the Pinelands
Pinelands Preservation Alliance (March, 2022)
The Pinelands Preservation Alliance released its annual report summing up the health of the preservation efforts by federal, state, and local government agencies. This annual review is the most comprehensive account of public policy actions that affect the Pinelands National Reserve. Read more here.
Two New Jerseys One: Closing the $300,000 Racial Wealth Gap in the Garden State
New Jersey Institute for Social Justice (February, 2022)
The New Jersey Institute for Social Justice released Making the Two New Jerseys One: Closing the $300,000 Racial Wealth Gap in the Garden State. The report reveals that although New Jersey is one of the most prosperous states in the nation, it is characterized by some of the starkest racial and economic inequities. To address the key drivers of economic disparities and repair the harm from generational historic divestment a Reparations Task Force should be established. Read more here.
New Jersey School Funding: The Higher the Goals, the Higher the Costs
New Jersey Policy Perspective (February, 2022)
New Jersey School Funding: The Higher the Goals, the Higher the Costs, a report released by NJPP, outlines increases to the state’s learning standards since 2008. The analysis finds that greater financial investment is associated with better student performance: the higher the goals, the higher the costs. New Jersey’s most affluent school districts have the resources they need, and more, to provide a rigorous education. However, the state’s large, high-poverty districts have far less funding than needed to meet the same exacting standards. Read more here.
Making New Jersey Affordable for Families: The Case for a State-Level Child Tax Credit
New Jersey Policy Perspective (February, 2022)
New Jersey Policy Perspective (NJPP) released the report Making New Jersey Affordable for Families: The Case for a State-Level Child Tax Credit. The report analyzes the benefits of multiple state tax credit scenarios for families based on the number of people, race, ethnicity, and income level. NJPP determines that an effective program would include: fully refundable credit going directly to households with children, relatively simple eligibility, and avoidance of perverse incentive of lower-income families getting less help. Read more here.
Recovery for All: Excluded New Jerseyans Fund Falls Short of Need
New Jersey Policy Perspective (January, 2022)
New Jersey Policy Perspective released the report, Recovery for All: Excluded New Jerseyans Fund Falls Short of Need. This report finds that even before the Excluded New Jersey Fund was cut, the $50 million program was only enough to cover 25,000 individuals or 12,500 households. A fraction of those excluded from federal pandemic relief, including the state's nearly half a million undocumented residents, roughly 300,000 of whom are in the labor force. Read more here.
