Poll: New Jersey quality-of-life index at an all-time low

The quality of life in the Garden State is at an all-time low, according to a recent poll by Monmouth University.
According to the poll, only half of all state residents give New Jersey positive marks as being a good state in which to live.
“We’ve never had a lot of New Jerseyans who say, ‘Yeah, this is an excellent place to live,’” says Monmouth University Polling Institute director Patrick Murray.
The survey found that only 50 percent of people living in New Jersey say the state is either an excellent or good place to call home. Murray says that this is down from the mid-60 percentages over the past 10 years and down from 84 percent positive in 1987.
“This is a very troubling trend, just because it’s been going down year after year after year,” says Murray.
Murray says that the biggest drop in quality of life opinions came from the Philadelphia suburbs in Burlington, Camden and Gloucester counties.
“The cost of living of the state and what state government is doing in Trenton, those are things I’m really worried about and we’re getting close to that breaking point,” Murray says.
And although a majority of New Jerseyans (67 percent) stated that their individual towns are an excellent or good place to live, this is down from 71 percent last year.
More information about the poll and how it was conducted can be found at the Monmouth University Polling Institute website.