New Jersey residents struggling more to afford basic necessities, Rutgers poll finds
While the overall share of residents struggling to afford basic necessities changed little, the poll found a growing number of New Jerseyans describing those expenses as "very difficult" to afford.
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Eight in 10 New Jersey residents view the national economy negatively, while the difficulty of affording basic necessities has increased in five of the six categories tracked since March.
While the overall share of residents struggling to afford basic necessities changed little, the poll found a growing number of New Jerseyans describing those expenses as "very difficult" to afford, suggesting affordability pressures are intensifying rather than expanding to new groups of residents.
The poll, released Wednesday by the Rutgers Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling, asked residents about a range of expenses, including gasoline and transportation, education and student loans, housing, health care, utility bills and groceries.
Two-thirds of residents said they find gasoline and transportation costs difficult to afford, with 34% describing those costs as "very difficult" to afford.
The share of residents who said housing is "very difficult" to afford increased by four percentage points since March. Meanwhile, six in 10 residents reported difficulty affording health care and medical costs, utility bills and groceries.
Since the previous poll, the share of residents who described an item or service as "very difficult" to afford increased by 10 percentage points for both education and gasoline and transportation, six points for groceries, five points for health care, four points for housing and two points for utilities, according to a news release.
Polling officials said the increases in the intensity of affordability concerns for education, gasoline and transportation, groceries and health care were statistically significant. Changes in housing and utility costs were not.
"What we are seeing is less about how many New Jerseyans are struggling and more about how intense the struggle is," said Ashley Koning, an assistant research professor and director of the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling at Rutgers University-New Brunswick.
"In most categories, the overall numbers moved only slightly, if at all. The real movement is underneath them: in every single category we track, fewer residents call these costs 'somewhat difficult' and more call them 'very difficult.' Difficulty may be spreading to some extent, but more than that, it is deepening," she said.
More than three-quarters of residents have a negative view of the state economy, with 35% rating it as "poor" and 18% describing it as "good." The share of residents calling the state economy "poor" increased by five percentage points since March.
"New Jerseyans have been sour on the economy, especially the national one, for some time now, and nothing in these numbers suggests that mood is lifting," Koning said. "What is striking, however, is how views on the two are differently shaped. Party is the main driver of how someone rates the national economy, whereas partisans look nearly identical on the state economy."
According to the poll, Democrats and independents are more pessimistic about the national economy than Republicans, though a majority of Republicans also view it negatively.
Ninety-one percent of Democrats and 85% of independents rated the national economy negatively, compared with 55% of Republicans.
The poll found that race and ethnicity produced some of the largest gaps across affordability measures, with Black and Hispanic residents far more likely than white residents to say costs are at least "somewhat difficult" to afford.
Residents earning $50,000 or less annually were the most likely to report difficulty across every category, including housing and groceries at 83% and utilities at 84%.
For education and child care costs, the dividing line fell at $100,000 in annual income, with 82% of respondents earning less than that amount saying child care is difficult to afford.
Older residents generally reported fewer affordability challenges. Residents 65 and older were the least likely age group to struggle with housing, groceries, food costs and utility bills. Child care was the lone exception.
The results are based on a statewide survey of 1,004 adults contacted through the probability-based Rutgers-Eagleton/SSRS Garden State Panel from Sept. 24-27. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.
The full poll results can be found here.
