The COVID-19 pandemic heavily influenced New Jersey residents' housing choices between 2020 and 2021, said James Hughes, dean emeritus of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University. Fears of catching the virus in crowded...
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They get the job but never show up: Ghosting on the rise in NJ
As the New Jersey labor shortage continues, companies large and small are facing a growing problem: job applicants who are hired and accept a position with a start date, but then never show up at work and don’t even bother to communicate they have changed their mind...
New Jersey Health Data Project Tackles State’s Pressing Health Needs
Rutgers Center for State Health Policy launched the New Jersey Integrated Population Health Data (iPHD) Project this week to address some of the state’s most pressing health care issues including the opioid epidemic, maternal and infant health and New Jersey’s...
A lawsuit challenging NJ’s uniquely abysmal, toady-rewarding ballot system moves forward
There is a federal lawsuit filed by Pugach and a group of former candidates and advocacy groups that challenge the primary ballot system as unconstitutional, which received a de-facto vote of confidence from a federal judge on May 31, when the court ruled a motion to...
Challengers win right to fight ‘party line’ ballots
In primary elections, some candidates are grouped in a horizontal or vertical line by their county party, such as the Camden County Democrat Committee or Democrats for Change. This is called a “county line” or “party line.” Nineteen out of the state’s 21 counties use...
The New Jersey political tradition of landing the party line on primary ballots could end
"Abolishing the county line would be an earthquake for New Jersey politics,'' said Julia Sass Rubin, a professor at Rutgers Bloustein School of Planning & Public Policy who has been counseling local municipal parties about reform efforts. "Our entire...
NJ economic outlook – Will prices keep spiking?
As we head into the second half of 2022, what is the economic outlook for New Jersey? The state’s top economist said a number of variables are pulling us in many directions. Rutgers University economist James Hughes said inflation is embedded for the time being, with...
Money has always talked in New Jersey politics, but should it?
Republicans also rallied around Bob Hugin, a wealthy pharmaceutical executive who had never held elective office but still seized the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate in 2016. He lost to Democratic U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez in 2018, but is now the state...
Speed controls, redesigned intersections can save lives of walkers and cyclists, Rutgers professor says
Vehicles killed 7,342 pedestrians, the equivalent of 40 passenger jets falling from the sky and an increase from 4,092 a year earlier, but the jump in deaths isn't a one-year aberration. Kelcie Ralph, an associate professor at Rutgers University who studies...
Why do some areas have underground utilities and others have them overhead?
Why do some neighborhoods have underground utilities? How does that come about? What are the pros/cons of having the utility poles underground vs. above-ground? Wildfire season will soon descend upon California, which emerged last year from one of the deadliest, and...