More than 2 million women have left the workforce since the beginning of the pandemic. A major hurdle to their return is the lack of affordable childcare. It’s a nationwide problem but federal assistance funds have been available since March 2021, including $694...
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Can anyone lower New Jersey’s property taxes? What the candidates for governor are saying
Murphy’s Republican predecessor, Chris Christie, worked with Democrats in the Legislature a decade ago to put a 2% annual cap on property tax increases, with some exceptions. The effects of that cap have been clear with slower growth under Murphy, said Marc Pfeiffer,...
On the eviction moratorium, the Supreme Court turns the law on its head | Opinion
When the U.S. Supreme Court, on Aug. 26, ruled against President Biden’s extension of the moratorium on evictions, it sacrificed the safety and quite possibly the lives of hundreds of Americans to a legal ideology known as legal positivism or the...
NJ about to subtract one of its tiniest towns in rare merger
The borough of Pine Valley in Camden County has already voted to consolidate into Pine Hill. The disappearing town has 21 residents – barely one for each hole on the main course at Pine Valley Golf Club, one of the top golf courses in the world and the borough’s...
Bike-share programs aren’t profitable but chip away at emissions
But some say money can’t define bike-share programs’ success. Reminder, said Robert Noland, a professor of planning and public policy at Rutgers University: All transportation costs governments money. “So it’s fairly cheap for a city or the state to subsidize...
Solomon proposes Jersey City ethics reforms to avoid being ‘a punchline because of corruption’
T. Patrick Hill, Ph.D., an associate professor at The Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University, vocalized support for the changes suggested by Solomon. “Corruption in government, at any level, breeds a corrosive, self-defeating...
Political partisanship in transportation overshadows strong overall support for reform
Transportation has long been viewed as one of the more reliable areas of agreement in Congress but has now become another front in the partisan wars. Look no further for evidence than the current Senate infrastructure bill, which seems to please few beside those who...
Study reveals effect Philly sweetened beverage tax has had on city, economy
A new study from Rutgers economists shows the Philadelphia sweetened beverage tax created at least as many jobs as it cost in the four-and-a-half years since it passed. The study confirms two prior studies that found the tax had no net effect on overall...
ROI Influencers: People of Color 2021 — Difference Makers
Bloustein School Dean Piyushimita (Vonu) Thakuriah has been named to ROI-NJ’s list of the 2021 ROI Influencers: People of Color ROI.NJ, September 22, 2021
Philadelphia’s soda tax added jobs thanks to increased funding for child care, a new study says
The Rutgers study took a macroeconomic approach in an attempt to look at the ripple effects of the tax, and not just its impact on directly affected industries. Michael L. Lahr, a public policy professor at Rutgers and the study’s primary author, said he expected to...