Wednesday, September 29, 2010

On the Home Front

So how's New Jersey faring in the economic recovery? It depends on which measure you look at. As is typical of this one-step-up, one-step back economy, conflicting measures of our state's economic health came out yesterday.

The good news is that household median income in New Jersey is just about the highest in the nation. The U.S. Census Bureau found that our 2009 household income of $68,342 was statistically indistinguishable from that of Maryland ($69,272) and Alaska ($66,953). For all intents and purposes, we're in a three-way tie.

On the other side of the ledger, that number was down some 2.3 percent from 2008. And the number of New Jersey families living in poverty rose from 8.7 percent in 2008 to 9.4 percent in 2009.

That probably sums up the New Jersey economy pretty well. We've weathered the storm better than a lot of other places, but make no mistake: It's still been a storm.

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