New Jersey Policy Perspective

10/22/2026

The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and the spreadsheets are downloading. 😌

10/21/2026

Medicaid changes are coming. But there are steps New Jersey can take to make sure residents can get and keep the health care coverage they need.

10/19/2026

Public safety is more than policing and prisons. It means investing in the services that help communities thrive.

Public defenders represent about 90% of people facing charges in New Jersey. Too often, the court case gets handled while the crisis behind it does not.

Holistic public defense changes that. Attorneys work with social workers and peer navigators to connect clients to housing, mental health care, addiction treatment, and job training. In pilots in Atlantic, Monmouth, and Hudson counties, 80% of clients who needed work were connected to job programs.

Expanding the program to all 21 counties would save the state at least $12.7 million a year, based on estimates from the Office of the Public Defender and the Office of Legislative Services. Lawmakers should fund it.

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Program pairs lawyers with social workers to connect clients to housing, treatment, and jobs. Statewide, it would save at least $12.7 million a year.

10/07/2026

Protecting Medicaid doesn’t just help enrollees. Protecting Medicaid has positive effects on everyone!

09/28/2026

How can community organizations help protect New Jerseyans from losing their Medicaid coverage? New Jersey Citizen Action’s Laura Waddell shares some tips and information on an upcoming webinar.

09/22/2026

The people at the top are accumulating more wealth while families across New Jersey are struggling with the rising cost of nearly everything.

That didn't happen by accident, and it won't fix itself.

Join For the Many on October 14 at 4 PM for Different Rooms, Same Fight, a conversation about New Jersey’s growing wealth gap, the choices facing our state, and how we can build a tax system that works better for more of us.

Register via link in bio.

09/21/2026

In the modern era, health coverage shouldn’t depend how good you are at filling out paperwork. But new Medicaid work requirements mean hundreds of thousands of New Jerseyans are at risk of losing coverage because of complicated paperwork processes.

09/03/2026

New Jersey: nearly $10 billion of your taxes is paying for the mass deportation campaign. That’s $10 billion that can pay for teachers, firefighters, food security programs, and more. Check out the calculator tool from our friends at Economic Policy Institute to see a full breakdown by state.

08/13/2026

New Jersey’s main cash assistance program for families hasn’t kept up with the cost of living for decades and steadily falls short of providing the relief families in poverty need.

08/11/2026

The digital economy relies heavily on collecting your personal data. And now, New Jersey is making companies pay escalating fees based on how much of this data they collect and sell.