New Jersey Assembly Republicans : Rumana talks about poverty rate and what can be done to lower it

NJ Spotlight -

Insufficient funding or poor management of state programs in seemingly disparate areas - including welfare, job training, aid for the disabled, food stamps, child care, affordable housing, and mass transit - has allowed high levels of poverty to persist in New Jersey and stymied families' efforts improve their lives, legislators and advocates said yesterday.

The state's stubbornly high poverty rate - officially at 11 percent, but considerably higher in practical terms - and the status of programs that could help lower that rate were the topics of four Assembly committee hearings held Wednesday at the request of Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto, who launched an anti-poverty policy initiative last week.

While the official poverty rate is 11 percent, but many more families do not meet the state Department of Human Services' own 'standard of need' guidelines, which estimate actual living costs, according to the Ewing-based Anti-Poverty Network of NJ (APN).

Using a 'true poverty' measurement based on 200 percent of the poverty line, the organization said 1 in 5 residents are facing economic struggles relative to the state's high cost of living.

The Christie administration has not commented on Prieto's anti-poverty agenda, but some Republican legislators offered pushback yesterday, saying more spending is not the solution.

A transportation committee hearing meant to focus on the importance of mass transit turned into a philosophical debate over both NJ Transit's funding and a proposed increase in the minimum wage, which advocates say would play an important role in reducing poverty.

Working Families director Analilia Mejia said poor commuters have been the only group to see tax increases in recent years, in the form of a 22 percent transit fare hike in 2010 and another 9 percent increase last year.

The state has sharply reduced its main subsidy to NJ Transit even as it has been spending billions in the form of corporate tax incentives, she said.

Scott Rumana

Assemblyman Scott Rumana (R-Passaic) responded that total state funding for mass transit is at nearly its highest level ever, when diversions from the NJ Turnpike Authority and Clean Energy Fund are included. Public transportation systems elsewhere depend even more on fare revenues, he said.

Rather than boost subsidies, or assist the poor through measures like a higher minimum wage, the state needs to make NJ Transit more efficient and focus on reducing the cost of living generally, he said.

'The alternative view is to try to find a way to bring the cost of living down so that it is an affordable state to live in. It's the most overtaxed state on just about every single level,' he said. 'It doesn't stop there. The cost of everything is high in New Jersey. Food is high, transportation is high, fees, everything you pay for is high. (Bringing down those costs) helps everybody across the entire economic spectrum, most importantly those people on the lower end and in the middle.'

The high cost of housing was another focus of the day's discussions. New Jersey is the fifth-most-expensive state in which to rent a two-bedroom apartment, at $1,309 a month, Housing and Community Network president Staci Berger told the Assembly housing committee. If housing is supposed to consume no more than 30 percent of income, that means a family must earn $52,347 a year to afford such an apartment - an impossible task for someone working at the minimum or even average wage, she said.

Posted by NJ Assembly Republicans in Clips | Tagged: affordability , cost of living , poverty , Scott Rumana | No Comments

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