REPORT: Labor Day Snapshot: New Jersey’s Uneven Recovery
REPORT: Labor Day Snapshot: New Jersey’s Uneven Recovery
For Immediate Release
September 6, 2021 – Just as the pandemic disproportionately harmed low-paid workers, women, and people of color, New Jersey’s pandemic recovery is similarly divided, according to a new report by New Jersey Policy Perspective (NJPP) released on Labor Day.
While New Jersey has experienced steady job growth since the height of the pandemic, employment in the state is still well below pre-pandemic levels. This spells trouble for hundreds of thousands of New Jersey residents who will no longer receive unemployment insurance now that federal pandemic unemployment programs expired on September 4.
“With COVID-19 cases rising and unemployment well above pre-pandemic levels, the crisis is far from over,” said Vineeta Kapahi, report author and Senior Policy Analyst at NJPP. “Allowing unemployment programs to expire does not match the harsh realities faced by hundreds of thousands of working families. Pandemic assistance programs should reflect economic and public health conditions, not arbitrary deadlines.”
The report, Labor Day Snapshot: New Jersey’s Uneven Recovery, shows that New Jersey has recovered 62 percent of the 717,000 jobs lost at the onset of the pandemic in March and April 2020. With employment still below pre-pandemic levels, an estimated 287,000 New Jersey workers lost all unemployment benefits when they expired over Labor Day weekend.
The loss of unemployment insurance will disproportionately hurt New Jersey workers who are women, Black, and Hispanic/Latinx. For example, while Hispanic/Latinx workers make up 19 percent of New Jersey’s workforce, 23 percent of unemployment claimants in New Jersey are Hispanic/Latinx. Women are also overrepresented among unemployment claimants in New Jersey; while women make up 48 percent of New Jersey’s workforce, 54 percent of unemployment claimants in New Jersey since March 2020, on average, are women.
The report also notes the uneven nature of the state’s recovery, as jobs paying over $60,000 have already surpassed pre-pandemic levels by 5 percent. Meanwhile, jobs paying less than $27,000 remain 28 percent below pre-pandemic levels. This compounds economic disparities as these workers are the least likely to have savings to lean on.
“The latest data show that jobs are returning to New Jersey, but these top-line numbers gloss over which jobs have come back and which ones have not,” Kapahi added.
The report concludes with policy recommendations, beyond expanding unemployment insurance benefits, to support low-paid workers and those who were excluded from most pandemic relief programs. Recommendations include expanding access to paid sick days, fully funding the Excluded Workers Fund, strengthening workplace protections, and raising wages for low-paid workers by eliminating the subminimum wage for tipped and farmworkers, and by convening wage boards to raise wages for workers in low-paid, essential industries.
“Access to good quality jobs with adequate wages, sick days, paid leave, and safe working conditions is critical to our recovery from the current health and economic crises,” Kapahi said.
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New Jersey Policy Perspective (NJPP) is a nonpartisan think tank that drives policy change to advance economic, social, and racial justice through evidence-based, independent research, analysis, and advocacy.
