New Jersey Business & Industry Association President and CEO Michele Siekerka issued the following statement in response to today’s State of the State address by Gov. Phil Murphy.
“Today we heard some good positives from Governor Murphy, including the potential for the construction of more housing, recent full pension payments, and the commitments to address the awful public contracting disparities and to use business taxes for its intended use, NJ TRANSIT.
“While the governor was quite optimistic on many fronts in today’s address, the New Jersey business outlook isn’t as rosy.
“New Jersey’s job creators are guarded as they entered 2025, according to our 66th annual Business Outlook Survey. For two years in a row, only 4% said the governor and lawmakers have done enough to address business affordability. Further, 79% said business affordability has decreased in New Jersey over the past five years.
“Business growth yields economic growth. While recent census data shows population growth, and this is something to get excited about, we need to hold our breath to see if this growth in population leads to economic growth. Today, New Jersey still lags in national economic growth trends, as well as having a slightly higher unemployment rate.
“Further, until we get the cost of doing business in line with our regional competitors, I fear that we will see more of the same from our larger job creators who, if not leaving New Jersey, are choosing to grow elsewhere, if at all.
“We continue to have outlier numbers based on our consistent outlier status – in the wrong direction – when it comes to our high-tax and high-cost regulatory policies.
“Considering last year’s disappointing decision to return our largest job creators to the highest Corporate Business Tax rate in the nation and the numerous high-cost burdens that give us the worst business climate in the region and the second worst business tax climate in the nation, it would indeed be a welcome change of pace for the governor to bring his ‘fairer’ concept to businesses.
“We also know this will be a challenging year for the governor’s final budget, based largely on gaps of unsustainable spending over revenue. We continue to encourage that pro-growth spending for manufacturing, infrastructure, higher education and workforce development does not come up short during fiscal management this year.
“These are the areas that serve as multipliers for New Jersey’s economy.”
