New Jersey Policy Perspective: Freedom from Want: An Economic Guarantee for New Jersey’s Kids

All children in New Jersey deserve the freedom to grow up safe, healthy, and free from poverty. Childhood poverty hurts school performance and growth today, while damaging mental and physical health and earning power for a lifetime. Research is clear: childhood poverty causes lasting harm. Yet 1 in 8 New Jersey children still live in poverty ($32,000 for a family of four).^[1] This level of deprivation should not be tolerated in one of the wealthiest states in the wealthiest nation in the history of the world.