New Jersey Spotlight: NJ Needs to Do the Right Thing–Raise Taxes
media mentionOf course, New Jersey’s middle class and working poor are already taxed at substantial rates. However, according to a recent study by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the top one percent of families in earnings pay a state and local tax rate that is 3.6 percentage points lower than families in the bottom 20 percent.
Keep in mind that the vast majority (81 percent) of the income growth in New Jersey since the Great Recession has gone to this same top 1 percent of households. It is reasonable and fair to ask the wealthiest of us to pay a tax rate that is at least as high as the rate paid by the state’s working poor.