The Real Cost of Living Archive

The Real Cost of Living Archive

In partnership with Diana Pearce and the University of Washington Legal Services of New Jersey regularly publishes updates of the Real Cost of Living Report for New Jersey. The current edition of the report is available on the Poverty Research Institute page. For information about Real Cost of Living research for New Jersey in earlier years, see earlier reports in the series, linked below.

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The Real Cost of Living in 2005: The Self-Sufficiency Standard for New Jersey (539K PDF file)

Standards for Individual Counties (65K PDF files):
Atlantic Bergen Burlington Camden Cape May Cumberland Essex Gloucester Hudson Hunterdon	Mercer Middlesex Monmouth Morris Ocean Passaic Salem Somerset Sussex Union Warren

The Real Cost of Living in 2002: The Self-Sufficiency Standard for New Jersey - To make it out of poverty, a single parent with one pre-schooler and one school-age child in Mercer County, New Jersey, must earn a minimum of $46,551 per year, without government or private support. The same family would need to earn $34,898 in Camden County, $36,620 in Atlantic County, $39,679 in Bergen County, and $46,641 in Monmouth County. These and other figures revealing the real cost of living in New Jersey are in a report released by Legal Services of New Jersey, entitled, “The Real Cost of Living in 2002: The Self-Sufficiency Standard for New Jersey.” This report is based on a new study and updates the 1999 report (see below) on the real cost of living in New Jersey.
The Real Cost of Living in 1999: The Self-Sufficiency Standard for New Jersey - Legal Services of New Jersey (LSNJ) and the New Jersey Center for Economic Policy and Education (CEPE) recently released the above report. The report presents the results of a study conducted by Dr. Diana Pearce of the University of Washington, who has completed or is preparing similar studies involving 9 other states. It measures how much income families in New Jersey require to adequately meet their basic needs without public or private assistance. The report identifies the real cost of living for 70 different family types in each county in New Jersey.

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