Poll Finds Almost Half of New Jersey Adults Want to Move Out of State

Fox News ^ | 9/14/09 | Sara Bonisteel

[gridlock]

Even New Jerseyans can't stand living in New Jersey, according to a new poll that said nearly half of adults residing in the Garden State want to pull up stakes.

The Monmouth University/Gannett New Jersey Poll, released Wednesday, found 49 percent of those polled would rather live somewhere else.

(snip)

Poll participants cited high property taxes (28 percent), the cost of living (19 percent), state taxes (5 percent) and housing costs (6 percent) as the main reasons they want out. The poll also found that 51 percent of those who expressed a desire to leave planned to do so, with adults under the age of 50 making between $50,000 and $100,000 the most likely to flee.

"If you have the ability to leave and you don't see any possibility for change with the way the state is run — and that's the No. 1 issue here — you have to vote with your feet," said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute.

(snip)

"It's no wonder that New Jersey is a national joke," he said. "We've done it to ourselves with these just positively irresponsible policies."

(snip)

That migration depleted the state's tax coffers of an estimated $10 billion in personal income and $680 million in sales tax, according to the Rutgers report.

"This really illustrates among a lot of other things that the public has thrown up their hands," Murray said. "They don't feel that there's anything they can do that would change the situation."

(snip)

"One can only hope that the pendulum will stop swinging this way and start moving back the other way 'cause if it doesn't, you're going to see 9 million people suffer," he said.

"Or you're going to see the last person over the Delaware turn out the lights."

[xkaydet65]

Actually when you count in the fact that the IRS allows bout a deduction worth about 1/3 value of state and local taxes , NY nd NJ receive much more assistnce in the form of federally subsidized local taxes. I pay 18K a year in state and local taxes which save me about 6K on my 1040. If that deduction did not exist no state legislature would survive an attempt to maintain current state and local tax rates.

[autumnraine]

LMAO!!!

[MinorityRepublican]

Well Liberals are not replacing themselves so if they move to places like NC and Texas, they are unlikely to outnumber Conservatives who tend to have 2-4 children in the future.

[xkaydet65]

You may be right,but locally on Long Island I have seen Republicans replaced by Dems moving out from NYC to the point where Nassau County now has a majority of Dems to Reps. It may not happen in SC, La Ala or Miss but I’d not be surprised to see NC and Ga do deep purple in five years.