& the Rev. Bruce Davidson
Guest Column
Your Turn
Remembering the poorest at budget time
Gov. Jon Corzine should be commended for including in his budget proposal several first steps addressing the “moral responsibility” to alleviate severe poverty in New Jersey. Among these key initial anti-poverty initiatives are:
+ Raising the threshold at which married couples first have to pay income tax to $25,000, and for individuals to $15,000, and lessening payments for people up to $30,000 and $20,000 respectively, reducing the tax burden on New Jersey’s 200,000 lowest-income taxpayers.
+ Expanding the state rental assistance program for low-income tenants, to provide affordable housing for an additional 1,500 families.
+ Combating hunger through $3 million for emergency food providers and $1 million for food storage systems in food distribution centers, providing greater relief to the 1.6 million state residents who do not have enough to eat.
+ Continuing to expand health insurance for impoverished children, by committing $5 million to enroll an additional 50,000 children in FamilyCare by next June.
+ Dedicating an additional $7 million to capital costs and improvements for homeless shelters, the last resort and haven for far too many New Jerseyans.
Equally important are decisions not to cut several essential programs, perhaps most notably key Medicaid services and child welfare programs. These benefits provide a critical shield for very vulnerable state residents.
Two proposed steps, however, cause us great concern.
The proposal to require Medicaid recipients to pay up to $10 monthly in co-payments for prescriptions will put necessary medicines out of reach for many individuals and families, most of whom have incomes of only a few thousand dollars a year. No one should have to choose between medicine and food or housing, and for far too many New Jersey families the money will simply not be there.
Second, the proposed sales tax increase will fall most heavily on those state residents with the lowest incomes, offsetting much of the value of the income tax reduction. While we applaud the decision not to extend the sales tax to food or clothing, we would urge that some way be found to exclude New Jersey’s least wealthy people from the regressive sales tax.
Finally, we must note two additional critical anti-poverty steps which must be at the top of the state’s agenda in future years.
First is the need to increase cash public assistance grants, last raised in 1987 – two decades ago. Failure of these grants to keep pace with inflation means these last-resort temporary assistance programs provide inadequate financial support, forcing people to go without basic necessities, accelerating homelessness and creating great pressure on other public and private services and programs to somehow pick up the slack.
And low-wage workers who care for our most vulnerable in public facilities and community settings must receive compensation that at least keeps pace with inflation, so that they may avoid homelessness themselves.
While these additional measures must be taken, we applaud the governor’s efforts to keep New Jersey’s most vulnerable people in his sights as he seeks to right the financial ship of state.
Melville D. Miller Jr. is president of Legal Services of New Jersey and the Rev. Bruce Davidson is the director of The Lutheran Office of Government Ministries. Miller and Davidson are co-conveners of the Anti-Poverty Network of New Jersey.