WILDWOOD, NEW JERSEY - MAY 28: A help wanted sign is displayed at a boardwalk restaurant the day before the Memorial Day weekend, the unofficial start of summer, in the shore community of Wildwood on May 28, 2021 in Wildwood, New Jersey. Wildwood, like many beach communities throughout the United States, is looking for a successful and busy summer season after staying mostly closed or partially open last summer due to Covid-19 restrictions. Many resort community retail businesses are also suffering from a shortage of labor as some workers are choosing to stay home and others have changed career paths. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

The number of job openings has declined sharply in every state since 2022, better aligning the numbers of unfilled jobs and people seeking work.

Nationally, for the first time since before the pandemic, the number of job openings and unemployed people is roughly in balance: a little more than one opening per person looking for work, according to a Stateline analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data. At the height of the labor shortage in 2022, there were two job openings per job seeker. As of April, the ratio was down to 1.2 openings per person.

But the proportion of workers to jobs ranges widely from state to state. In California, where layoffs in tech and the film industry have unsettled the job market, there is less than one opening per unemployed person. In North Dakota, where a brain drain has left a shortage of skilled and educated workers, there are almost three openings per unemployed person.

The federal government defines a job opening as an available position that an employer wants to fill within a month.

California, one of the few states where unemployment is above 5% and unemployed people outnumber job openings, has replaced Mississippi as the state with the highest unemployment rate. Washington state and Nevada also have less than one job opening per unemployed person.

The epicenter of the decline in job openings has been California’s Bay Area, including the San Francisco and Silicon Valley metro areas. California ended up losing nearly all the tech jobs it gained during a pandemic boom fueled by online work and shopping.

Vishwanath Eswarakrishnan, a 35-year-old software engineer in the Bay Area, was shocked by his layoff from a San Francisco robotaxi firm in December, a day before the birth of his second child. But as soon as he posted the news to social media, he started getting calls from major firms, including Airbnb, Uber and Nvidia. He accepted an offer from Meta within a month and started work again in March.

“There are opportunities out there for folks with eight to 15 years of experience. You do get calls,” Eswarakrishnan said. He added, however, that friends who have less experience or who work in less technical fields, such as product management, are having a harder time.

In North Dakota, by contrast, there are still almost three job openings for every unemployed person, though that’s down from more than four openings in some months of 2022. Before the pandemic, there were 2.7 openings for every job seeker.

North Dakota suffers from a lack of skilled workers to fill open jobs, and many who could fill them move to nearby cities, such as Minneapolis, looking for a more urban lifestyle and more desirable jobs, said Thomas Krumel, a professor at North Dakota State University who studies labor demand.

North Dakota’s oil boom peaked a decade ago but it left a lasting legacy of high wages and cost of living, he added.

“The positions that employers find most difficult to fill do not require a four-year college degree. Skilled trades, healthcare support and technical jobs often face shortages,” Krumel wrote in an email.

Unemployment nationwide was at 4% in May, higher than the 3.5% before the pandemic but still near historic lows. The only states with unemployment rates above 5% were California (5.3%) and Nevada (5.1%), along with the District of Columbia (5.2%). The lowest rates were in North Dakota and South Dakota (2%), and Vermont (2.1%).

A return to a pre-pandemic labor market is a good sign, said Nick Bunker, economic research director at Indeed Hiring Lab.

“It was a strong labor market, robust and seemingly sustainable,” Bunker said.

However, states with the largest declines in job openings could be in for future trouble.

“We’ve hit the spot now where if employers do continue to pull back on openings, the probability of the unemployment rate rising more sharply becomes higher,” Bunker said.

Of the 10 metro areas with the largest decline in job listings since the beginning of the pandemic, four are in California, according to Bunker’s research. San Francisco (-31%) had the largest decline, followed by San Jose in the Silicon Valley (-28%); Seattle (-27%); New York City (-12%); Boston (-8%); Los Angeles (-6%); Oxnard, California (-5%); Provo, Utah, and Washington, D.C. (-4%); and Buffalo, New York (-3%).

In California, there has been a steep decline in the number of jobs in film and tech, especially supporting roles in sales and recruiting that blossomed in the early pandemic years. Some of the boom in startups was fueled by low interest rates that allowed new tech firms to operate for years before reaching profitability. Higher rates have hit hard.

“Most software is built in startups, with the bulk of the work at the beginning of a business. VC [venture capital] is down and there’s been a flood of talent from big companies that have cut the fat,” said Cody Palmer, a software engineer who does contract work for Silicon Valley companies from Denver. He lost a large contract job this year.

“I’ve been doing this for 15 years and I choose jobs that are hard and high-risk, typically startups,” Palmer said. “I’ve seen, like, 13 layoffs in my career. I’ve grown into this mindset of ‘Always be looking, always try and find the next gig, and be wary of just how fast a job can cut you.’”

The cooling of the labor market without an unemployment spike, at least so far, has surprised some economists.

“It had never happened before, but it did happen,” said Olivier Blanchard, an emeritus economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He co-authored an influential paper in 2022 with former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers predicting that by raising interest rates to curb inflation and cool down an “overheated” labor market, the Federal Reserve would cause a “painful” spike in unemployment.

“Larry and I turned out to be wrong,” Blanchard said.

Other economists such as Andrew Figura at the Federal Reserve argued that a “soft landing” without high unemployment was possible as long as layoffs didn’t spike nationally, as they did in California.

California’s creation of new jobs, the largest in the nation before the pandemic, has now reversed into the largest losses in employment, according to an earlier Stateline analysis. Since 2022, when the Fed first raised interest rates, California has lost 93,000 jobs in the information sector, which includes many internet services and also film and sound recording, according to a March report from the Public Policy Institute of California.

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org. Follow Stateline on Facebook and X.

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(Photo by Edwin J. Torres/N.J. Governor’s Office)

Murphy administration officials will propose a $100 million program to allow the state’s Economic Development Authority to purchase properties from NJ Transit for development in hopes of remitting some funds back to the transportation agency.

Under the proposal, whose details are still being negotiated, the authority would be required to remit a portion of its proceeds back to NJ Transit if the sale or lease of a transit property exceeds the authority’s purchasing costs. NJ Transit’s exact share of such proceeds has not yet been determined.

Economic Development Authority CEO Tim Sullivan and NJ Transit CEO Kevin Corbett announced the plan during a call with reporters Thursday.

“We think this is an exciting opportunity. It’s a way for us, the EDA, to be helpful in bringing more sites forward for development and also helping out with transit’s efforts that the governor and Kevin and the team at transit have been at for many years now,” said Economic Development Authority CEO Tim Sullivan.

As part of the program, developers would purchase or lease properties from the authority for residential, commercial, or mixed-use projects.

Market conditions and local governments would ultimately dictate what types of projects get built, but Sullivan said he expects residential construction to take up the greatest share. He cited continued strains in the commercial real estate market following the pandemic and high residential demand near transit stations.

Officials have proposed funding the program with $100 million from the still-unenacted corporate transit tax proposed by Gov. Phil Murphy. That tax is expected to generate roughly $1 billion for the general fund in its first year, and lawmakers are expected to dedicate its proceeds to NJ Transit in later years, when it’s expected to collect about $800 million annually.

On Thursday, officials said they are aiming to see the program approved before legislators take their summer recess after passing the annual budget. Murphy must sign the annual spending bill before July 1 to avert a government shutdown.

The legislation would require transit property sales to the Economic Development Authority under the proposal to be sold at fair market value, Sullivan said.

“This is not a fire sale of properties to us. This is a fair-market-value sale,” Sullivan said.

The two agencies would work together to identify the most appropriate parcels to purchase. That list is still being drafted but is likely to include parking lots abutting some NJ Transit stations.

Commuters at some NJ Transit stations, especially those close to New York City, face lengthy wait lists for parking, and Sullivan said such locations were unlikely to see their lots sold, at least in the program’s early stages.

“Places that have the most complex parking challenges probably don’t make the first cut here. Places where the parking challenges are more reasonable probably are likelier to be on the go-list,” Sullivan said.

He added replacement parking would be a consideration in “almost every imaginable scenario.”

Officials said cooperation between the two agencies would amount to more than the sum of its parts.

While NJ Transit owns and occasionally develops parcels abutting its stations, the responsibilities of running a transit network and the Economic Development Authority’s broader development powers make the authority a better fit, they said.

“If Tim and his team are able to leverage our parcel to get greater value, it’s one plus one equaling three,” Corbett said. “It’s fair that EDA gets some because they’re going to be enhancing the value beyond anything we would be able to achieve.”

Property sales under the program still require approval from the Economic Development Authority and NJ Transit boards, and projects under the program are likely to focus more on rail stations than bus stops, Sullivan said.

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(Getty Images)

A Senate panel approved a raft of changes to the state’s unemployment system that would expand eligibility for university students, bar the mandatory return of some overpayments, and expand awards for those caring for individuals with developmental disabilities.

Labor Commissioner Rob Asaro-Angelo described the bill, which the Senate Labor Committee approved in a bipartisan 4-1 vote, as a solution to some of the problems officials identified in the unemployment system during the pandemic, when runaway jobless claims drained the state’s unemployment fund.

“Through our learnings the past few years, we’ve identified legislative changes to our system that will further improve its accessibility and overall functionality,” Asaro-Angelo told the panel.

The bill’s advancement comes about two weeks after labor officials unveiled a new application for unemployment benefits that they say will make applying for benefits easier. That change, too, was driven by problems the system faced during the pandemic.

Foremost among the proposed changes in the bill that advanced Monday is a provision that would bar the state from denying unemployment claims because the claimant is a full-time university student or attends certain job training programs.

It would also remove provisions requiring students to earn sufficient wages to receive unemployment benefits. That removal would also fix a technical error in state law; legislators struck the provision’s definition of sufficient wages from the books more than 20 years ago.

“Under the current policy, if you are a student working to put yourself through school and lose your job, you will then be at a much greater risk of dropping out as you will no longer have the income to support your schooling,” Asaro-Angelo said. “This policy has kept thousands of hard-working student applicants from receiving benefits they had earned.”

The proposed eligibility expansion drew opposition from some business groups who feared it would raise rates on businesses that hire college students.

“Our only concern is what this does to the rates and how this impacts small businesses if this does indeed cause rates to go up,” said Eileen Kean, state director for the National Federation of Independent Businesses. “Somebody carrying 12 credits should have the chance to collect if they are unemployed during the school semester.”

In New Jersey, unemployment rates are set based on the general health of the unemployment fund — it’s poor but healing after being drained by pandemic joblessness — and a ratio of an individual business’ use of unemployment benefits to unemployment taxes paid.

That means, all other things being the same, a business that hires college students but does not retain them between semesters — or that terminates their employment — could pay more under the bill if those workers were only ineligible because of their status as a student and their benefits are enough to shift a businesses position in unemployment tax tables.

Bill sponsor Sen. Paul Moriarty (D-Gloucester) dismissed those concerns.

“I believe that is not a valid concern,” he told the New Jersey Monitor. “I think the potential costs are de minimus.”

Other provisions would require the commissioner of labor to waive recovery of overpayments to unemployment claimants upon their request if the overpayment happened as a result of employer or government error, or when state unemployment officials find recovery would be “contrary to equity and good conscience.”

The provision, which would also bar clawbacks when a claimant is dead or cannot work because of a disability, does not apply in cases of fraud.

The legislation would also allow filers to claim adults with disabilities as dependents so long as the disability began before they turned 22 years old.

The bill passed along with three other employment-related measures.

One would add labor unions to a list of topics that employers are barred from requiring their workers to attend meetings on, expanding an existing prohibition that already includes religion and other political matters.

Supporters said the provision would prevent union-busting meetings.

“Really, what the bill addresses is the coercive nature of some of those meetings,” said Eric Richard, legislative affairs director for the New Jersey State AFL-CIO.

Kean, who noted Colorado Gov. Jared Polis vetoed a similar bill last month over concerns about its constitutionality, warned it could run afoul of an employer’s free speech protections. New Jersey’s bill, which is substantively similar, does not limit what employers can say. It only prevents them from requiring employees to attend certain meetings.

Another bill calls for the state to siphon a fraction — 0.02 percentage points — of New Jersey’s 0.3825% unemployment tax for workers to pay for the administration of jobless benefits.

The last bill would allow the labor commissioner to directly appoint three additional members to a board that reviews final unemployment appeals. If such temporary appointments are made, the board would split into two three-member panels to weigh appeals.

Asaro-Angelo said the provision would be needed when demand for unemployment benefits is high.

“At its most basic, during a time of heightened claim activity, we’re able to hire more claims adjudicators, more phone staff,” he said. “The appeal tribunal can hire more appeals specialists, but the Board of Review — which is the top level of appeal — because they have the word ‘board’ in their name, they are treated like every other board and commission in the state.”

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New parents share stories of tense encounters with airport security over breast milk and formula. A bill from U.S. Rep. Katie Porter, a California Democrat, would strengthen guidelines for U.S. Transportation Security Administration officers. (Getty Images)

As the summer travel season approaches, new parents may be navigating airports with their babies — and the complexities of keeping them fed. Despite federal guidelines for airport agents laying out how to treat nursing moms, stories about problem encounters with security sometimes go viral.

In 2023, actress and singer Keke Palmer said she was at Houston airport when she faced threats to throw out her 16 ounces of breast milk. A year earlier, engineer and science TV host Emily Calandrelli said U.S. Transportation Security Administration officers escorted her out of line and made her check her partially thawed ice packs, which are used to keep breast milk cool.

“It was a very traumatizing experience, and it also didn’t align with what the TSA policies were, which state that you’re allowed to have them for medically necessary purposes,” Calandrelli told States Newsroom.

In May 2022, she went on her first work trip away from her 10-week-old baby and was traveling from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C. Calandrelli planned on pumping after going through security at LAX, but TSA officers drilled her with questions about what the ice packs were for and said it wouldn’t have been an issue if her breast milk was already pumped.

“I spoke to three different males who worked at TSA, and I requested to speak to a woman but wasn’t able to,” she said.

Like Palmer, she shared the experience with her legions of social media followers. Calandrelli said the agency later apologized. TSA issued a statement shortly after the incident: “Our employees go through regular training to effectively engage and screen diverse traveler populations, including those who are breastfeeding and/or traveling with breast milk.”

Both women’s experiences violate TSA guidelines: formula, breast milk, toddler drinks and baby food are allowed on planes and carry-ons in quantities greater than 3.4 ounces. Breast milk, formula and ice packs — along with other cooling accessories — are considered medically necessary. Passengers are advised to let TSA officers know they’re carrying these items when arriving at airport security.

Even though these protections exist, many lactating parents still encounter problems during air travel, and these issues carry physical and emotional side effects, according to Tina Sherman, a doula and interim executive director at the U.S. Breastfeeding Committee.

“Lactating parents have to pump on a fairly regular basis to be able to continue to keep up their supply,” Sherman said.

When they can’t express milk or that cycle is interrupted, mothers experience pain or breast leaks, she said. In some cases, long delays in pumping can lead to mastitis — an infection that causes swelling in the breasts and cracked nipples. Emotionally, being prevented or delayed from expressing milk can make parents feel anxious, embarrassed and stressed, Sherman said.

Calandrelli’s plight two years ago led her to reach out to her local California congresswoman. U.S. Democratic Rep. Katie Porter first introduced legislation to strengthen existing protections for breastfeeding parents in August 2022.

“You have to have clear instructions and clear rules, and have people follow them in order for moms to be able to meet the standards,” Porter said. “There’s a lot of obstacles to breastfeeding. There’s a lot of challenges to feeding a baby and traveling with a baby.”

The Bottles and Breastfeeding Equipment Screening (BABES) Enhancement Act would require “hygienic handling of breast milk and baby formula” by TSA officers and private security companies. Porter’s bill would direct airport officials to “minimize the risk for contamination” of breast milk, formula and infant drinks, along with ice or freezer packs and related cooling accessories.

Under the proposal, the agency must consult with maternal health organizations — March of Dimes, Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine — to determine what policies and regulations need to be updated as pumping technology and best practices for breast milk storage evolve, she said.

BABES Act is an update to a 2016 law that required TSA training on special screening procedures for nursing parents. The original law also made it legal to carry larger amounts of breast milk, formula and infant drink — juice or purified water — in airports and on planes.

Reps. Maria Elvira Salazar, a Florida Republican, and Eric Swalwell, a California Democrat, are the lead co-sponsors in the House. Democratic Sens. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois and Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, along with GOP Sens. Steve Daines of Montana and Ted Cruz of Texas sponsored the bill in the upper chamber.

The bipartisan bill didn’t go anywhere last session, but Porter reintroduced the proposal. She said the bill is set to be heard in the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee soon.

As a mother of three, Porter is acutely familiar with the problems that come with traveling with infants. Her children are adolescents and teens now, but when they were babies, lactation stations in airports were uncommon. She said a flight attendant once told her to stop nursing her baby while the plane was still on the ground. Porter said she was angry and scared, but mostly “worried about my baby, who was hungry.”

As for her bill, she recognizes that TSA agents have a hard job. But the BABES Act will help them “have clear rules and better training so that they’re not put in challenging situations when they’re dealing with frustrated parents,” she said.

Making travel for lactating parents easier could chip away at larger stigma about breastfeeding, advocates said. More than 80% of babies are breastfed in infancy, and 58% are still getting some breast milk by the time they’re 6-months-old, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Still, earlier this month, an ad for lactation cookies featuring a cooking star’s covered breasts and pregnant belly was temporarily removed from a Times Square billboard, according to The New York Times.

“Normalizing breastfeeding and lactation is really critical to families being able to meet their breastfeeding goals,” Sherman said.

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A "dispensary" sign flashes in the window of a store that sells delta-8, hemp and CBD products. (Sophie Nieto-Munoz | New Jersey Monitor)

Stores that look like dispensaries are setting up shop in towns across New Jersey, putting CBD lotion, delta-8 gummies, and hemp products on their shelves without facing the same regulations and oversight as legal cannabis dispensaries.

Now lawmakers are weighing whether those retailers should be required to get certain licensing and if the state’s Cannabis Regulatory Commission should oversee hemp products. A new bill would regulate the production and sale of “intoxicating hemp products” that include less than 0.5 milligrams of THC — the chemical that gets someone high — per serving.

Under the bill, hemp products would only be sold in licensed dispensaries alongside cannabis products. It would also amend the New Jersey Hemp Farming Act to set limits on how much THC can be sold in hemp products, a cap that some critics say is far too low.

“The main intent I think we would all agree to is that there is a phenomenal amount of unregulated, unlicensed, untested cannabis products on gas station shelves, convenience store shelves, and they don’t go through any regulated process. Teens have access to this, and this bill attempts to capture that to prevent that,” said Scott Rudder of the New Jersey CannaBusiness Association.

The bill calls for the cannabis agency to regulate the sale of all hemp and cannabis products, and put new regulations in place for retailers. The Department of Agriculture would continue regulating the cultivation of hemp, and the Attorney General’s Office would enforce the law against those selling hemp items without a license, similar to cannabis.

A 2018 bill passed in Congress opened the door for smoke shops to legally sell hemp products like delta-8, CBD, and CBN. No license is required to sell these products, and they aren’t approved by federal or state agencies.

They do not get consumers high in the way that marijuana with delta-9 THC does. But, with little regulation and easy access, delta-8 may be sold in high quantities to children, which led the Food and Drug Administration to issue a warning about the drug in 2022. It noted more than 2,300 delta-8 exposure cases were reported during the 14 months starting on Jan. 1, 2021. Symptoms of delta-8 exposure can include dizziness, vomiting, difficulty walking, confusion, and difficulty breathing.

The New Jersey bill advanced out of the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday after nearly an hour of testimony by a 6-2 vote, with Republican Sens. Jon Bramnick and Kristin Corrado voting no. While most people testifying Thursday were supportive of the bill’s goal, they differed over the details.

Brewery owners and liquor industry representatives opposed any move that would bar them from selling low-dose hemp drinks. Eric Orlando, of the Brewers Guild of New Jersey, suggested allowing alcohol licensees to also apply for a type of cannabis license allowing them to manufacture or sell hemp beverages.

“We’re not opposed to regulating these products, but we think we should afford local manufacturers the ability to produce and sell these beverages,” he said.

Dispensaries have strict zoning and site approval plans, and may not be prepared to store and sell these products, said Michael Halfacre, executive director of the Beer Wholesalers Association of New Jersey. Beverage distributors that have been in the game already have warehouses and refrigerators designed to carry them, he said.

Halfacre believes there’s a better marketplace for these drinks in liquor stores. He noted that in California, where THC drinks are sold in dispensaries, they account for less than 1% of sales.

Hemp drinks should be regulated by the state’s Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control, he added.

“These products are packaged like beer. They’re shipped, delivered, and stored like beer. They’re intoxicating like beer and are marketed and sold in many other states like beer. There is no reason to treat them radically different here in New Jersey,” Halfacre said.

Cantrip CEO Adam Terry said he founded his cannabis-infused beverage company as an alternative to alcohol and for curious cannabis consumers. His product is available in several states that allow hemp sales, and he wants to bring it to New Jersey but said that wouldn’t be viable under the current legislation.

He said in Minnesota he worked with officials to allow adult THC beverages to be sold at liquor stores. Hemp drinks pay an additional tax, bringing extra revenue into the state, he said. The bill as written is “misaligned with industry and national best practices,” he said.

“Cantrip agrees with the need to offer hemp-derived products to the adult population in New Jersey in a well-regulated, consistent, and safe manner,” he said.

Other critics said the bill’s cap of 2.5 milligrams is so minuscule, most people won’t even feel the effects. New Jersey’s cannabis law currently limits drinks to 5 milligrams of THC, though very few, if any, cannabis drinks are available in dispensaries.

“We’re talking about a 12-ounce can that might have 5 milligrams of THC. You’d have to drink 30 of these cans to equal what it is in a joint,” said Joe Grabowski, owner of Sarene Craft Beer Distributors.

The bill still faces the Senate Budget Committee before heading to the Senate floor. 

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WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 27: Construction workers rest in the shade during maintenance work in Lafayette Park on July 27, 2023 in Washington, DC. Washington DC is under an excessive heat watch notice as a heat wave blankets the East Coast. According to media reports the month of July has broken the record for the warmest month ever with climate change experts fearing the summers in the future will only get warmer. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Months after federal officials declared 2023 the world’s warmest year on record by far, New Jersey lawmakers are moving forward with protections for workers forced to toil in excessive heat.

A bill that would require state labor officials to implement a heat stress standard that would trigger action from employers to protect their workers advanced unanimously in the Senate’s labor committee Monday but drew major ire from the business community. 

“There’s a lot of uncertainty, a lot of confusion, and I think this needs some serious feedback and work to it to see what the scope and unintended consequences of this bill,” said Mike Egenton of the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce.

Under the measure, introduced by Sen. Joe Cryan (D-Union), employers would be required to implement a plan to protect their workers from excessive heat. At a minimum, their plan must include providing cold water, offering rest breaks and access to shade or cool-down areas, limiting the time workers are exposed to heat, and having an emergency response in case an employee becomes ill or injured, among other things. Employers would also be required to postpone non-urgent tasks until a heat wave is over.

“No workers should have to choose between their job and going home safely. If irresponsible non-union employers are allowed to profit from mistreating the employees, it creates a race to the bottom where we all lose and when lives are at stake,” said Gerardo Cortez, a UPS driver and member of Teamsters Local 177.

At least 436 people died from heat exposure between 2011 and 2021, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration says heat is the leading cause of death among all weather-related phenomena in the United States, and notes that workers of color in essential jobs are disproportionately subject to hot working conditions. 

All employees would also be mandated to take training on how to recognize high-risk heat days and signs of when someone is suffering from heat-related illness under Cryan’s bill. Within 30 days of the bill’s enactment, employers would have to begin maintaining data on their prevention plan and all heat-related injuries and fatalities. The Department of Labor would oversee enforcement of the bill’s provisions and maintain a program to educate employers on heat stress standards. 

Critics of the measure say the law is impractical as written and would lead to disruptions in their daily job responsibilities.

“It’s another burden on top of the other plans we got to do, and again, taking time away from patient care to do this,” said John Indyk of the Health Care Association of New Jersey, which represents the long-term care industry. 

Regulations like this would continue to make New Jersey a hostile business climate, said Elissa Frank, vice president of government affairs for the New Jersey Business and Industry Association. Noting that OSHA is currently crafting heat-stress standards, she said New Jersey doesn’t need another labor mandate when federal regulations are impending. OSHA began the rule-making process nearly four years ago. 

Some complaints lie with how broad the legislation is. Eric Blomgren of the New Jersey Gasoline Association said often, gas stations are staffed with one or two employees. If people take mandatory paid rest breaks, the gas station might have to shut down during that time or hire another worker, increasing payroll costs, he said. He suggested amending the bill to carve out businesses with few employees. 

Eileen Kean of the National Federation of Independent Business also stressed the wide-ranging applicability, from people working in kitchens in the summer to car dealers in parking lots. She said the regulations aren’t needed because the job market is so tough right now that businesses want to retain their workers. 

“Why would employers try to not take care of their employees? I would argue in our current business climate, employers are taking better care of their employees than they ever did, because when you get your team, you get good people, you want to keep them and treat them well,” she said. 

But people with first-hand experience of working in the heat pleaded with lawmakers to enact these protections. They say without regulations, companies will put production and profit over workers’ safety. 

It can exceed 100 degrees in the back of a metal delivery truck, Cortez said. And if it takes more than a minute to find the package he’s delivering, he’s drenched in sweat and lightheaded, he said. His union fought for protections and accommodations in their contract, like fans in new trucks and access to ice machines, but he knows thousands of warehouse workers and other drivers can’t push back on their bosses’ demands. 

Washington Rodriguez works at a warehouse, and has watched his fellow workers pass out on the job because of the heat. The water fountain at his job is so far away that people must choose between drinking water and potentially losing their jobs over bad production numbers or stress their bodies out and keep up with demand, said Rodriguez, who testified on behalf of Make the Road New Jersey, a labor and immigration organization. 

“I’ve seen too many employers demonstrate year after year they are willing to sacrifice workers for profits. We must have a law that holds all employers to a common sense level of responsibility for protecting the workers in extreme heat,” he said. “Keeping workers safe is not too much to ask.” 

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Critics of advance payday lenders say they encourage people to cumulatively diminish their income over time. (Getty Images)

A bill that would require New Jersey employers to include pay information in job postings advanced out of a state Senate committee Monday.

The bill, which includes fines for employers who skirt its requirements, is part of a broader trend toward pay transparency that supporters say is key to closing wage gaps between men and women. A handful of other states, including New York, have enacted similar laws.

Sen. Paul Moriarty, who sponsored the measure, said pay transparency benefits both job seekers and employers. People can spend weeks going through job interviews before knowing the compensation — “a large waste of time” for both sides if the pay isn’t enough for the applicant, Moriarty said.

“I think it’s overdue,” said Moriarty (D-Gloucester).

Under the measure, employers would be required to include hourly pay or salary ranges in job postings. The postings must also include a general description of benefits and other compensation employees would be eligible for within the first year of employment.

New Jersey employers would also have to take “reasonable” steps to make opportunities for promotions known.

The maximum fines would range from $300 to $600 under amendments made to the bill, down from $1,000 to $10,000 in the original version. The New Jersey Business Industry Administration had originally opposed the legislation but said after those changes were made that it is taking no position on the bill.

The measure advanced unanimously out of the Senate Labor Committee. Its Assembly companion, introduced in April, still faces a hearing in the Assembly Labor Committee.

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Marijuana products are seen on display at Apothecarium Dispensary in Maplewood, N.J., on April 21, 2022, on the first day of legal recreational marijuana sales in New Jersey. Voters in the state approved the legalization in November 2020. (Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images)

New Jersey’s recreational marijuana sales grew slower in the first quarter of 2024 than they have at any other point since the state began allowing adult-use cannabis sales in April 2022.

The state’s 130 recreational dispensaries had roughly $201 million in non-medical cannabis sales during the first three months of the year, about 4.4% more than they reported in the last quarter of 2023, when recreational sales totaled $192.6 million.

The growth reflects a marked slowdown from the final quarter of 2023, when recreational marijuana sales grew by about 8.9% in what was then the lowest growth quarter on record, and it could herald the end of surging growth the adult-use market has enjoyed since its launch despite persistently high prices.

“There has been a significant increase in the number of dispensaries, which is great, that are selling cannabis products both medically and recreationally, but it is a concern for sure that the market growth rate is slowing,” said Todd Johnson, executive director of the New Jersey Cannabis Trade Association.

The Cannabis Regulatory Commission touted the first quarter sales figures in a press release last week, pointing to the 38% year-over-year growth compared to the first three months of 2023, when recreational sales totaled $145.7 million.

Commission Chair Dianna Houenou said the growth showed consumers moving away from black-market marijuana purchases and toward legally purchased cannabis. But the overwhelming share of that growth — fully 84% of it — happened in the latter three quarters of 2023.

“The significant growth in sales year over year is an indication of the strong potential of New Jersey’s cannabis market,” Jeff Brown, the commission’s executive director, said in a statement. “We anticipate that as even more dispensaries open across the state, new brands are introduced to the market, and cannabis becomes less stigmatized, sales numbers will continue to go up.”

Some cannabis boosters suggested the slowdown was a result of regular business cadence and shifting seasonal demand. Scott Rudder, president of the New Jersey CannaBusiness Association, noted sales typically slow after holiday spending sprees and sales.

“Usually, you see a slower first quarter and then it picks up, for our industry, around 4/20, which kicks into the spring and the summer, and then you kick into the fall with the holidays, so your second, third, and fourth quarters are usually your best quarters,” he said.

A spokesperson for the governor declined to comment and referred queries to the commission.

In a follow-up statement, Brown echoed Rudder, pointing to seasonal trends to explain the decline, also noting recreational sales reached a record high in March. Despite the slowing growth, the $201 million in recreational sales means the first quarter revenue was also record-setting.

“We see other signs of steady growth in New Jersey’s cannabis market, like the pace of new businesses in all the license classes coming into operation,” Brown said. “We believe in the long-term potential of the recreational cannabis industry in New Jersey and remain committed to fostering a robust and equitable cannabis market.”

That revenue rounded out the first year of the state’s legal market, and it’s unclear to what degree the decrease represents a seasonal shift in demand and how much of it can be attributed to a climbdown from explosive growth seen amid the market standup.

None expect the market to reach the staggering 46.3% quarterly growth it enjoyed in the third quarter of 2022, when the market was still only months old, and quarterly growth hovered at or near 10% for all of 2023.

Others pointed to New Jersey’s persistently high cannabis prices to explain the flagging growth, noting prices here are among the nation’s highest.

“The slow growth in the adult-use sales and the diminishing sales on the medical side are no surprise because the prices on the regulated side continue to be, quite frankly, hyper-inflated compared the other states or the legacy market right here in New Jersey,” said Chris Goldstein, a regional organizer for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws in New Jersey.

High prices leave New Jersey’s legal market at a competitive disadvantage with black market dealers and synthetic cannabinoids that occupy a legal gray area but have grown more popular since New Jersey legalized recreational marijuana, Johnson said, adding dispensaries had recently taken steps to reduce prices through sales discounts.

Sales in New Jersey’s recreational cannabis market have lagged behind those in some other states with comparably young markets.

Recreational sales in New Jersey totaled $475.3 million in the market’s first 12 months of operation, soaring to $730.8 million in the second full year.

By comparison, Missouri reported more than $1.1 billion in revenue from its first year of recreational sales, and recreational sales in Maryland totaled $512 million over the market’s first nine months.

Both states have roughly two-thirds of New Jersey’s population.

“Missouri did $108.7 million in rec sales alone in March of this year. I think that, given their population versus New Jersey, we have a lot of work to do to figure out why our market is so far behind,” Johnson said.

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Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen speaks to the Economic Club of Chicago luncheon on Jan. 25, 2024, in Chicago, Illinois. Yellen used the address to highlight the state of the U.S. economy. (Scott Olson | Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Internal Revenue Service saw a successful tax filing season, providing high levels of customer service, enforcing collection from the wealthy and launching a free filing option for taxpayers, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told tax writers on Capitol Hill Tuesday.

The agency “met or exceeded” goals for the filing season and “successfully” piloted IRS Direct File — the first time the government has provided a free public option for eligible taxpayers to file federal returns directly to the IRS, Yellen said.

“The modernization of the Internal Revenue Service, made possible by the (Inflation Reduction Act) and discretionary appropriations, has enabled us to combat tax evasion by the wealthiest Americans that costs our country over $150 billion a year. And it’s made it easier for taxpayers to file their taxes and get the credits they’re owed,” Yellen told the House Committee on Ways and Means.

Just over 140,800 taxpayers in a dozen states filed returns that were successfully accepted via the IRS Direct File pilot program, according to the agency. The completed returns were just a fraction of the 19 million taxpayers whose tax situations qualified them for the program.

The agency launched IRS Direct File, which was open to earners with simple W-2 income and limited deductions and credits, in early March and closed it April 21.

Roughly 3.3 million people checked their eligibility for the program, and 423,450 actually logged in, according to the agency.

The states leading in returns filed included California with 33,328, Texas with 29,099, Florida with 20,840, New York with 14,144 and Washington with 13,954. Exact figures for other states in the pilot program were not provided by the IRS, but they included Arizona, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee and Wyoming.

The agency’s survey of more than 11,000 Direct File users found that 90% of respondents ranked the experience on both the platform and with customer service as “excellent” or “above average.”

The IRS has not yet announced whether it will continue or expand the pilot program next year.

Opposition and state filing

IRS Direct File faced fierce opposition from Republicans who warned the program would steal business from the tax preparation industry.

Chief also among the critics were state officials who said that states could lose revenue because taxpayers would be confused about also filing state returns — something they’re automatically prompted to do with a tax preparer or commercial tax prep software.

But supporters of free public tax filing are pointing to a “seamless” experience for Direct File users in Arizona and New York, who were able to import data from their federal to state return and file both for free.

The nonprofit Code for America built FileYourStateTaxes, a separate tool that integrated the processes.

Upon finishing their federal return with IRS Direct File, taxpayers in Arizona and New York — two of the pilot program states — were led straight to FileYourStateTaxes, where they could create an account and transfer the data onto their state return with one click, according to the nonprofit.

“Folks who have raised the question of ‘How will state filing work in Direct File?’ — it was a valid question to be raising. I think we’ve shown here that there’s a really good answer,” said Gabriel Zucker, the nonprofit’s interim director for tax policy and partnerships.

Code for America reported follow-up survey results Tuesday that showed 96% of the tool’s users were “very satisfied” or “satisfied,” while 95% found the data transfer “seamless and quick.”

The nonprofit reported that 90% of people in Arizona and New York who used IRS Direct File went on to use FileYourStateTaxes, and 98% of those returns were accepted.

Code for America did not provide the exact number of filers in either state.

Several states included in the IRS Direct File pilot do not collect state income taxes.

Other state governments already offer free public electronic filing for state income tax returns, including California and Massachusetts.

Fight over Trump tax breaks

Yellen’s testimony before U.S. House tax writers occurred against the backdrop of a looming tax fight in Congress as a Trump-era tax law nears its expiration at the end of 2025.

President Joe Biden told the North America’s Building Trades Unions last week that the 2017 law will be “expired and dead forever if I’m reelected.”

Biden and former President Donald Trump are debating their dueling tax policies as the 2024 presidential election nears.

Trump continues to vow he would raise tariffs, to more than 10%, on imports from China and Mexico. Economists have warned the increase will amount to a tax on American consumers, but Trump denies that charge.

Biden has repeatedly promised to not raise taxes on anyone making less than $400,000, to expand the child tax credit and to institute a minimum tax for billionaires.

Biden and Democrats authorized an additional $80 billion to modernize the IRS in 2022’s so-called Inflation Reduction Act, including $15 million earmarked for the agency to explore creating Direct File.

Defunding the IRS became a rallying cry for Republicans after the funding was approved.

The GOP clawed back $20 billion of the funding in a budget deal with Democrats less than two years later.

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(Getty stock photo)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Labor Tuesday announced a final rule that means millions of salaried workers who are employed in the executive, administrative or professional industries will become eligible for overtime pay.

The rule will affect roughly 4 million workers in the first year of implementation and will be broken into two checkpoints. The first will be on July 1, with an impact on 1 million workers, and another on Jan. 1, 2025, affecting 3 million workers, Wage and Hour Division Administrator Jessica Looman said on a call with reporters previewing the regulation.

On July 1, the agency will update standard salary levels using an existing methodology developed under the Trump administration, Looman said. The salary level at which salaried employees are exempt from overtime will rise at that point from $684 per week to $844 per week, which is the equivalent of $43,888 per year.

On Jan. 1, the agency will move to a new methodology that will set the standard salary level to the 35th percentile of “full-time salaried workers in the lowest-wage census region, which is the South,” Looman said.

That will result in an exempt salary level of $1,128 per week, or the equivalent of $58,656 per year.

“The strength of these protections continues to decline over time, and sometimes workers are working excessive hours with no additional pay,” Looman said, adding that some workers are exempt from protections under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

President Joe Biden, in a video, said, “We’re putting more money in the pockets of millions of American workers. Because you earned it.”

The Department of Labor has typically updated the salary requirement levels every five to nine years since 1938, but after 1975, those updates have been more unpredictable. Salary levels have not been updated in at least four years.

Solicitor of Labor Seema Nanda said on the call with reporters that DOL has tried to “strike the right balance between the salary level and the duties,” and that “striking the wrong balance means that lower-paid salary workers don’t get the overtime protections that they should under the act.”

Future updates to the salary level will occur every three years, and will apply “up-to-date wage data to the salary and compensation methodologies in the regulation at the time of the update,” Looman said.

The next update will take place on July 1, 2027.

The Labor Department included exemptions to the new standards, including in U.S. territories.

“The final rule does not finalize proposals to raise the salary threshold for workers in the four U.S. territories that are currently subjected to the federal minimum wage, which are Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands,” Looman said. “The rule also doesn’t finalize updates to the special salary levels for American Samoa and the motion picture industry in relation to the new standard salary level.”

DOL will address those updates in a future final rule, she said.

“The final rule announced today restores and extends overtime protections to lower paid salary workers and prevents a future erosion of overtime protections while ensuring greater predictability,” Looman said.

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