Under his administration, Governor Murphy and the Legislature have significantly grown New Jersey’s economy by making smart investments in New Jersey workers and families, improving affordability, and restoring fiscal responsibility to the State, creating a nation-leading number of new jobs and businesses.

Economic Growth

GDP Growth

• Under Governor Murphy’s leadership, New Jersey has more than doubled its real GDP growth rate compared to the Christie Administration, which has resulted in a total GDP increase of 7.4% compared to when the Governor took office.

Employment

• Under the Murphy Administration, New Jersey has created 196,000 total jobs since January 2018. In the 10 years prior to the Murphy Administration, employment grew at only 0.2% annually, adding only a net 72,400 jobs.

• In 2023, New Jersey was ranked by CNBC as the most improved state for business, climbing 23 places in America’s Top States for Business rankings to 19th in 2022. This past year NJ saw the fastest job growth of any state in the Northeast and outpaced the national average. Under the Christie Administration, NJ was ranked last in the Northeast and near last (42nd) in the nation for job creation.

Small Business Growth and other New Businesses

• Since 2018, NJ small businesses have increased by over 40,000 or 19%– making New Jersey a top five state for small business growth in the Northeast, despite a global pandemic.

• New Jersey saw a 34% increase in monthly high propensity business applications since 2018 and ranked 3rd among select peer states for growth among businesses with high potential for hiring employees and making payroll. 

Wage Growth

• From 2007-2017, New Jersey ranked 49th in wage growth with growth at near zero, while during the Murphy Administration, real median wage growth has been 4%.

New Industries

• Governor Murphy has stood up new, job-intensive industries, including film and offshore wind. In 2022, New Jersey shattered film and digital media production records – injecting over $650,000,000 and estimated 8,500 jobs into the economy. The offshore wind industry will create tens of thousands of new jobs and billions of dollars of investment over the next 10 years. The investments and awarded projects to-date will create 12,300 new jobs.

Fiscal Responsibility

Budgetary Surplus

• Under the Murphy Administration, the average budget surplus has been more than $6.2 billion, with the FY2024 surplus exceeding 15% of appropriations. The average surplus under the Christie Administration was about $627 million, with the largest surplus only 2.75% of appropriations.

Debt

• The State has been upgraded by the credit rating agencies (Moody’s, S&P, etc.) seven times during the current administration, compared to 11 consecutive credit rating downgrades under Governor Christie.

• Governor Murphy has deposited $9.25 billion into a Debt Defeasance and Prevention Fund, which has been used to both pay off debt and avoid new debt. The biggest avoidance allocations have been made available to support school construction projects ($1.9 billion), and funding for Transportation-related projects (almost $1.3 billion).

• The State has paid off a total of $4.7 billion in State debt. Nothing on this scale has ever been implemented in NJ and the effort has directly led to the ratings upgrades the State has received.

• Due to prudent use of pay-go funds, careful management, and the defeasance program, the outstanding principal amount of State-backed bonds declined to its lowest level in a decade in FY2023.

Pensions

• The Murphy Administration has contributed $32.6 billion to the pension system in six years, compared to $8.8 billion by the Christie administration in eight years, making the Murphy Administration’s current pension contributions $23.8 billion more, or four times as much, as the Christie Administration’s total.