I live in the South, so I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t understand this primal urge that lives within so many people to bash the state of New Jersey. The frequency of this has always surprised me, too. I write a lighthearted post last month, for example, about a map of what people feel like are the most overrated cities in every state in the US, the kind of thing that can make for some entertaining disputes. There were some predictable and interesting choices across the country, and then you got to the city that respondents to this project decided is the most overrated in the Garden State. Answer: All of them. “They’re all garbage,” is how the entry on this map reads. I’ll never understand it — but, having said that, here’s one instance where I bet some of you may for the first time look at folks who live in New Jersey and actually feel a twinge of jealousy: They’re about to get a new stimulus check that you, unfortunately, won’t be getting.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and state lawmakers reached an accord over a $319 million state financial package back in the fall, one of the consequences of which means that a little less than 1 million New Jersey residents are going to be getting a $500 rebate payment that will, for all intents and purposes, feel like a new stimulus check for those taxpayers.
This stemmed from a push by state leaders to pass a so-called millionaire’s tax, which imposes a 10.75% marginal tax rate on $1 million in taxable income — and, as part of Murphy’s proposed budget, he’s also included the $500 rebate checks. Lawmakers there will vote on the budget in the coming weeks, but it’s expected to sail through to a quick approval. About the proposed budget, New Jersey state treasurer Elizabeth Maher Muoio said that it “gives us the tools we need to help New Jerseyans meet the challenges of this pandemic, while still providing the resources necessary to better protect the state during these fiscally unprecedented and volatile times.”
There’s a July 1 deadline for state lawmakers to approve the budget, and once that’s done the rebate checks are expected to start being distributed between July 1 and July 31.
This is one way that political leaders who want to see more stimulus payments circulating in the US can get around the lack of a push thus far by the White House for a fourth wave of stimulus checks on the national level. As we noted here, just because the federal government — which previously sent out three stimulus checks, generally for $1,200, $600, and $1,400, though some people received more and some people got less than those amounts — might not be sending out more payments, that doesn’t mean those same payments can’t come from other sources. For example? The states can, and some already are, stepping into the gap. They included California, Maryland, and soon New Jersey.
In terms of who will receive one of the rebates, married couples in New Jersey who have income below $150,000, as well as at least one dependent child, qualify for the payment. Individuals with no more than $75,000 in income, as well as at least 1 dependent child, also qualify.
