Unemployment claims continue to improve as state officials begin to slowly roll back business restrictions and ramp up the vaccine efforts. Data released Feb. 25 by the federal and state labor departments showed there were 10,041 or 10,776 unemployment claims for the week ending Feb. 20.

The 20-members will be charged with building a roadmap for transitioning the workforce into high-quality, family-sustaining clean energy jobs that will provide opportunities for all New Jerseyans.

The Economic Development Authority says it expects to provide $14 million to keep restaurants afloat hit hard by COVID-19 restrictions, reduced capacity, and overall consumer anxiety about the pandemic.

Just when Gov. Phil Murphy will further roll back restrictions on indoor dining remains up in the air thanks to a sluggish vaccine effort and unknowns with the presence of new COVID-19 variants.

The administration is hedging its bets that tax revenue will be buoyed by a robust economic recovery come next year.

Money from parking fees, dining and housing, conferences and events, and athletics has all evaporated because of bans on large gatherings, shifts to remote working and virtual learning, and widespread physical distancing has kept the majority of students and university staff off-campus. 

Gov. Phil Murphy’s $45 billion spending plan calls for $6.4 billion in payments to the pension system, the full amount actuarially recommended for the state, and the first time it would be allocated for in full since 1996.

With the state’s coffers flush with cash and avoiding some of the dire financial straits that state officials predicted a year ago as the pandemic began to take hold, the governor presented a spending plan without proposed tax or fee increases.

The governor's plan does not raise the cost of rides. Instead, the statewide commuter agency will rely on raids from its capital project funds and a clean energy fund.

State officials estimate 760,000 New Jersey families could benefit from the new break which stems from an agreement on the millionaire’s tax brokered last summer by Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, D-19th District.

The governor wants to give $50 million more toward a “Main Street recovery” financing program to help mom and pop shops. Administration officials expect a litany of other programs to start having an impact on the state’s finances as soon as the 2022 fiscal year begins.

Revenue for the near future will comprise mainly of licensing fees for an industry that is facing a myriad of hurdles in building facilities and growing industrial quantities of product.