“We simply cannot expect a robust recovery and return to in-person work to be successful while workers needed in New York City are being penalized simply for going to their jobs,” Sen. Joe Lagana, D-38th District said. “New Jersey is not New York’s piggy bank.”

Under the proposal, the NJEDA would allocate $120 million for microbusinesses, $20 million for bars and restaurants, $10 million for child care facilities, $25 million for new businesses and start-ups, $10 million for the “Sustain and Serve” program which pays restaurants to prepare meals for residents in need, and $50 million in other business grants.

For the week ending May 1, a total of 14,073 new claims were received as compared to 12,322 filed the week prior, the DOL said. Nationally, unemployment trended down, with 498,000 claims filed for the week ending May 1, a decrease of 92,000 from the previous week.

The initiative enables early-stage technology and life sciences companies to sell their New Jersey net operating losses and unused research and development tax credits to unrelated profitable corporations for cash.

A number of immediate steps are going into effect May 7, ahead of the much broader reopenings which take effect on May 19. Gov. Phil Murphy states the current pace of the state’s vaccination efforts, and the downward trend in the virus, all justify these reopening measures.

“We want to get New Jersey on the right track to a new normal and to do that we need to ensure that all New Jerseyans who want to receive the COVID-19 [vaccination] have access to it,” reads a statement from the sponsor of the legislation, Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle, D-37th District.

"There is no doubt business people want to bring human interaction back to the workplace, so you can say that Gov. Murphy's lifting of restrictions has come at the right time,” said Tom Bracken, the organization's president and chief executive officer.

A new Monmouth University Poll shows 73% of New Jerseyans support the governor's recent policies regarding a return for outdoor businesses and gatherings, and 60% for indoor businesses.

The proposal, which has bipartisan support, would create an 11-member commission to look at how other states send aid to universities and the needs of institutes of higher education in New Jersey, and develop further legislation based on its recommendations.

Companies are turning their attention toward a duo of Biden-era COVID-relief programs: one for restaurants and another for theaters and other live performance venues.

As the governor gears up for a reelection campaign against the presumptive Republican nominee, former state Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli, a Monmouth University Poll found that 43% of respondents felt that someone else should be in the office.

The directive made it easier for companies like Uber and Lyft to classify workers as independent contractors, and made it more difficult for workers at app-based companies to be counted as employees under federal law, exempting them from minimum wage and overtime laws.