“We are making use of resources to address this need by helping homeowners and renters with direct financial assistance,” Senate President Nick Scutari said. “Extending the deadline will give our residents a greater ability to take advantage of a program that will help make their lives more affordable.”

According to the governor, the centerpiece program from the state's Fiscal Year 2023 budget is "a historic step toward making New Jersey a more affordable state” and will assist over 1 million homeowners and 900,000 renters in its first year.

Garden State companies reeling from the effects of the pandemic and other economic turmoil say they still need more assistance.

The governor's original ANCHOR budget proposal called for distributing $900 million to nearly 1.8 million homeowners and renters across the state. Now, those figures have been upped to $2 billion for 2 million New Jerseyans.

The new initiative would distribute $900 million in relief to nearly 1.8 million homeowners and renters across the state.

The governor used much of his budget address – his first in-person speech at the statehouse in two years – to list economic successes he attributed to his administration’s policies. The address also put property tax relief at the center of the governor’s agenda and seemed designed to reassure residents and businesses that Murphy had taken to heart concerns about affordability.

The proposal from the governor's office would provide assistance for 1.5 million of the former and 600,000 of the latter, and comes as several Senate Republican lawmakers say they plan to introduce a bill to provide automatic, refundable tax credits to anyone that earned less than $500,000 last year.