Public Administration Blogs & Reports
Ensuring Access to Nature and Outdoor Recreation: Advancing Health Equity for People with Disabilities
By Jeanne Herb. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 21% of New Jersey adults have some type of disability. CDC reports that people with disabilities are disproportionately affected by chronic diseases [...]
How Did the 2018 Revision of New Jersey’s School Aid Formula Impact the Distribution of State Funding Across New Jersey School Districts?
By Michael S. Hayes, Ph.D. The School Reform Funding Act of 2008 (SRFA) was designed to create a new school funding formula to end a long cycle of failed legislative attempts to reduce school spending [...]
Report Release: Garden State Open Data Index
By Jim Samuel. Open data and artificial intelligence (AI) are vital for future value creation. The value of aligning open data with AI development and deployment requirements has been elaborated upon in the Garden State Open Data Index (GSODI) 2023 report [...]
Perkins Act: A Key Component to Bringing Everyone into the Digital Age
By Abigail Alcala. The Perkins Act, or its most recent iteration, which went into effect in 2019, called Strengthening Career and Technical Education in the 21st Century, is facing the end of its run in the coming year of 2024 [...]
Utilizing Technology to Facilitate Citizen-Government Interactions
by Mauricio Astudillo Rodas Public organizations are expected to improve people's lives by correctly delivering goods and services. These organizations must be transparent and accountable to different actors because constituents expect good use of their [...]
APPAM Fall 2022 Conference: SNAP Administrative Burdens Presentation
By Stephanie Walsh In the context of governmental services, administrative burdens refer to the costs and barriers experienced by individuals. When burdens are high, the costs associated with benefit of public goods or services hinder [...]
Heat or Eat? The Low-Income Home Energy Distribution Program (LIHEAP) and Its Implications for New Jersey
By Josephine O'Grady. The Low-Income Home Energy Assistance program (LIHEAP) is a federal block grant program that assists low-income families with the cost of paying their utility bills in areas including extreme heat and cold, household revisions to improve energy efficiency [...]
Advancing Municipal Environmental Justice in New Jersey
By Jeanne Herb. Over the past year, the New Jersey State Policy Lab has provided support to a collaborative effort of the Rutgers University Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy and the New Jersey Department of Environmental protection [...]
What Influences Differences in New Jersey’s Municipal Tax Rates?
by Michael Lahr, Tia Azzi, and Maia de la Calle, Rutgers Economic Advisory Service It is vital for New Jersey policymakers to understand what affects municipal tax rates. In this brief, we analyze local government [...]
Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Poverty Rates in New Jersey, 2010-2020
by Maia de la Calle, Rutgers Economic Advisory Service (R/ECON™) To gain a clear understanding of racial and ethnic disparities related to poverty, it is most important to focus on the poverty rate rather than [...]
Perspectives on Poverty in New Jersey, 2008-2020
Maia de la Calle, Rutgers Economic Advisory Service (R/ECON™) The impact of the pandemic on poverty and inequality continues to be studied at a global and national scale.[1],[2] Although the U.S. Census data have yet [...]
State Equity Initiatives
by Marilyn Rubin Government actions have the potential to make a substantial and lasting impact on equity for all residents. One of government’s most powerful levers for advancing equity is its budget, “the medium through [...]
Advancing Municipal Environmental Justice Action Planning
By Rachel Brown For more than 50 years, community leaders and researchers have been drawing attention to disproportionate environmental burden and health disparities in low-income and communities of color. Here in New Jersey and as [...]
Population Density and New Jersey’s Two Largest Racial/Ethnic Minority Groups in 2020
Tia Azzi and Michael Lahr, Rutgers Economic Advisory Service (R/Econ™) Introduction This is the third brief that reports data on New Jersey from the 2020 decennial census. The first presents a summary dataset that R/Econ™ [...]
U.S. Census Bureau Classification of Arab Populations
by Tia Azzi, Rutgers Economic Advisory Service (R/Econ™) Introduction to the Arab Community Ethnic identity can be a complex topic, and one that is challenging to adequately capture in national surveys. The Middle East and [...]
Digital Services and Administrative Burdens
By Jessica Cruz and Vishal Trehan Why isn’t the participation rate for the government’s welfare programs at 100%? Why do only 82% of those eligible under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) receive benefits? Given [...]
Adjustments to Municipal and County Population Counts in New Jersey for 2020
by Tia Azzi and Michael Lahr, Rutgers Economic Advisory Service (R/Econ™) According to the latest Census count, New Jersey's population peaked above nine million for the first time in 2020. More precisely, it had [...]
From Emergency to Routine: Evaluating the Implementation of Technology for Government after COVID-19
Leonor Camarena, PhD and Federica Fusi, PhD New Jersey was one of the first states to recognize the significance that technological advancements can have on the workforce and larger community. In October 2018, Governor Murphy [...]
Release of “Evaluating Evaluations” Report
Tracy P. Glova The New Jersey State Policy Lab today issued a report on evidence-based policymaking and program evaluation in New Jersey. “Evaluating Evaluations: Analyzing Evidence‐Based Policymaking in New Jersey and Insights from other Leading [...]
A Multi-Decennial Census Data Set for NJ, 2010 and 2020 (and More): A New Jersey State Policy Lab Offering
Maia de la Calle and Michael L. Lahr, Rutgers Economic Advisory Service (R/Econ™) The New Jersey State Policy Lab started operating when some of the first local-level data were released from the 2020 Census. It, [...]
Predictive Algorithms in the Public Sector
Vishal Trehan Some scholars, looking broadly at the impact of information and communications technologies (ICTs) on public administration, have argued that the use of ICT has led to structural changes in some public agencies, with [...]
Equity in Government Budgeting
Marilyn Rubin Opening the core routines of budgeting to include an equity dimension can make government more responsive to all its residents and can provide a pathway to a more equitable society. In this project, [...]
Lessons from the Pandemic for Public Policy and Mental Health Resilience
Joel C. Cantor, Carl Van Horn, James Walkup, Dawne Mouzon, and Michael Yedidia Concern about mental health in the COVID-19 pandemic has been appropriately high. A recent review of a vast and diverse literature on [...]
The Challenges Associated with Making “Good” Public Policy
Stuart Shapiro The New Jersey State Policy Lab is dedicated to improving public policy through careful analysis of data and program evaluation. As many of our first projects near their conclusion though it is important [...]
Evidence-Based Policymaking on the Federal Level
Jennifer Spiegel 12-06-21 “Evidence-based policymaking” seems to be all the rage with think tanks, lawmakers, and governmental agencies, but what does it mean, really? Evidence-based policymaking uses the best available research and data to target [...]
How States Can Improve Unemployment Insurance during the Pandemic
Jennifer Spiegel The COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting economic downturn has brought about record job losses and the highest number of new unemployment claims since 1982. In mid-March 2020, new unemployment claims nationwide totaled [...]
US Treasury Department Provides Coronavirus Relief Grants to State & Local Government
Jennifer Spiegel To help Americans recover from the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress has authorized the U.S. Treasury Department to set up coronavirus relief grants to state and local governments for economic [...]
Applying an Equitable Lens to Evidence-Based Research
Jennifer Spiegel Over the past few years, a heightened awareness of the importance of racial equity and justice has permeated the political conversation. American institutions, businesses, and communities are taking a closer look at [...]
Promoting Equity Through State Budgets
Marilyn Rubin One of the most powerful levers that governments have to advancing equity for all residents is their budgets, “the medium through which [flows] the essential life of support systems of public policy” (Wildavsky [...]