MORRISTOWN, N.J. – As if a short holiday shopping season wasn’t enough to spook economists, the New Jersey economy is already limping into November according to Dr. Charles Steindel, a former Chief Economist of New Jersey currently based at Ramapo College.

“The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) today announced that New Jersey’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP)—a measure of the aggregate output of all goods and services produced within the state—grew at a meager 0.7% annual rate in the second quarter of 2019. New Jersey’s growth ranked a dismal 48th across the 50 states; only Maine and Hawaii were lower,” Steindel explained in his analysis released on Thursday for Garden State Initiative (GSI). “In the region, New Jersey trailed New York (1.7%), Pennsylvania (1.7%) and Delaware (1.8%) whose economies grew at more than double the rate of New Jersey’s. The only nearby state with second quarter growth in the vicinity of ours was Connecticut, which grew at a 1.0% annual rate.”

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“The second quarter performance sustains a weak trend. Over the last 4 quarters, the state’s economy, by this measure, grew only 1.3%, ranking us 37th (if DC was included in the ranks of states, we would drop by one place, putting us 49th for the second quarter growth rate and 38th over the four quarters). In this instance, though, some other states close to us were also low—we edged out Delaware and Maryland, and New York, at 1.7%, was only modestly higher (the Mideast regional average was also 1.7%. To round out the area, DC was up 1.9% and Pennsylvania grew 2.1%),” Steindel added.

New Jersey’s systemic weakness runs contrary to that of the nation of the whole.

Click here for his full analysis.

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