TRENTON — Though New Jersey is often cited as one of the wealthiest states in the nation, nearly a third of its residents lived in poverty in 2012, according to a new report that aims to redefine what it means to be poor in the state.

The annual survey by Legal Services of New Jersey, an organization based in Edison that gives free legal help to low-income residents in civil cases, found that 2.7 million of the state's 8.6 million residents struggled to meet basic needs as the country continued to recover from the national recession two years ago. That's nearly identical to the total for 2011, which showed poverty in New Jersey reaching a 52-year high.

The number is nearly three times larger than the official mark calculated under the U.S. Census Bureau’s federal poverty level, which shows about 11 percent — or 934,000 — residents were considered poor in 2012.

Using Legal Services’ formula, the poverty rate for a family of four — with two adults and two preschool-aged children — should be $73,371. The federal poverty rate, which doesn’t take into account the age of children in a family, is $22,811.

Legal Services said the goal of its survey is to show that the federal government’s definition of poverty is flawed, and grossly underestimates the number of New Jerseyans who battle to provide for food, clothing, shelter, transportation, and child care.

The report defines poverty in the state as being 2½ times larger than the federal threshold, partly because the cost of living in New Jersey is among the highest in the country.

“There needs to be a realistic understanding in New Jersey of the true extent of deprivation in the state,” Legal Services President Melville D. Miller Jr. said. “The confusion or lack of understanding comes from the almost exclusive reliance on the federal poverty level as an official definition of poverty. There’s a lot of people out there struggling and hurting because they just don’t have enough.”

The report also found:

• About 39 percent of children in New Jersey, 28 percent of adults ages 18 to 64, and 34 percent of those over 55 were living in poverty under the formula.

• Hispanics or Latinos experienced the highest poverty rate in the state: about 55 percent. Black people were second, with about 47 percent.

• The county with the highest poverty rate was Essex at 44.2 percent, followed by Hudson (40 percent) and Passaic (40.6).

COST OF LIVING ADDS TO THE PROBLEM

New Jersey’s numbers mirror a national trend. According to federal poverty levels, 15 percent of the U.S. — or 46.5 million residents — lived in poverty two years ago, the highest percentage since 1993.

Experts say part of the issue in New Jersey has been the consistently high unemployment rate. The state’s unemployment rate fell to 6.6 percent in June — down from 8.4 last year. But it’s still higher than the U.S. rate of 6.1 percent and the state’s rate of 4.6 percent at the beginning of the recession in December 2007.

But experts add that the cost of living compounds the problem. A report in March showed New Jersey is the fifth most expensive in the nation among the 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. The survey found a family must earn $51,838 a year to afford the market average rent of $1,296 for a two-bedroom apartment.

SUBURBAN POVERTY

Adele LaTourette, director of the New Jersey Anti-Hunger Coalition, said the issue is so great that food pantries across the state are seeing more and more people from suburban areas.

“It’s a huge problem, and it’s not getting any better,” LaTourette said. “We see clients that are having to pay rent that you just don’t see in other areas. Housing is a huge portion of their monthly nut. And if there’s one thing people can try and cut back on, it’s food.”

The federal poverty level was created in 1963 and primarily focuses on the cost of food. The Census Bureau says its numbers are not adjusted for geographical differences but are updated to account for inflation.

“They are intended for use as a statistical yardstick, not as a complete description of what people and families need to live,” the bureau says on its website.

But critics say the formula is a “one-size-fits-all approach” that doesn’t account for the fact that someone living in one part of the country pays much more for shelter than someone living in another.

“To know the federal government has the same standard whether you live in New Jersey or Arkansas is ludicrous,” said Cecilia Zalkind, president of Advocates for Children of New Jersey.

WHO IS POOR ENOUGH TO GET FEDERAL HELP?

Critics also fear that some people in the state may not qualify for aid programs like Medicaid that use the federal poverty level as a benchmark.

A spokesman for the Census Bureau stressed that public assistance programs are not required to use the federal poverty rate to determine whether a person or family is eligible for help. The bureau has developed a supplemental poverty measure to make the level more comprehensive, although it was not widely used.

The bureau will release its poverty numbers for 2013 next month.

Carl Van Horn, director of the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, said the debate over the federal threshold has raged for years. He noted that it doesn’t take into account the cost of inventions that didn’t exist in 1963, such as cable television, cellphones and the internet.

“There’s no such thing as a correct measure of poverty,” Van Horn said. “It’s very hard to come up with a number that everybody is going to agree with.”

But Van Horn said the benefit of the federal numbers is they show trends year to year. “If they started changing the definition, they wouldn’t have a constant measure of the same idea,” he said. “Even though it’s imperfect, it provides us with a picture over time of low-income people.”

Still, Legal Services says it hopes leaders in New Jersey will use its formula to address poverty in the state.

NEWARK WOMAN AMONG WORKING POOR

Miller cited the recent news story about Maria Fernandes, a 32-year-old Newark woman who worked four jobs and often rested only when she could sneak in naps in her car. Fernandes was found dead Monday after pulling into a Wawa convenience store in Elizabeth. Authorities said she may have died from inhaling fumes while leaving the car running.

“It’s a terrible story,” Miller said. “It’s an extreme example of all the people out there holding multiple jobs, trying to make ends meet.”

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