Gov. Christie

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, right, has repeatedly called New Jersey's highest-in-the-land property taxes "the road to ruin." Back on October 13, Christie and Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback stopped for Frozen Custard while campaigning in Wichita, Kan. The conservative Republican Brownback was nearly ousted over his aggressive tax-cutting experiment, but Christie's Republican Governors Association contributed $5 million in television ads to help reelect him last week.

(Jaime Green)

WOODBRIDGE — Half of all New Jersey residents say they want to eventually leave the state, and more than a quarter of them say their future departure is "very likely," according to a new Monmouth University poll.

By comparison, only 45 percent of current residents say they’d like to live out their lives in the Garden State, numbers that continue to reflect a seven-year trend.

Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, said the survey found the state’s high cost of living is the driving factor, adding, “the chief culprit among these costs is the New Jersey’s property tax burden.”

Most New Jerseyans already know the Garden State levies the highest property tax rates in the nation, collecting nearly $3,000 per capita in property taxes, amounting to more than 5 and a half percent of a typical American’s personal income — both the highest figures in the nation.

But what might be surprising is just how disproportionately high New Jersey’s property taxes are compared to the rest of America’s: According the Tax Policy Center, a non-partisan, joint venture of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, 79 percent of American homeowners paid less than $1,750 in property taxes annually. Only 3 percent of paid more than $4,000, and miniscule share of homeowners — just 0.2 percent — pay more than $8,000.

Yet in New Jersey, more than a third of the state’s 21 counties — Bergen, Essex, Hunterdon, Morris, Passaic, and Somerset — the average property tax bill was in excess of $8,000.

Earlier this summer, Gov. Chris Christie signed into law a bill that aimed to reducing property taxes by restoring a 2 percent annual limit on the amount third-party arbitrators can award police and firefighters in raises and other forms of compensation.

More than 60 percent of residents surveyed in the Monmouth poll said that it’s at the least “somewhat likely” they’ll eventually move out-of-state.

Among those who said they were “somewhat likely” to relocate, over half (54 percent) cited high costs or taxes as their primary motive: 24 percent blamed property taxes as the main reason, while 6 percent cited “other taxes,” and 5 percent named “housing costs” and 19 percent “the cost of living in general.”

New Jersey's taxes on fuel are among the nation's lowest, but the state's general sales tax of 7 percent is tied with Rhode Island for second highest in the nation.

The median price of homes currently listed is $295,000 in New Jersey, according to Zillow.com. Home values have gone up 7 percent over the past year and Zillow is forecasting that they will rise another 1.8 percent within the next year. Meanwhile, the median residential rent paid in New Jersey is $1,850.

Of those “somewhat likely” to leave, 12 percent said that jobs or other economic opportunities are the main reason they are likely to leave New Jersey, where the unemployment rate is 6.6 percent, compared with 5.9 percent nationally, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The more you earn, the more likely you are to flee, the poll found: Almost 1 in 3 people (31 percent) who earned over $100,000 a year say they are “very likely” to leave the state at some point. By comparison, only 1 in 4 people who earned less than $100,000 (23 percent) said as much. The ratio was almost for those who earned $50,000 or less (24 percent).

When it comes to how well prepared residents are for retirement, New Jersey ranks near the bottom nationwide, but those still in the workforce (30 percent) were much more apt than those who are retired (9 percent) to say they are “very likely” to move out.

Among those who are likely to leave the state, half said they will do so before they retire while 40 percent plan to move after they retire.

Claude Brodesser-Akner may be reached at cbrodesser@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @claudebrodesser. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.

MORE POLITICS