| Overview | Health and Nutrition |
State policies that promote health, education, and strong families can help the early development and school readiness of America's youngest citizens. This profile highlights New Jersey's policy choices alongside other contextual data related to the well-being of young children.
State Highlights1
New Jersey has allocated $3.6 billion of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds towards tax credits to strengthen economic supports for families with young children by providing additional state tax credits. These include expansion of the partially-refundable Child Tax Credit to families making at least $3,000 annually; the state Earned Income Tax Credit for working families with at least three children; and the partially-refundable Making Work Pay $400 credit for each employed adult in the house. In addition to tax credits, New Jersey has passed legislation allowing families on TANF to receive all of their current child support payments without reducing their TANF cash assistance. The state also allocated $34 million dollars to provide additional child care subsidies for low-income working families and increased pre-kindergarten funding by 10 percent ($52.3 million), for a total of $596.1 million and a total of over 51,000 children served, an increase of approximately 2,034 children.
- Young children (under age 6)2: 647,689
| Health and Nutrition |
Data Notes and Sources
Last Updated: December 4, 2009
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- State Highlights are drawn from states' government and organization websites and reports. For more information, contact ITO@nccp.org.
- State data were calculated from the Annual Social and Economic Supplement (the March supplement) of the Current Population Survey from 2007, 2008, and 2009, representing information from calendar years 2006, 2007, and 2008. NCCP averaged three years of data because of small sample sizes in less populated states. The national data were calculated from the 2009 data, representing information from the previous calendar year.
- National and state data were calculated from the 2008 American Community Survey.