“We need to remember where we started fiscally before the pandemic chaos, because that’s exactly where we’ll end up when it’s over,” he said. O’Scanlon said in a statement. “Except that the hole will be deeper, the debt our children owe will be even greater and the path to true solvency may be even more insurmountable.”
In November, the state borrowed $ 4.29 billion to cover its operating costs, a move that Republicans have tried unsuccessfully to stop, citing the burden it would place on future generations of taxpayers. The government is not expected to start paying interest on the debt during the financial year covered by the proposed budget.
James W. Hughes, the former dean of Rutgers University’s Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, said the state’s decision at the time to turn to loans made sense.
“It’s so overused, but whatever the term is – unprecedented, unprecedented waters – five, six months ago, it was true,” Hughes said.
“In the summer, we were still not sure if the dismissal could take place if we followed a conventional recession,” he added.
During the peak of the pandemic, when most businesses closed to slow down the spread of the virus, 831,000 residents lost their jobs. This was twice the number of jobs created in the past ten years, said Mr. Hughes remarked.
“If it’s not scary,” he said, “I don’t know what kind of measure is scary.”
Since then, the state has found about 58 percent of the jobs, but an estimated 350,000 residents remain unemployed.