Study says New Jersey is a bad state to retire in

There are many reasons to love living in New Jersey but affordability isn’t one of them, and that’s what pushes New Jersey toward the bottom of the list of the best states to retire.

The survey was conducted by Wallet Hub to determine what the best states are to retire in, and New Jersey ranks second to last. The good news is that we moved up a spot this year; we were dead last in last year’s rankings.

As you might expect, affordability is what really does New Jersey in; we rank 49th in that category, with only New York being more expensive.

To arrive at their numbers, they looked at 47 metrics across three broad categories. The first category is Affordability, which includes things like cost of living, tax friendliness in income and estate settings, and cost of in-home health care and adult day care.

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The second category is Quality of Life, considering things like risk of social isolation, labor friendliness for seniors, public transportation, museums, weather, violent crime, and miles of shoreline.

Finally, they measured Health Care; metrics that were studied include the number of family physicians, dentists per capita, nurses per capita, number of geriatricians, life expectancy, and others.

So, how did New Jersey do in those three categories? I already mentioned that we were second to last in Affordability; for Quality of Life, New Jersey ranks 34th. That seems to be way too low considering all there is to do here, plus we are really low for property crime. For Health Care, we are 22nd. Although there seems to be plenty of hospitals in the state.

All that results in a ranking of 49th; only Kentucky is worse.

The best state to retire is Virginia, followed by Florida, Colorado, and Wyoming.

The 30 worst rated schools in New Jersey

Here are the 30 lowest-rated schools statewide, based on their 2021-2022 New Jersey School Performance Reports — involving scores for language arts, math and attendance. (For an explanation of how the state calculates the "accountability indicator scores" and overall rating for each school, see page 90 of this reference guide.)

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Bill Doyle only.

You can now listen to Deminski & Doyle — On Demand! Hear New Jersey’s favorite afternoon radio show any day of the week. Download the Deminski & Doyle show wherever you get podcasts, on our free app, or listen right now.

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How much your school district gets under Murphy's proposed 2024 budget

Gov. Phil Murphy's porposed 2024 budget includes $1 billion in new spending for school funding including pre-K funding, pension and benefits, and an additional $832 million in K-12 aid, which is listed below by county and district.

Weird things NJ taxes - and some they don't

In general, New Jersey assesses a 6.625% Sales Tax on sales of most tangible personal property, specified digital products, and certain services unless specifically exempt under New Jersey law.

However, the way the sales tax is applied in New Jersey sometimes just doesn't make sense.

New Jersey puts out an itemized list for retailers that spells out what is, and what is not, taxed.

Perhaps because this is New Jersey, there are some bizarre and seemingly contradictory listings.

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