In New Jersey, between 2019-2021:
- Food insecurity in New Jersey averaged 8.3%.
- New Jersey’s food insecurity rate was 20% lower than the national average of 10.4%.
- The poverty rate in New Jersey in 2021 (using the Supplemental Poverty Measure) was 8.1%, which was 0.3 percentage points higher than the national average of 7.8%.
- New Jersey’s poverty rate is high compared to the rest of the nation in large part because of the high cost of housing. Four in 10 low-income people in Maryland are homeless or pay over half their income for rent.
- SNAP, alone, lifted 155,000 people above the poverty line in New Jersey, including 70,000 children, per year between 2013 and 2017, on average.
