Statement from N.J Chamber President and CEO Tom Bracken on Today’s State of the State Address

The New Jersey Chamber of Commerce applauds Gov. Phil Murphy for all his administration has been doing to prepare the New Jersey economy for 2023 and beyond – and we endorse his pro-New Jersey message. The state has a lot to be proud of and we have not leveraged those positives as much as we should. Today’s optimistic message will hopefully begin to reverse that.

We appreciate that he highlighted in his State of the State the importance of improving transportation infrastructure, protecting tourism, preparing students for the workforce, growing the middle-class, and focusing on new industries that have the potential to create tens of thousands of jobs, such as offshore wind, cannabis and film and television production. We also thank the Murphy Administration for two recently signed pro-business initiatives that the Chamber supported and we hope it is the start of more to come.

We agree with Gov. Murphy that we want new industries to call New Jersey home, but the ones already here need assistance.

In these uncertain economic times featuring rising inflation, soaring energy costs, supply chain issues, the difficulty of finding and keeping workers and the fear of a recession, our state’s existing businesses – especially small ones – need more assistance.

The governor highlighted progress but he also recognized challenges facing the business community, a message the Chamber has been pressing for quite some time. Our hope is that he will address the challenges we have been highlighting because providing more assistance will make what has been accomplished even stronger.