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Does the lack of growth in housing supply inhibit future job growth by pricing out
potential workers? This report examines the relationship between housing production and job growth in New Jersey and finds:

• New Jersey’s housing shortage may be stifling economic growth and making it difficult for workers to live near jobs.
• In a healthy economy, job growth tends to move in tandem with population and housing growth. New residents need jobs, and new employees need homes. If progress on one component of the ratio stalls out, the other component will tend to follow suit.
• There are multiple signs that New Jersey’s housing shortage is limiting its population and household growth. By failing to make enough new housing options available and affordable to the next generation of residents, who are also the next generation of employees, New Jersey may be compromising its economic future in addition to its demographic future.
• The sustained dropoff in housing production in New Jersey in the wake of the Great Recession should raise serious questions about how much economic growth the state may have forfeited as a result.
• The rest of the New York metro region is building even less housing than New Jersey, leaving northern and central New Jersey to try to satisfy not only their own home-grown demand but also the displaced demand from people being priced out of the rest of the metro area.

Overall, by failing to make new housing options available and affordable to the next generation of workers, New Jersey may be hindering job growth and jeopardizing its economic and demographic future. Read the full report to learn more.