State Rating at Record Low

West Long Branch, N.J.  – In its regular tracking of residents’ satisfaction with life in New Jersey, the Monmouth University Poll  finds that positive opinion of the state as a place to live stands at a 35-year low of 55%.  This has caused the overall Garden State Quality of Life Index to drop to +18.  The decline could have been greater if the index was not buoyed by stable ratings from residents for their local communities.

Currently, just over half of New Jerseyans say the state is either an excellent (12%) or good (43%) place to call home, while 30% rate it as only fair and 15% as poor.  This 55% positive rating is down from 63% just a few months ago.  It also marks an all-time low since this question has been asked in New Jersey opinion polls going back to 1980.  The prior bottom point was 57% in August 2011.

Monmouth’s Garden State Quality of Life Index score now stands at +18, down from +23 in February.  Half of the index score comes from residents’ overall rating of the state as a place to live.  The score would have declined more if not for the fact that local community evaluations comprising the other half of the index remained stable.  Specifically, positive evaluations of one’s hometown as a place to live held steady at 71% compared to 72% in February.  Positive evaluations of local public schools stand at 60%, which is basically the same as the 61% positive rating recorded earlier this year.  Evaluations of local environmental quality have remained steady at 71% positive, compared to 72% in February.  Perceptions of personal safety have actually increased.  Currently, 67% of Garden State residents say they feel very safe in their own neighborhood at night, which is up from 62% who said the same in February.

“New Jerseyans still like their towns and their neighbors.  They’re just having a hard time with the state as a whole,” said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute.

The Garden State Quality of Life Index score dropped less among adults age 18 to 34 (+25 from +26) than it did among those age 35 to 54 (+11 from +18) and age 55 and older (+20 from +28).  It also declined more in urban areas (-2 from +11) than it did in stable towns (+28 from +30) and growing suburbs (+23 from +27).  Regionally, the Garden State Quality of Life Index dropped by 9 or 10 points in North Jersey, the Jersey Shore, and rural counties in the state.  It only dropped by 2 or 3 points in Central Jersey.  The index actually went up by 6 points in the Delaware Valley counties.

The Garden State Quality of Life Index was created by the Monmouth University Polling Institute to serve as a resident-based indicator of the quality of life offered by the state of New Jersey.  The index is based on five separate poll questions:  overall opinion of the state as a place to live – which contributes half the index score – and ratings of one’s hometown, the performance of local schools, the quality of the local environment, and feelings of safety in one’s own neighborhood.  The index can potentially range from -100 to +100.

The Monmouth University Poll  was conducted by telephone with 503 New Jersey adults from June 30 to July 1, 2015.  The total sample has a margin of error of ±  4.4 percent.  The poll was conducted by the Monmouth University Polling Institute in West Long Branch, N.J.

DATA TABLES

The questions referred to in this release are as follows:

(* Some rows may not add to 100% due to rounding.)

[QUESTIONS 3, 4 AND 5 WERE ROTATED]

 [Note:  All trend results prior to 2005 come from Rutgers University’s Eagleton Poll.]

The Monmouth University Poll was sponsored and conducted by the Monmouth University Polling Institute from June 30 to July 1, 2015 with a statewide random sample of 503 adult residents, including 377 contacted via live interview on a landline telephone and 126 via live interview on a cell phone, in English.  Monmouth is responsible for all aspects of the survey questionnaire design, data weighting and analysis.  Final sample is weighted for region, age, education, gender and race based on US Census information.  Data collection support provided by Braun Research (field) and SSI (RDD sample).  For results based on this sample, one can say with 95% confidence that the error attributable to sampling has a maximum margin of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points (unadjusted for sample design).  Sampling error can be larger for sub-groups (see table below).  In addition to sampling error, one should bear in mind that question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of opinion polls.

Click on pdf file link below for full methodology and results by key demographic groups.