July 30, 2015
Folks from Jersey love their hometown, but not their state.
A new poll from Monmouth University finds that only 55 percent of residents think that their state is a good place to live, the lowest rating ever since polls started asking the question in 1980.
However, people hold more positive feelings about their hometown. Seventy-one percent of respondents rated their hometown as excellent or good, and 60 percent gave high ratings to their local public schools.
Twelve percent of New Jerseyans call their state an excellent place to live, while 43 percent call it good. Thirty percent rate it as fair, and 15 percent rate it as poor.
"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 university's Polling Institute.
Murray told Newsworks, "I think there's an issue that statewide things are falling apart right now. We have roads and bridges that are not being taken care of. We have funding issues for a whole host of things. The jobs issue in the state is not getting better in a way that people feel comfortable with."
Read the entire poll here.
