Taxpayers interested in public employee pensions can now calculate the exact value of those pensions for specific cases, and even see how much a private-sector worker would have to save in an annuity to get the same benefit. The tool is available on CalculateYourPublicPension.com, a project of the Manhattan...

Mark ‘Jay’ Williams Economics Fellow While educators have been working to bring about technology in the classroom through the use of devices such as smart boards and interactive learning, the assessment of all that learning is often put into the same paper-based grade-books that were used when most...

Every year, New Jerseyans get to vote directly on one and only one spending plan – their local school budget. Research developed by the Common Sense Institute of New Jersey details how voters are confused, overpromised and outright misled before they walk into the voting booth. Years of legislative...

The Common Sense Institute of New Jersey announced the launch of www.NJOpenGov.org, a state government transparency website that will bring more data and greater analytical capability to New Jersey citizens. While Institute scholars will use the data to study historical trends, the openness of the information...

By Kenneth Artz The Heartland Institute New Jersey residents near the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station are unhappy with plans to close the nation’s oldest nuclear power plant in 2019, some 10 years earlier than planned. The plant is located in the Forked River section of Lacey Township in Ocean...

Paul V. Tyahla Executive Director Introduction Many in the legislature and public have shown an interest in New Jersey Policy Perspective (NJPP) research and an op-ed, purporting to demonstrate that New Jersey is not the nation’s highest-taxed state. The NJPP research, using Census data on governments,...

On June 23, the New Jersey General Assembly gave final legislative approval to a package of public employee pension and health benefit reforms designed to bring the pension system closer to solvency, and reduce the state’s unsustainable burden for health insurance. The measure will now be sent to Governor...