New Study Finds South Jersey Not Receiving Fair Share Of State Funds On Various Fronts
by KYW's David Madden
CAMDEN, NJ (CBS) -- Many people in South Jersey have insisted for a long time that the state of New Jersey has short changed the region when it comes to sharing the wealth.
Now a new study out of Rutgers-Camden suggests they just might have a point.
It took a year for Assistant Political Science Professor Shauna Shames to reach her conclusions, based on county budgets and money coming from Trenton. She concedes South Jersey has fewer people who make less. But even with those factors considered, South Jersey is not getting its fair share.
"There's lots of reasons for them to feel that way," Shames told KYW Newsradio. "But one of them, which s that there is something of an unfair distribution of public goods, that does happen to be true over and above these explanations."
The study looked at efforts to aid transportation, education and public health and found decided advantages in Central and Northern New Jersey.
Why is this happening?
"I don't at all think that this is people sitting in Trenton plotting against South Jersey," Shames insists, although she does believes politics, in large part, has allowed this disparity to evolve over time.
And with this data now available, she says those in power can help to change not just the perception, but the reality.
