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New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy signed bipartisan legislation creating a $500 million tax credit program for manufacturing businesses in a bid to expand in-state manufacturing and spur job creation, with a focus on clean energy industries.
Murphy signed the bill last Thursday at Mac Products, a family-owned manufacturing business in Kearny that makes electrical distribution and transmission products. The governor, a Democrat, said the tax credit program, to be administered by the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, is designed to position the state as a manufacturing leader.
“With the most skilled workforce in the world, we have a unique opportunity to not only make our businesses more competitive today, but to prepare them to lead their respective industries for decades to come,” Murphy said.
The new initiative will award tax credits to eligible businesses in industries such as advanced manufacturing, nonretail food and beverage, defense, clean energy and life sciences.
State Sen. Mike Testa (R-Cumberland), one of the bill’s chief sponsors, called the measure an example of government working on a “nonpartisan basis.” Testa referred to a sign he has in his office that replicates the famous “Trenton makes — the world takes” slogan seen on the Lower Trenton Bridge.
“This bill will go a long way to making sure that means something once again and remains meaning something 50, 60, 75 years to come,” he said.
For the first two years, $100 million in tax credits will be reserved for clean energy product manufacturers in solar, geothermal, and green hydrogen. Unused funds from that allocation will later be shifted to general manufacturing projects.
Tim Sullivan, CEO of the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, said the program is designed to reward companies that meet their commitments to invest in New Jersey.
“If you promise you’re going to do something, and you do it, you get the tax credits. If you don’t, you don’t get the tax credits,” Sullivan said.
Funding for the tax credits will come from reallocating money from the state’s existing Aspire and Emerge tax incentive programs, not from new spending, Murphy noted. Those two programs are expected to issue $6.6 billion in tax credits over their lives.
Business groups support the move.
“This law represents a significant and targeted investment for New Jersey’s manufacturing sector and our economy, with no new additional funding required,” New Jersey Business & Industry Association President and CEO Michele Siekerka said in a statement. “It will support much-needed workforce development in manufacturing amid both federal tariff and supply chain uncertainty that challenges these important businesses.”
New Jersey Monitor provides fair and tough reporting on the issues affecting New Jersey.
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