By Wendy Greenberg

How can the community contribute to an inclusive, productive, and healthy New Jersey economy? Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs in New Jersey (SPIA in NJ) is partnering with several departments and community nonprofits to find out, with the goal of informing the public and identifying and addressing future challenges before the next election cycle.

The second of three sessions of the program New Jersey & The American Economy will be held on Tuesday, November 12 from 4:30 to 6 p.m. in Robertson Hall, Bowl 002.  Co-sponsors are Princeton University Department of African American Studies, Princeton Public Lectures, the Program for Research on Inequality, Labyrinth Books, and the Princeton Public Library.

Although the three-part program is held close to the 2024 election cycle, it is actually timed for the next one. “We timed this program very intentionally so that New Jerseyans could hear from policy scholars and analysts about some of the issues that polls show matter most to them,” said Anastasia Mann, founding director of SPIA in NJ. “We designed the structure to highlight where we have come from and where we are heading, from a tax and budget perspective, when it comes to issues like wages, access to housing, public safety, food security, immigration, climate, health care, and more.”

Next year, she noted, New Jersey voters will choose “not only the governor but the entire legislature out of an already very crowded field. That underscores the importance of an informed public.”

The title of this second of three programs is “Can We Fix It? Yes We Can: New and Effective Ideas to Promote a More Inclusive Productive and Healthy Economy for All.” The conversation will highlight new ideas such as a guaranteed basic income and child care for all, and discuss how the ideas can be implemented in New Jersey to boost the economy and help community members lead healthy, thriving lives.

Moderator Brandon McKoy, president of The Fund for New Jersey, touted New Jersey’s many unique characteristics,  and said, “When we think about the issues that face our great state, it is crucial that residents be more informed and engaged and empowered to tackle shared challenges, otherwise we will not be very successful. Whether it is climate change or housing affordability or reliable transportation, there are an array of things that we need to successfully deal with so that this state can continue to be a wonderful place for all of us.” He added that New Jersey has “accomplished a great deal in recent years and advanced policies that better center and support families, workers, and communities. We need to both celebrate those accomplishments and more proactively and inclusively identify and address the future challenges we face. “

Speakers for the November 12 program will include Natalie Foster, the president and founder of Economic Security Project, a senior fellow at the Aspen Institute Future of Work Initiative, and the author of The Guarantee: Inside the Fight For America’s Next Economy; Ilyana Kuziemko, the Theodore A. Wells ’29 Professor of Economics, co-director of the Griswold Center for Economic Policy Studies, and co-director of the Princeton Program in Public Finance at Princeton University, who served as assistant secretary for economic policy at the U.S. Department of the Treasury; and Nedia Morsy,  the deputy director at Make the Road New Jersey, a grassroots movement of immigrant and working-class people that provides legal support and services, adult education, and youth development programming. 

McKoy is an established leader in state policy analysis and advocacy in New Jersey and nationwide who spent more than seven years at New Jersey Policy Perspective in several roles before assuming leadership as NJPP’s president. In 2024, he became president of The Fund for New Jersey.

Mann said of the speaker roster, “Very intentionally, each program includes the perspective of a New Jersey-based analyst with policy expertise, a national-level expert, and a scholar who can help us understand the long-term implications for the nation.”

Part 1 of the series, held October 30, was titled, “New Jersey and the American Economy: What’s Needed for the Garden State to Lead a Thriving Country.”

Part 3 of the series, planned for November 20 from 4:30 to 6 p.m. at Robertson Hall, Bowl 001, is titled “Where Do We Go From Here: Pursuing Rights, Justice, and Love as Economic Goals for New Jersey and the Country,” and will address how we think about big ideas “in a broader and holistic understanding of our economy that meets the tangible needs of our communities, and how can New Jersey lead?”

Panelists will be Darrick Hamilton, the Henry Cohen Professor of Economics and Urban Policy, and founding director of the Institute on Race, Power, and Political Economy at The New School; and Ryan P. Haygood, president and CEO of the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice.

“Bringing together both local and national experts and advocates in conversation with community in this series to discuss our state, the issues that we need to tackle together, and how we can lead the country in doing so, is one small contribution that we can offer towards our broader goal of having an informed and engaged public,” said McKoy.

Registration for the remaining two sessions can be found at jrc.princeton.edu/events.