NJBIA announced on Wednesday the release of its 2025 Blueprint for a Competitive New Jersey, a 28-page policy document that offers elected officials and candidates a guide for how to drive innovation and prosperity in New Jersey and provides a roadmap to get there.

Republican Jack Ciattarelli and Democrat Mikie Sherrill were given copies of the 2025 Blueprint by NJBIA President & CEO Michele Siekerka during NJBIA’s “Meet the Gubernatorial Candidates” event in Somerset, attended by nearly 400 people on Tuesday night. The Blueprint will also be provided to every New Jersey legislator, including all candidates for 80 Assembly seats open in the Nov. 4 General Election.

Go here to view NJBIA's “2025 Blueprint for a Competitive New Jersey” online.

“The goal of this Blueprint is to ensure New Jersey’s next governor, and all elected officials, understand the value job creators bring to critical policy discussions and the economic return on investment that support for the business community provides,” Siekerka said.

“Putting business at the center will create a competitive climate that allows entrepreneurs and job creators to invent, innovate, and be a catalyst for progress,” Siekerka added. “When businesses can create good jobs, they also help to increase household income and provide economic security and opportunities for employees and their families.”

The 2025 Blueprint discusses current challenges facing New Jersey and offers solutions organized by policy areas that include: budget and cost-saving reforms; consumer affairs, legal and insurance issues; education and workforce development; employment and labor issues; energy; the environment; healthcare and life sciences; manufacturing and innovation; taxation and economic development; and transportation and infrastructure.

Although the Blueprint offers more than 65 solutions to New Jersey’s various challenges, some are overarching recommendations that would deliver even more impactful results.

CREATE A DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE & INNOVATION. The Blueprint recommends a new cabinet-level commissioner to coordinate all business and economic development strategies to better attract and retain businesses so they can continue to grow and innovate in New Jersey.

“This should include the creation of a state master economic plan, so we better formulate a job-creation plan and properly work and fund that plan," the Blueprint states (page 25). “It should also include the creation of a centralized state grant effort and pool of money to match grants to better capture federal dollars.”

The proposed commissioner would lead a new Department of Commerce & Innovation to rectify the 27-year leadership void created when the old Department of Commerce and Economic Development was abolished in 1998 and its responsibilities were dispersed among various state commissions and state agencies.

REGULATORY REFORM. Another recommendation that transcends multiple state departments is the need to reform New Jersey’s many costly, duplicative and burdensome regulations that drive up the cost of doing business in this state.

“Elected officials must also recognize that while some state regulations are essential for safety and fairness, overregulation and excessive mandates are a drag on business productivity, innovation, and growth that discourages startups and induces New Jersey job creators to expand or relocate in more pro-business states,” Siekerka said.

“We can find a balance that protects public interests without stifling economic growth, jeopardizing jobs, and making our great state a constant outlier,” she said.

TAXATION. Taxes are another area where New Jersey is a national outlier and several of the Blueprint’s many recommendations address this specifically (page 25) by calling for:

• A multi-year phasedown of New Jersey’s top 11.5% Corporation Business Tax rate, which includes a 9% top rate coupled with a 2.5% surcharge, known as the Corporate Transit Fee, that is levied on the state’s largest companies.

• Indexing the state tax brackets, as most states and the federal government already do, to avoid the hidden tax increases that come from inflation every year when wages increase, but the tax brackets are not adjusted upward.

• Allowing state income tax deductions for charitable giving, as most states and the federal government already do, to incentivize donations to New Jersey nonprofits, which employ nearly 10% of New Jersey’s private-sector workforce.

LABOR. Outlier labor mandates also put New Jersey job creators at a competitive disadvantage. New Jersey’s rules often go significantly beyond federal standards and that creates additional costs and compliance uncertainty and legal risk. The Blueprint makes recommendations (page 15) to create a more predictable business environment, consolidate labor-reporting requirements, and take a more balanced approach that reflects the realities of modern work while protecting against worker misclassification.

EDUCATION & WORKFORCE. The Blueprint also calls upon New Jersey elected officials and other state leaders to prioritize workforce development strategies, education and postsecondary partnerships that provide a pipeline of talented employees with the in-demand skills employers need. A series of recommendations addressing the affordable childcare shortage, K-12 and postsecondary initiatives, and workforce development can be found on pages 12 and 13.

BUDGET. In the area of state budgeting and cost-controls, the Blueprint notes New Jersey spends too much and often does so without the proper transparency for its taxpayers, especially at the end of the budget process in June. The result is opaque decision-making that leads to spending that is excessive or misaligned with state goals. Recommendations on the budget process, shared services, and public employee healthcare reforms to make coverage more affordable for the state’s taxpayers can be found on page 7.

CONSUMER AFFAIRS, LEGAL, INSURANCE. The Blueprint urges elected officials to commit to creating a business-friendly regulatory environment. New Jersey is notoriously known for its consumer, legal, and regulatory burdens that cause delays in processing permits and professional licenses, and results in high insurance costs, and an overly litigious environment – all of which cost businesses time and money. The Blueprint recommends a series of strategic investments and reforms to regain business and consumer confidence (page 9).

ENERGY. The Blueprint urges state leaders to adopt an energy policy that prioritizes reliability and affordability instead of the myopic pursuit of “green mandates” and unattainable time frames for reducing carbon emissions. The Blueprint makes a series of recommendations for improving grid capacity and lowering costs (page 17) and emphasizes a more balanced energy policy that includes solar and wind, along with other more traditional energies, such as gas and nuclear power. Electric vehicle mandates that remove consumer choice by outlawing new gas-powered vehicles should be abolished.

ENVIRONMENT. The Blueprint makes recommendations (page 19) for simplifying the regulatory process while still maintaining environmental standards. These include exploring permitting programs that can be implemented by the private sector or through local government agencies, regulatory reforms to ensure environmental rules are consistent with legislative intent, the adoption of advanced recycling and revisiting overly burdensome environmental justice rules to make them more practical.

HEALTHCARE & LIFE SCIENCES. The Blueprint makes a series of recommendations that would support and incentivize innovation, research and development in the healthcare and pharmaceutical sectors (page 21). These include more options for employers to address healthcare affordability concerns; support for programs that incentivize innovation and research and development in the healthcare and pharmaceutical sectors; and creating state, education and industry partnerships to build pipelines for healthcare industry occupations experiencing worker shortages.

MANUFACTURING & INNOVATION. The Blueprint’s recommendations include developing robust tax incentives for manufacturing and innovation, reducing regulatory burdens on small and medium-sized manufacturing companies, providing a permanent state budget line-item or another permanent funding stream for the NJ Manufacturing Extension Program (NJMEP), expanding career and technical STEM education and enhancing business-higher education partnerships, among other initiatives (page 23).

TRANSPORTATION & INFRASTRUCTURE. The Blueprint urges the next governor to ensure the revenues from the Corporation Transit Fee levied on job creators are not diverted from their intended purpose of revamping NJ TRANSIT.  The Blueprint also recommends providing more mass transit options for South Jersey, leveraging private carriers for efficiencies and synergies, and prioritizing investments in broadband, utilities and state IT (page 27).

***

NJBIA’s 2025 Blueprint for a Competitive New Jersey was authored by its Government Affairs team and Siekerka, edited by Communications Manager Joanne Degnan and designed by New Jersey Business Magazine Creative Director Mike Sanchez.