New Jersey needs rent and mortgage flexibility to survive the pandemic | Opinion – The Philadelphia Inquirer

South Jersey, in particular, needs the help. The economic shutdown resulting from the pandemic has hit our region hardest of any in the state, because we are less well off than North Jersey. Before the pandemic, approximately 20% of households in Atlantic, Cumberland, and Salem counties had an income of under $25,000. This was true of fewer than 10% of households in the North Jersey counties of Hunterdon, Morris, Somerset, and Sussex.