About NJMEE
We are a coalition of non-profit, foundation, academic and government partners who wish to build a more fair and economically just society.
NJMEE (New Jersey Movement for Economic Equity) believes in strengthening a broader array of policies and institutions that can advance economic equity and opportunity for all.
Cash assistance alone cannot replace high-quality education, affordable housing, accessible public transit, and robust health insurance and medical systems. But what cash can do is directly alleviate and eliminate poverty and economic hardship.
The cycle of poverty can only be broken when individuals and households have the basic economic stability they need to obtain stable work, withstand financial shocks, and remove the unpredictability of life in poverty.
Ambassadors
Visionary leaders across the nation are supporting, testing and advocating for direct cash assistance policies. Join our New Jersey-based founders and become an ambassador yourself!
Mayor Baraka, a Newark native, has led progressive governance since 2014, achieving significant crime reduction, economic growth, and reclaiming local school control. Innovative initiatives like Hire. Buy. Live. Newark and LinkNWK have transformed the city’s economy and connectivity. Nationally recognized for urban revitalization efforts, he’s a thought leader in public safety reform and income inequality solutions. With educational roots in Newark Public Schools and degrees from Howard University and St. Peter’s University, Mayor Baraka is also a published author and respected figure in entertainment.
Kevin works directly with Mayor Baraka and his senior cabinet to leverage private and government assets to support the Mayor’s agenda in areas such as public safety, summer youth employment, workforce development, economic development, health and wellness, education and literacy, immigration, and neighborhood and place-based initiatives. Since 2019, Kevin has been instrumental in building the foundation for Newark’s Guaranteed Income Pilot through assembling the 30-person task force and exploring details about how to launch a Newark-specific pilot. Kevin also resides in Newark.
For too long, society has treated poverty as though it were inevitable, a fact of life that no amount of complex policies can fix. But this is not true. Poverty exists because people do not have enough money.
The solution to poverty exists: send people money, without preconditions or red tape. This is what pandemic-era programs like stimulus checks and the Child Tax Credit have demonstrated. And in a state of enormous wealth, it is a moral duty to ensure that poverty is eradicated once and for all.
Coalition
The following organizations are the first members of the coalition in support of our policy recommendations: New Jersey Citizen Action Education Fund, Newark Community Development Network, New Jersey Policy Perspective, New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, United Way of Greater Newark.
Partners
Our policy work would not be possible without the support of the Prudential Foundation, and the private our private funders: Victoria Foundation, Mayors for a Guaranteed Income, MCJ Amelior Foundation, Stadler Family Charitable Foundation, Inc., Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Partners
Our policy work would not be possible without the support of the Prudential Foundation, and the private our private funders: Victoria Foundation, Mayors for a Guaranteed Income, MCJ Amelior Foundation, Stadler Family Charitable Foundation, Inc., Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Acknowledgement
This website borrows from and was inspired by the policy paper: “New Jersey’s Path to Prosperity: Policy Lessons from Newark’s Guaranteed Income Experiment,” commissioned by the New Jersey Policy Perspective (NJPP) and the City of Newark. The report was written by Peter Chen, Senior Policy Analyst at NJPP.