New Jersey launched a marketing campaign to convince New York companies to let employees who are Garden State residents to work from home — or out of satellite offices — so they can avoid commuting and forking over a new congestion-pricing toll.
The New Jersey Economic Development Authority on Tuesday said it started using billboards to notify New York employers that they could receive financial awards, as much $500,000, by allowing workers to forgo their trips across the Hudson River and not pay the criticized new $9 fee. The toll is levied on passenger vehicles accessing Manhattan below 60th Street in peak hours. The campaign will include taxi-top banners, social media ads, and transit posters.
New Jersey is encouraging New York companies to open up satellite locations in New Jersey or let employees work out of existing company locations in the Garden State, or from home, in lieu of not requiring workers to go into Manhattan. It seeks to raise the state's gross income tax withholdings by encouraging eligible businesses to re-assign out-of-state resident employees to New Jersey.
The toll on those venturing across the Hudson River into New York, the first of its kind in the nation, aims to relieve traffic congestion and pollution in the city and prompt people to use public transportation. It comes as remote working remains a point of debate across the country as more large companies have been requiring workers to spend more time in the office almost five years after the pandemic prompted widespread work at home measures in 2020.
“From the beginning, I vowed to fight congestion pricing, because New York should not balance its budget on the backs of New Jersey families,” New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said in a statement. “Back in 2023, I signed legislation establishing a grant program that would incentivize businesses in states like New York to reassign their New Jersey resident employees to work in our state. This would not only cut down on costs and travel time for commuters, but would keep their tax dollars in New Jersey. Our fight against congestion pricing isn’t over and we won’t allow another state to line its coffers with our hard-earned money.”
Murphy sent a letter to newly inaugurated President Donald Trump on Monday asking him to take a look at the congestion-pricing issue.
The Re-assigning In-State Employees Program, NJ RISE, is a $20 million pilot that will provide the grants to businesses who re-assign New Jersey residents working in another state — such as New York — to a New Jersey location.
"The program will allow employees to work closer to home, shortening their commute, and returning New Jerseyans’ tax dollars to the state," the EDA said.
The first billboards promoting NJ RISE to commuters went up Monday at the 39th Street entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel; on the West Side Highway at West 155th Street; and on the Cross Bronx Expressway, targeting vehicles heading towards Interstate 87/ Major Deegan Expressway or crossing over the George Washington Bridge into New Jersey. Additional billboards will follow in New York and Northern New Jersey.
The grant is equal to the amount of New Jersey gross income tax withholdings of the re-assigned resident employees in one tax year of the business, not to exceed $500,000 in the aggregate per business.