Food System Economy
Please Note: For each figure, the data is displayed at the scale that is available from public sources. You may wish to see something at the county scale, instead of city, for example. However, it's likely that it is only available for the municipal level. For most of the maps, you can zoom in our out to get more or less geographic specificity.
State of NJ
New Jersey Food System Employment & Wages
These tables display number employed and wage information for people working in various sectors of the food system, as estimated by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Food system workers play a critical role in growing, sourcing, processing, or getting food to it's end destination and to our plates, and represent a large number of the employed population. However, many of these jobs are low paying jobs that offer limited or no employee benefits like health insurance or a consistent schedule. Across all occupations in NJ, the median hourly wage is $26.38, and according to the MIT living wage calculator (https://livingwage.mit.edu/states/34), an individual working full time in NJ would need to make $24.76/hour to support just themselves (they would need to earn more if supporting children or a spouse). One can see that the vast majority of food system workers make below this amount.
Data Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, 2022 Annual Averages by Industry