Murphy’s administration has yet to provide updated, detailed economic forecasts since the start of the public health crisis that tell just how bad the drubbing will be. But state Treasurer Elizabeth Muoio this week said national economic projections suggest New Jersey will lose more than $3 billion toward its $38.7 billion budget for the current fiscal year — with deeper losses looming for 2021. Just how bad will it get?
“The second quarter is going to be terrible. As bad as anything we’ve ever seen," said Charles Steindel, the Treasury Department’s chief economist from 2010 to 2014. "It’s a question of what happens after. How quickly we recover. And the answer is we don’t know.”