State payrolls

The states loaded, 2025

78,236

New Jersey employees

On the State's payroll in 2025's fourth-quarter release, the whole year.

$77,701

Median pay

Year-to-date pay for 2025, over the 77,410 paid.

$6.3 billion

Total payroll

$6,271,741,796

Everything the State paid its employees in 2025.

$413.0 million

Overtime

$412,978,405

Paid to 25,868 employees in 2025.

What stands out

Six findings. From New Jersey's YourMoney Agency Payroll, whole years only, each one a row from a query.

• New Jersey's state agencies had 78,236 people on the payroll in 2025, 12.8% fewer than the 89,687 in 2010. Headcount →

  A person is counted once a year, in the fourth-quarter release, whatever part of the year they were paid for.

• The State paid them $6.3 billion in 2025, against $5.1 billion in 2010, in each year's dollars. Total pay →

  Not adjusted for inflation.

• Overtime came to $413.0 million in 2025, 6.6% of all pay, against $201.2 million (4.0%) in 2010. Overtime →

• 24,964 of the 78,236 were paid $100,000 or more in 2025, 31.9%; in 2010 it was 6,398, 7.1%. $100,000 or more →

• Law and Public Safety paid the most of any department in 2025: $823.7 million to 8,415 employees. Judiciary had the most employees, 10,452. Law and Public Safety →

• Median pay was $77,701 in 2025, against $55,802 in 2010. Median pay →

  Over the 77,410 people with pay above zero in 2025, and the 89,176 in 2010, in each year's dollars.

New Jersey’s state payroll, a whole year at a time

Every state loaded

A state’s payroll file covers what that state publishes, and no two cover the same things, so this table lists each state’s own figures and does not rank one against another.

New Jersey’s year is a calendar year; Minnesota’s is its fiscal year, July to June. Each state counts its employees its own way, set out on its own page.

Not published: Oklahoma publishes pay by agency and type, without names.

Not counted: Connecticut's file counts pay records, not people.

Rankings

• Highest-paid New Jersey state employees
• New Jersey state employees paid the most overtime
• New Jersey state departments by employees
• New Jersey state departments by total pay

Analysis

Each brief is prose written around values a query returned. Every figure in one is re-checked against its query before it can merge, so a number in the text cannot drift from the data behind it.

• One in three of New Jersey's state employees is paid $100,000 or more

  In 2025, New Jersey paid 24,964 of the 78,236 employees on its state payroll $100,000 or more: 31.9%, about one in three. In 2010, the first whole year the State's Treasury publishes, it paid 6,398 of 89,687 that much: 7.1%, about one in 14. The dollars in this brief are each year's own, as the State published them, and are not adjusted for inflation.

  Kian O'Connor · October 8, 2026