Brief
One in three of New Jersey's state employees is paid $100,000 or more
By Kian O'Connor
Published
Data retrieved
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.
31.9% of New Jersey state employees were paid $100,000 or more in 2025, against 7.1% in 2010
The share of everyone in New Jersey's fourth-quarter payroll release paid $100,000 or more in the calendar year, every whole year the State has published since 2010, in each year's own dollars.
Source: New Jersey’s YourMoney payroll
About this chart
The figures
| Year | Paid $100,000 or more | Employees paid $100,000 or more | Employees |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 7.1% | 6,398 | 89,687 |
| 2011 | 9.1% | 8,253 | 90,216 |
| 2012 | 9.9% | 8,714 | 88,062 |
| 2013 | 10.0% | 8,682 | 86,657 |
| 2014 | 11.0% | 9,202 | 83,615 |
| 2015 | 13.8% | 11,227 | 81,518 |
| 2016 | 12.3% | 9,887 | 80,245 |
| 2017 | 11.8% | 9,457 | 80,251 |
| 2018 | 14.9% | 11,922 | 79,903 |
| 2019 | 16.9% | 13,560 | 80,326 |
| 2020 | 16.5% | 12,712 | 77,273 |
| 2021 | 18.8% | 14,520 | 77,197 |
| 2022 | 22.9% | 17,602 | 76,732 |
| 2023 | 24.6% | 18,838 | 76,593 |
| 2024 | 29.6% | 23,212 | 78,390 |
| 2025 | 31.9% | 24,964 | 78,236 |
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Fewer employees, and more paid to each
The payroll grew smaller over the same years and its pay grew larger. The State's releases list 89,687 employees in 2010 and 78,236 in 2025. The median employee was paid $55,802 in 2010 and $77,701 in 2025. Everything the State paid them came to $5.1 billion in 2010 and $6.3 billion in 2025. The chart follows the share paid $100,000 or more through each of the 16 whole years.
Overtime
Overtime was 4.0% of all pay in 2010, $201.2 million, and 6.6% in 2025, $413.0 million. The department that paid the most of it was Corrections: $170.3 million in 2025, 41.2% of the State's overtime and 22.5% of the department's own pay of $755.2 million. Of its 6,795 employees, 5,137 were paid some overtime. The next largest, Health and Senior Services, paid $74.9 million.
What the record is, and what it is not
Each figure is year-to-date pay as the State published it in a fourth-quarter release, which covers a whole calendar year. It is what the State paid in the year, not a salary rate, and an employee who joined or left during the year has part of one. A department is the one the State printed on the employee's record at the end of the year. The file covers the State's own agencies, not its authorities, public universities, counties, towns or school districts. It records how much was paid and to how many; it does not record why the share paid $100,000 or more rose, and nothing here says why.
What this cannot show
- Every figure is year-to-date pay as the State published it in a fourth-quarter release, which is a whole calendar year. Pay is what the State paid in the year, not a salary rate, and a person who joined or left during the year has part of a year.
- The file covers the State's own agencies, not its authorities, public universities, counties, towns or school districts.
- Dollars are each year's own, as the State published them, and are not adjusted for inflation.
- A department is the one the State printed on the employee's record at the end of the year; pay from another department in the same year is in the employee's total.
Sources
- State of New Jersey — YourMoney Agency Payroll, New Jersey Department of the Treasury, Office of Management and Budget. The dataset states no license. The State of New Jersey's Legal Statement, Section F: "anyone may view, copy or distribute State information found here without obligation to the State, unless otherwise stated on particular material or information to which a restriction on free use may apply." Nothing on this dataset states such a restriction. Retrieved September 27, 2026.
Every figure above is the recorded result of a query checked into the repository alongside this text. Continuous integration re-runs those queries and refuses the change if a number here and a number there disagree. Read the methodology, or the datasets behind it.
Published by American Factbook LLC. An independent publication.