Report Release: Equity Initiatives in the United States
The New Jersey State government proactively advances equity through its Office of Equity in the Office of the Governor, and through budget initiatives such as the “Cover all Kids” program ensuring that the state’s children receive access to quality health care coverage. However, the state’s executive branch departments are not required to specifically account for equity in their annual performance reports that, according to the Governor’s Performance Center, “track the operations and performance of each department of state government, with a particular focus on effectiveness, efficiency, timeliness and service quality” (State of N.J. Governor’s Performance Center n.d.). Incorporating equity measures into department/agency performance assessment would be a critical step in ensuring that equity efforts are ingrained in the ongoing routines of government and would help to ensure that public dollars do not fund programs, projects or policies that exacerbate inequities.
The initial objective of our project was to make recommendations as to how New Jersey’s government can advance equity for its residents through the incorporation into the annual performance assessments of the State’s departments/agencies. It was intended that our recommendations would reflect how other state governments are using equity measures as part of department/agency performance assessment protocols. We did not, however, identify any specific legislation in the other states requiring agencies to include equity as a performance indicator. Given this absence, we expanded our research to identify what other efforts have been taken by the states to advance equity.
We specifically looked at whether these efforts have been evidenced by actions undertaken by legislatures, and/or by governors, and/or by agencies, themselves. Our research focused on equity efforts undertaken by the states from 2020 to 2024. Changes made by the states in response to actions taken by the Federal government since the beginning of 2025 are not included in this report.