New Jersey Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill still has a few months to be sworn in, but she’s now making stops across the Garden State.
Wednesday’s stop brought her to Pitman, Gloucester County, to talk with small business owners about how to grow New Jersey’s small businesses.
“The margins on small businesses can be tough,” Sherrill said. “Hiring can sometimes be tough. The tariffs are making it really difficult for a lot of people.”
Several business owners in Gloucester County said tariffs and rising costs are a concern.
President Trump has touted the tariffs as a way to cut into the United States’ trade deficit and promote U.S. goods.
But Joe Fultano at Endgrain Coffee Roasters says at one point prices for coffee beans nearly doubled.
“There’s a 40% tariff on Brazil right now,” he said. “And Brazil is the largest producer of arabica in the world.”
Around the corner at Words Matter Bookstore, owner Keryl Hausmann says there are some products she’s just no longer bringing in.
“It impacts because I can’t afford the tariffs, so I’m trying to avoid that as much as I can,” she said.
Neither Haussman nor Fultano said they’ve had to raise prices just yet, but they admit that time could be coming.
Sherrill said she plans to join lawsuits against the Trump administration’s tariffs to have them reversed. Another concern Fultano raised was rising utility costs.
“Over the summer, our electricity bill had gone up pretty significantly,” Fultano said.
Sherrill has long touted a plan to declare an emergency and freeze rate hikes on the first day she takes office, which is something Fultano said he backs. But a big plan comes for people looking to start a business.
Sherrill recounted a story of meeting someone who wanted to open a restaurant and had to apply for permits multiple times.
“I think the third time she finally got it through, but this was eight months later,” Sherrill said. “The whole time she had been paying rent.”
A January WalletHub study ranked New Jersey the third worst state to start a business.
Sherrill said her plan involves moving these processes online and cutting through red tape to save people time and money.
“I’m going to make sure that it’s clear to people, that it’s accountable, that you have a lot of this online so you can see exactly where your permit is in the process, and I can see as governor where the holdups are, so I can take care of that,” Sherill said.
