New Jersey’s interpretation of a U.S. Department of Education rule, which went into effect on March 11 and makes it harder for employers to consider workers independent contractors, is threatening the way that Jewish New Jerseyans stay informed about what is going on in their community and, more broadly, in the nation and the world.
For nearly 200 years, those who deliver newspapers—a cornerstone of U.S. democracy—have operated as independent contractors. But New Jersey’s interpretation of the Biden administration’s new rule, which has a six-part test to determine employment status, treats part-time delivery people as full-time staff who are dependent on their employer, rather than in business for themselves.
The change presents “a crisis” for newspapers in the state “that threatens the existence of some and substantial job losses at others,” Richard Vezza, government affairs chairman of the New Jersey Press Association and former The Star-Ledger editor and publisher, wrote in an op-ed.
Under the new regulations, papers in the state have to make difficult decisions, including whether to increase subscription prices, lay off staff or both. “We’ve estimated the increased cost to be between 86% to 128%—a crushing financial blow,” Vezza wrote.
New York, California and other states brought legislation to define whether workers like Uber drivers are independent contractors, although many work 40 hours or more weekly. Both also carved out exceptions for newspaper delivery services. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, and his Labor Department have not pursued such exceptions.
Moshe Kinderlehrer, the co-founder and co-publisher of the New Jersey Jewish Link, told JNS that his weekly, which serves the growing Jewish communities in and around Bergen County, faces an additional challenge. The Jewish Link, which does not sell subscriptions, delivers the paper to readers for free.
That leaves little to no room for Kinderlehrer to pass the added costs, which he noted are substantial, along to others, threatening the paper’s longevity.
In 2022, he received a call from the lobbying head of the association of New Jersey publishers, informing him about the state’s interpretation of the new federal rule. “I was horrified by what I was being told,” he told JNS.
“What they told me was my rate would go from, let’s say, 50 cents per copy to close to 80 cents a copy,” Kinderlehrer said. “I want you to understand that’s not a small number. I’m delivering 10,000 papers. At 50 cents a copy, that’s $5,000 a week. At 80 cents a copy, that’s huge. That’s crushing.” (JNS sought comment from the New Jersey governor’s office, the president of the state Senate and the state’s Labor Department.)
Although Kinderlehrer told JNS that he is running a profitable paper, “I’m not printing money,” he said.
‘How do I get it to people?’
Kinderlehrer started the Jewish Link of Bergen County in 2013. Having seen that the steadily growing Jewish population in the Five Towns in southwestern Nassau County, N.Y., could support three weekly Jewish papers, he figured Bergen County could handle one.
“The question was, how in the world do I get it to people?” he told JNS. “I came out of the fundraising world, and I had been collecting for years every single shul and school address list that I could get my hands on.”
Kinderlehrer didn’t think the Five Towns method of dropping papers in stores and synagogues would work in Bergen County, where that culture didn’t yet exist. So he contracted with a company called PCF, which until the early 1980s served as the circulation department for The New York Times.
The Times spun PCF off into its own department so it could handle other publications as well, and the company went national, with a vast portfolio in the northeast part of the country.
When he first opened the paper, Kinderlehrer was delivering about 5,000 copies per week, at a charge of 35 cents per paper.
Since then, the publication has grown; it now has more than 20,000 copies printed per week, which are sent off to some 10,000 addresses at a delivery cost of about 50 to 55 cents per copy, which Kinderlehrer pays.
His advertisers are drawn to the idea of a free newspaper, which is readily available to anyone who wants a copy. He estimates that the paper is about evenly split between news and paid content.
There was hope in 2022 when legislation introduced in the state Senate sought to carve out an exception to the gig economy laws for newspaper delivery companies. But the legislation died in committee.
‘Not so happy with the numbers’
Kinderleher told JNS that he is treating 2024 as a test under the new rules.
“I want to see if I could still survive and make a profit with the crazy-high home delivery costs right now. I’m not so happy with the numbers, and I’m going to have to make changes for 2025,” he said. “I’m under threat of having to completely revamp my distribution.”
That includes potentially placing paper boxes on every busy corner that he can in his distribution area.
“I’m looking at almost every possible way to do this. I also think about starting my own home delivery company, which I really don’t want to do,” he said. “I didn’t get into this business to do home delivery.”