Philly is seeing positive trends on income and jobs, but intractable problems remain, ‘State of the City’ report says

Good things are happening in Philadelphia.

Some trends, such as rising median household income, yet another small increase in the percentage of residents with college degrees, and the lowest unemployment rate in 30 years are just a few of the bright spots, according to the Pew Charitable Trust’s latest “State of the City” report.

Still, some of these gains haven’t been felt equally across racial lines.

Despite the many positive economic indicators, the report also highlighted some of the seemingly intractable problems in the city, including a persistently high poverty rate, a high number of homicides in 2023, and a steadfast number of overdose deaths.

So is this status report a win for the self-described “Philly boosters” or do the city’s public health and safety concerns wipe out any gains?

Katie Martin, project director at Pew, did not take the bait. She prefers to say that Philadelphia is in a period of transition with a new mayor and City Council.

“This is an opportunity right now to build on the strengths in Philadelphia while making sure that these positive trends are felt by everybody in the city because you can see where those disparities are,” she said, adding it’s up to city leaders to make sure the positive trends are widespread.

In addition to identifying emerging and long-term trends in Philadelphia, the report offers a comparison against other major cities. Here are some of the takeaways.

The city’s unemployment rate in 2023 hit its lowest point since the 1930s. Impressive, sure, but Martin would like you to zoom out.

Historically, Philly’s unemployment rate has followed national and metro-area trends, but has been some percentage points higher. In 2022, however, the trend lines for Philadelphia, metro area, and U.S. unemployment started to converge.

Last year, Philadelphia recorded a 4.2% unemployment rate, only marginally higher than the metro area’s 3.7% and the U.S. average at 3.6%.

“We’re closing some of that gap,” Martin said.

Also working in the city’s favor is the continued growth of its college-educated workforce. The most recent batch of U.S. Census data shows 36% of Philadelphians over age 25 have a bachelor’s degree, continuing a decade-long increase, and keeping up with the national average. Martin said it’s particularly encouraging that young people are driving the trend and “building upon the economy that we have right now.” More than half of people ages 25 to 34 had a bachelor’s degree in 2022.

At the same time, the city had an average of 765,400 open jobs in 2023, a 40-year high. One bit of data that we’ll have to wait for, however, is what kind of jobs are available to residents. Martin said there’s a lot of noise in the data from the pandemic years.

Similarly encouraging is a rise in the median household income from $52,899 in 2021 to $56,517 in 2022, a 7% jump. Pew said 2022 marked the first time in the 16 years of the annual report that Philly’s median household income was higher than Baltimore’s.

Still, the metric varies along ethnic lines, with Black and Hispanic households reporting just under $43,000, Asian households reporting close to $62,000, and white households reporting close to $82,000.

Despite the bright spots in the Philadelphia economy, about 148,000 residents still lived in what’s defined as deep poverty, according to the most recent Census data, meaning a family of four is reporting an income at or below $15,600.

The share of residents living in poverty in 2022 — meaning a family of four with an income at or below $31,200 — reached its lowest point since the 1990s but still accounted for 22% of residents. That’s compared to the country’s 11.5%.

What’s more, 29% of children were living in poverty.

With an estimated 1,300 overdose deaths, Philadelphia saw its second-highest total on record in 2023, despite an 8% drop from the previous year. According to the most current CDC data, Philadelphia had more overdose deaths per capita than comparable cities such as Baltimore and Washington.

Though the number of homicides saw a decline for a third-straight year in 2023, the city still reeled from 410 murders. The homicide rate per 100,000 residents in Philadelphia (26.2) was higher than that of cities like Chicago (23.2), Pittsburgh (17.2), and Houston (14.7), but lower than Baltimore (45.6) and Detroit (40.6).

At the same time, property crimes continued to rise in 2023. Car thefts stood out in particular, increasing by 70% in one year and accounting for 25% of all major crimes in 2023.

In the report, Pew warned that crime has “soured” the public’s view of Philadelphia.

There’s a chance you’ve seen a headline or two about how Philadelphia’s population has declined since the pandemic. Yet the city continues to see foreign-born people move in. According to the latest data available, 15.7% of Philadelphia residents reported being foreign-born, compared to the national average of 13.9%.

» READ MORE: Philadelphia lost more than 50,000 residents during the pandemic, census data show

“We are at the highest number of foreign-born residents in Philadelphia since the 1940s,” said Martin. “It’s been a real growth in the city.”

The boon of immigrants only adds to the city’s already changing demographics, where Asian residents now make up 7.8% of the population and Hispanics make up 16.1%, nearly triple the shares they held in 1990. African American and Black residents make up 38.6% of the city’s population, a dip from recent decades where they exceeded 42%, while white residents went from 52% in the 1990s to 33% now.