Philly’s wealthiest neighborhoods have median incomes that are $100,000 more than the poorest areas

Philadelphia’s Fairhill and Fishtown neighborhoods are separated by a little over two miles — and about $100,000.

That’s according to new figures from the U.S. Census Bureau showing that when it comes to median household income, there’s a six-figure gap between Philadelphia’s wealthiest community and its lowest-income neighborhoods.

Households in Mantua, North Philadelphia East, East Germantown, Allegheny West, and Fairhill took in an estimated median yearly income that was at least $100,000 less than residents in the city’s highest-earning community for 2018 to 2022, the Census Bureau’s latest five-year reporting period.

Those top earners were concentrated in the combined Fishtown/Northern Liberties neighborhood, where households brought in a median income of $133,300.

The river wards neighborhood has now surpassed the Schuylkill/Southwest Center City area, where households earned a median income of $113,000.

Income increases in wealthy neighborhoods with largely white majorities far outpaced growth in some communities with the highest concentrations of residents of color.

Still, the city as a whole is getting wealthier. When adjusted for inflation, Philadelphia’s median household income was 21% higher than it was a decade ago, reaching $57,500 during the latest reporting period.

For some locals, the sharp disparities between neighborhoods come as little surprise.

Tito Caba tends to avoid generalizations about Fairhill, a majority Hispanic area that’s a hub for the city’s Puerto Rican community.

But the 36-year-old, who educates youth about gardening and the environment through the nonprofit Historic Fair Hill, can’t help but notice that many of his neighbors feel left behind financially. Households there earned a median of $30,400 per year, census data shows.

Growing up against a backdrop of homelessness, drug abuse, and a near-constant police presence, he said, children face barriers in excelling through school and landing higher-paying jobs.

“It’s the environment,” Caba said. “It can be difficult for someone that only knows river water to go ahead and swim in the ocean.”

The new figures from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey come months after census data showed that Philadelphia’s poverty rate shrunk by a single percentage point from 2021 to 2022. Philadelphia remains the poorest big city in the nation.

More than one in five residents lives in poverty, which the government defines as a household making less than $26,500 a year for a family of four. And it’s not just disparities in the amount of money that are widening between neighborhoods, but the rate at which some neighborhoods are reaping income.

Compared with the Census’ ACS data from 10 years ago, Fishtown/Northern Liberties’ median income ballooned 64%, while Schuylkill/Southwest Center City’s grew 51%.

Bella Vista/Southwark and Point Breeze also saw gains — with households in the latter seeing a whopping 110% increase in median income over the decade.

Bill Golderer, president and CEO of United Way of Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey, said the economic disparities date back generations and are, in some cases, the result of the purposeful denial of resources to communities of color.

“You can’t tell the story of different neighborhood trajectories without looking at the historical investment — or divestment,” said Golderer, whose nonprofit is heavily involved in City Council’s multimillion dollar plan to lift 100,000 Philadelphians out of poverty by next year.

Golderer said many of Philadelphia’s communities of color have been historically denied access to home ownership eligibility, small business loans, and educational investments — markers that place individuals on a trajectory toward building wealth.

One sobering gap becomes clear when viewing median household income data by race. The growth of wealth in Black households, whose residents make up 43% of Philadelphia’s population, was sluggish compared with that of other groups.

Median Black household income grew by less than $4,000 between the 2008 to 2012 reporting period and the latest window. Latino households, however, saw the largest gains, with median income rising 31%.

East Germantown, a predominantly Black neighborhood, saw the largest fall-off of income, dropping 25% over the last decade.

“I’m not surprised,” said Patrick Jones, president of the neighborhood group Germantown Community Alliance. “East Germantown has not seen an increase in jobs and economic investment toward development. ... it makes sense that people would just get poor.”

Jones described a reverse-domino effect, where underfunded business corridors along Germantown’s Chelten and Chew Avenues ultimately keep money out of the neighborhood.

Crucial state and federal dollars that community groups vie for helped boost some Fishtown corridors, Jones said, “and now you have beautiful bars, beautiful restaurants, beautiful homes” that attract higher-income residents and provide jobs.

It’s not just Philadelphia that is challenged by racial gaps in wealth.

In Washington, D.C., for example, Black households face their own six-figure divide compared to non-Hispanic white households.

Katie Martin, a researcher and project director with the Pew Charitable Trusts, said Baltimore, Chicago, Phoenix, and Pittsburgh — cities that are somewhat comparable to Philadelphia in demographics and size — saw similar disparities.

“For most of these cities, race specifically stands out,” Martin said.

For Philadelphia’s top earners, the quality of housing and convenience of location turn some neighborhoods into hot commodities.

Southwest Center City, with leafy streets and a stock of newly constructed rowhouses, regularly ranks at the top of the city’s most desirable neighborhoods. That’s in part to its proximity to high-traffic work and entertainment destinations like University City and Rittenhouse Square, according to Morgan Rodriguez, a Center City realtor.

Rodriguez, who was recently elected chair of the South of South Street Neighborhood Association, said the neighborhood’s location coupled with attractive public schools have drawn in a higher-income set as the neighborhood rapidly developed over the 2010s.

“We have many many doctors who live in our neighborhood who simply walk or bike across the bridge to University City,” Rodriguez said. “It’s the walkability, the ease of life.”

Rodriguez also credits the housing stock, which favors pricier, single-family homes, as opposed to high-density apartment complexes, for driving up the neighborhood’s lofty income figure.

According to the real estate company Redfin, the median sale price of a home in Graduate Hospital was $613,000 last month. A 2016 Pew study found that it was the city’s most gentrified neighborhood, after having lost a large share of its historically Black population since the 1990s.

Fairhill, while ranking among the city’s poorest neighborhoods, has a median household income that has increased notably over the past decade, shooting up 61%.

That rate not only rivals Fishtown/Northern Liberties’ maturation, but was greater than the growth of Schuykill/Southwest Center City.

But for Maria Gonzalez, the president of the community development group HACE, the figure stirs a sense of alarm.

Gentrification by way of wealthier neighborhoods near Fairhill’s borders, Gonzalez said, is skewing household income upward yet leaving longtime residents — especially those who don’t own their homes — vulnerable.

‘There is a real and present danger of displacement in the future,” Gonzalez said. “All of the investments made in Kensington and Northern Liberties are pushing into our area. We want to make sure that people who live here and their children are able to benefit from investments that are realized in the next 10, 20 years.”

Gonzalez’s nonprofit started in 1982, as the city’s first wave of the city’s Latino diaspora, priced out of neighborhoods near the Art Museum, were resettling in pockets of North Philadelphia.

“They didn’t have a lot of wealth, and it has been very hard with redlining policies for our residents to be able to own their home,” Gonzalez said, referencing the city’s 20th-century mortgage and tax policies that barred communities of color from home ownership. “... those practices set the foundation for where we are now.”

Caba, the green spaces educator, sees learning as a defense against future poverty among Fairhill’s youth. He holds reading workshops and teaching neighborhors about gardening, agriculture, and Tai Chi.

Caba would like to see leaders and nonprofits do more to connect those in need to public assistance, though he hopes investments would ultimately make welfare less necessary.

Golderer, with the United Way, estimates that there’s about $450 million in benefits reserved for low-income Philadelphians that remain untapped by City Hall, Harrisburg, and Washington.

“It’s about letting the information in,” Caba said, “and understanding that there is help out there.”