Philadelphia Loses Nearly 500,000 Residents In 5 Decades

The Democratic Party kicks off its convention in Philadelphia Monday and the host city is a far smaller city than it was in 1960 when it was the fourth largest U.S. city with 2,002,512 people. The population in 2010 had fallen to 1,526,006, a drop of 24%, and the city is now the fifth-largest in the United States. The good news for Philadelphia is that between 2010 and 2014 the population grew by 2.2% to just over 1.56 million.

The metropolitan area’s population rose in 2015 for the ninth consecutive year to just over 6 million. For the five-year period between 2010 and 2015 the metro area’s population grew by 1.6% compared with a national growth rate of 3.9% according to Philly.com, the website of the Philadelphia Inquirer. The report suggests the reasons for lagging growth:

It is symptomatic of a region that continues to struggle with high taxes, a city school system in chaos, and industries that aren’t hiring at the rates they did in the region’s heydays.

For the city’s workers, the median household income dropped nearly 8% between 2008 and 2013 according to a recent report from the Pew Charitable Trusts, dropping from $40,008 to $36,836. Nationally median incomes fell 7%, from $56,191 to $52,250. The Pew report noted:

Philadelphia ranks eighth among the comparison cities, well behind the top seven and well ahead of Cleveland and Detroit. These numbers reflect Philadelphia’s persistently high unemployment and poverty rates plus the relatively low number of high-paying jobs.

In the metro area median income fell 8.2% from $65,892 to $60,482 in the same five-year period.

The city’s unemployment rate in 2014 was 7.8%, well above the then-national average of 6.2%. Job growth of 1.3% in 2014 also lagged the national average of 1.9%. At the bottom of the Great Recession the city’s job losses amounted to 1.6%, much better than the national average of 4.5%. But the city’s recovery has been much slower.

Philadelphia trails only Detroit in the percentage of the population between the ages of 16 and 64 who are out of the labor force; that is, neither working nor looking for work.

Of the top 15 employers in Philadelphia, 8 are healthcare-related and 4 are universities.

What keeps the city growing? Births offsetting people moving out and immigration from abroad. Some 12.7% of Philadelphia’s residents are immigrants, about even with the U.S. average of 13.1%.

The largest cohort by age are millennials aged 25 to 29 who have been attracted to the city as urban neighborhoods have been gentrified over the years. The concern is how many will stay once they start families. A sociologist from Temple University said, “Young people are staying in Philadelphia. It’s people who have families, people who have children” and are concerned about the public schools who are fleeing.

Although Pennsylvania has cast its electoral college votes for the Democratic presidential candidate in the last six elections, it is considered to be a battleground state and its 20 electoral votes are second only to Florida’s 29 as the largest remaining prizes in the 2016 election.