Philadelphia is no longer the poorest big city in America

Philadelphia cannot stop winning in 2025. The Eagles are Super Bowl Champions, the Phillies are hotter than fish grease, and the City of Brotherly Love is no longer the poorest big city in America.

City Boys Up: Philadelphia’s poverty rate fell below 20% for the first time since 1979, per the Inquirer

Hell yeah, brother. Philly is on the on the up and up, and the census data proves it.

Sure, 19.7% still means one in five Philadelphians lives in poverty, but it at least shows the city is moving in the right direction. Anyone that lives here will tell you Philly can be so much more than what it is now, and it’s still a city many of us are proud to call home.

Continued economic development and investments in areas like education, housing, and transportation are going to be essential in the years ahead. Obviously, for some things we’re at the mercy of the PA state house *cough* SEPTA *cough*, but I have a solution for that outlined here.

The rest is up to City leadership and the institutions Philadelphians are meant to trust every day. Ideally, this is a wakeup call. But we’ll have to see how things go. I’m a blogger, not an economist, but I’m optimistic for the future.

But, in the meantime, Houston can go ahead and pipe down. I don’t speak broke.

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