It’s a time to point to notable progress that the city has made on many of the most challenging issues facing its residents, including reductions in homicides and shootings, overdose deaths, and the poverty rate. But there are also troubling signs, including stagnating educational attainment, median income, and population. These metrics, which had been bright spots for the city in recent decades, have been impeded since the COVID-19 pandemic and pose a long-term risk to the city’s success.

Read more.

In times of scarcity, how resources are allocated for community-university engagement matters enormously. Choices must be made as to who and what gets funded and how much.

In this session, Jennifer Renick from Michigan State University, Emily Janke from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and Emily Ozer from the University of California, Berkeley will discuss findings from their research on how to effectively allocate resources for community-engaged scholarship. Their presentation will illustrate the breadth of structures, systems, and investments required to establish and maintain robust infrastructure for community-university engagement.

They will also share a new decision-making tool that can support institutional leaders and funders to strategically plan for resource allocation and connect opportunities for investment. This tool can help decision makers make choices about how to invest their limited resources in areas such as infrastructure, programming, near-term activities, and long-term relationships and outcomes.

A copy of the full peer-reviewed manuscript is freely available from Innovative Higher Education: More than Just Money: Strategic Allocation of Resources to Support Community-Engaged Scholarship by Jennifer Renick, Andrew Furco, Emily Janke, and Emily Ozer.

The Resource Allocation Tool was developed as an outgrowth of the TEFN-funded Scan of Promising Efforts to Broaden Faculty Reward Systems to Support Societally Impactful Research (download available).

Learn more and register.

At least by historical standards, Philadelphia’s economy entered the year in relatively good condition. In 2023, the city’s unemployment rate was 4.2% on average, the lowest in more than 30 years, while the number of jobs in the city—an average of 765,400—was the highest in 40 years. Those factors have contributed to rising incomes for city residents: The median household income in 2022, the latest year for which data was available, was $56,517; since 2019, the figure has risen by a healthy 19%, although it remains well below the national average. Yet substantial disparities remain among the city’s racial and ethnic groups, with White, non-Hispanic households earning nearly $40,000 more per year, on average, than Black or Hispanic households.

Read more and download the report.

“It is a privilege to support organizations that are building solutions to some of the most significant health and social issues of our time,” said Kristin Romens, project director of the Pew Fund for Health and Human Services in Philadelphia. “Pew’s grants will help these organizations grow and improve their programs, fill service gaps, and broaden the evidence base for social solutions so that more Philadelphians can thrive.”

Read more.

Through the Philadelphia Program, Pew seeks to foster a vibrant civic life in our hometown by informing discussion on important policy issues facing the city, partnering with local institutions to encourage a thriving arts and cultural community, supporting the health and welfare of the region’s most vulnerable populations, and pursuing civic initiatives to strengthen Philadelphia’s appeal to residents and visitors alike. The broader Philadelphia and Scientific Advancement department also includes three initiatives that make grants to support scientific research: Pew Biomedical Programs, Pew Fellows Program in Marine Conservation, and Lenfest Ocean Program.

Position Overview

The senior associate supports the Philadelphia and Scientific Advancement program’s grantmaking by contributing to the development and review of prospective projects, preparing grant requests for Pew board consideration, and monitoring existing projects that have been approved by the board. This position manages a portfolio of grants to organizations with which Pew has long-standing relationships, supports additional grants and projects within the civic initiatives and culture portfolios, and serves as a key resource on grantmaking throughout the Philadelphia program.

Reporting to the officer, this position is based in Pew’s Philadelphia office, and will participate in Pew’s core in-office days on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and will have flexibility to work from home the remainder of each week.

Responsibilities

• Foster a work environment that is diverse, equitable, inclusive, and accessible and in line with Pew’s and the program’s related goals.
• Manage a portfolio of grants to more than 12 organizations with which Pew has long-standing relationships and that do important work in the Philadelphia region and beyond. Guide grantees through the proposal process, ensure that all information is complete, accurate, and timely, and monitor and evaluate grant results against objectives.
• Build trusting, collaborative relationships with external partners, grantees, and other constituents.
• Support the development and management of grant and project requests for the civic initiatives and culture portfolios. Conduct background research and due diligence, synthesize findings, and help Philadelphia program staff conceptualize new project ideas and plans.
• Work with the Philadelphia program staff to respond to external requests for funding. Assist in the analysis of proposed projects by assessing alignment with the Trusts’ goals and interests, strength of organization and/or management capacity, and funding needs. Work with applicants to refine objectives, plans, budgets, reporting, and payment schedules, and provide technical support on using Pew’s online grant application.
• Serve as primary liaison with Pew internal teams, including providing input and team feedback to Pew’s IT team and working with grant program services to ensure timely completion of all grant monitoring activities.
• Produce content for key internal audiences. Contribute to a high level of quality and accuracy in all of Pew’s work and participate fully in Pew’s internal quality control process.
• Develop and maintain a broad knowledge of issues important to Philadelphia.
• Contribute to and participate in tasks of the Philadelphia and Scientific Advancement program as assigned, as well as broader Pew-wide projects.

Learn more and apply here.

These title issues deprive individuals and families of the full benefit of owning a home. Without clear ownership, residents are unable to tap into the home’s value—in many cases, a family’s primary source of accumulated wealth. They can’t sell the property or take out a home equity loan. In most cases, they can’t get homeowner’s insurance or readily qualify for city programs aimed at helping low-income households. Yet at the same time, they’re still obligated to pay their real estate taxes, maintain their properties, and fulfill the other responsibilities of homeownership.

These barriers likewise affect a community’s stability, because homes with tangled titles are prone to falling into disrepair and even becoming abandoned, causing blight and displacement, and reducing the inventory of affordable housing.

Read more.

Location: Philadelphia, PA – flexibility to telework up to 60% for most staff

Reports to: Executive Vice President & Chief Program Officer

Position Summary:

The Vice President is responsible for the strategic direction of the Philadelphia program and Pew’s broader engagement with a diverse city and region. The leader oversees a team of approximately two-dozen staff and their execution of the portfolio’s various lines of work, as described above and further below. The vice president works in partnership with Pew’s other program leaders to foster collaboration and leverage organization-wide expertise and is a key contributor to the overall program leadership and management teams. The vice president of the Philadelphia program reports to the Executive Vice President and Chief Program Officer (EVP/CPO), who is based in Pew’s Washington, DC, office.

Learn more and apply

The Pew Charitable Trust’s Results First Clearinghouse Database is an online resource that brings together information on the effectiveness of social policy programs from nine national clearinghouses.

It applies color-coding to the clearinghouses’ distinct rating systems, creating a common language that enables users to quickly see where each program falls on a spectrum from negative impact to positive impact. As such, this database can help users easily access and understand the evidence base for a variety of programs.

The database currently includes information on 3,155 programs and was last updated on November 19, 2021.

The Pew Results First Initiative created the Results First Clearinghouse Database to provide users with an easy way to access and understand the evidence base for programs in social policy areas such as behavioral health, criminal justice, education, and public health. More specifically, it allows users to see if there have been rigorous evaluations of a program and, if so, to review information on the program’s effectiveness.

The database compiles and displays key information from nine national clearinghouses, including the rating they assigned to each program and the program’s description, outcomes, setting, and target population (where available). It also contains a link back to the program’s original source page on the clearinghouse website so that users can obtain additional details.

Clearinghouses develop this information by reviewing and summarizing rigorous evaluations of programs within their focus area. Then, they assign a rating to each program using their own methodology and terminology (such as top tier, effective, positive, and model).

The database applies color-coding to the clearinghouses’ distinct rating systems, creating a common language that allows users to quickly see where each program falls on a spectrum from negative impact to positive impact.

• Negative effects
• No effects
• Mixed effects
• Second-highest rated
• Highest rated

It is important to note that while the clearinghouses’ ratings within each rating color are based on similar criteria, the color does not indicate that their methodologies are identical. In addition, there is an “insufficient evidence” classification included in the database that has no corresponding rating color. This indicates that a program’s current research base does not have adequate methodological rigor to determine impact.

A Microsoft Excel version of the database is also available for download.

Explore the database here.

Philadelphia’s recovery from the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic is a complicated and high-stakes journey for its residents, workers, employers, and policymakers. The city’s progress, including any growth, can be tracked by the ever-changing health of its businesses, the jobs they offer, the wages they pay, and what their customers spend. This dashboard provides nine charts on local businesses and jobs at each quarter or month, starting before the pandemic-driven shutdowns in March 2020 and continuing to the present. They are assembled from various data sources and will be updated quarterly. The dashboard also includes two other charts for reference: profiles of the businesses and populations in each ZIP code area before the pandemic.

Learn more.

Questions? Contact Alex Jones from Pew at ajones@pewtrusts.org.

Story: In this episode, we consider the pipeline to the research workforce—higher education. In a conversation with Freeman Hrabowski, president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), and its vice provost and dean of Undergraduate Academic Affairs, Katharine Cole, we explore how the university supports undergraduate and graduate students from a range of backgrounds and prepares them for STEM careers.

Listen here.

Ensuring that the path forward addresses long-term challenges, including racial inequity, requires a clear view of the city’s current state and recent past. With an eye toward that, The Pew Charitable Trusts, in partnership with The Philadelphia Inquirer, will present a livestream event on April 30 at 9:00 AM offering a look back, plus data and discussions to help plan ahead.

First, Pew experts will contextualize the COVID-19 pandemic’s impacts on Philadelphia’s trajectory by sharing findings from Pew’s 2021 “State of the City” report, as well as analysis of new data on the state of the city’s small-to-midsize businesses and middle-wage jobs.

Then, reporters from The Philadelphia Inquirer will lead two panel discussions with local policymakers and economic development experts to explore what inclusive recovery would look like through two lenses: businesses and jobs, with a particular focus on city policies to support growth.

Learn more here.

Wise stewardship of resources allows Pew employees to pursue work that strategically furthers our mission in significant and measurable ways. We collaborate with a diverse range of philanthropic partners, public and private organizations, and concerned citizens who share our interest in fact-based solutions and goal-driven initiatives to improve society. Pew attracts top talent, people of integrity who are service-oriented and willing to take on challenging assignments. We provide competitive pay and benefits, a healthy work-life balance, and a respectful and inclusive workplace. Pew employees are proud of their colleagues, proud of where they work, and proud of the institution’s reputation.

The Philadelphia Program

Through the Philadelphia program, Pew seeks to enhance civic life in its hometown. We partner with many local institutions in encouraging a thriving arts and cultural community, supporting the health and welfare of the region’s most vulnerable residents, informing discussion on important issues facing the city, and, more broadly, strengthening Philadelphia’s appeal to visitors and residents alike.

The Pew Fund

The Pew Fund, part of the Philadelphia program, is Pew’s primary vehicle to provide support to regional organizations that help individuals and families overcome challenges to their health and well-being due to poverty and other complex conditions. The program currently supports close to 100 nonprofits in Philadelphia, Bucks, Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery counties. The Pew Fund aims to identify and support the region’s most effective service providers so that they can grow their reach and results.

Position Overview

The senior officer, Pew Fund position offers a unique opportunity to help guide the use of Pew’s local resources in support of high-quality and effective services for populations in need. The Pew Fund’s approach is rigorous with a focus on research-informed strategies that will lead to measurable improvements in the lives of those most vulnerable.

The senior officer is responsible for identifying and vetting high-performing nonprofit organizations in the Philadelphia region that make a difference in the lives of people facing adversity. The senior officer is responsible for managing a portfolio of grantees and supporting their impact and performance. The scope of this role includes supporting organizations through the full grant lifecycle – from identifying candidates, conducting due diligence, and producing recommendations to Pew’s board of directors, to supporting and monitoring grantees’ progress toward their goals. The senior officer thinks critically about the issues facing nonprofit organizations in the region and works alongside grantees to address challenges and leverage opportunities. The senior officer brings a robust knowledge and understanding of Philadelphia health and human services to this work, monitoring trends and deepening expertise while developing beneficial external relationships. The senior officer reports to the project director, Pew Fund, and is located in Pew’s Philadelphia office.

Responsibilities

• Oversee the sourcing and selection of grantees, including conducting in-depth analysis of applicants’ program performance, fiscal health, and organizational capacity.
• Produce grant recommendations for Pew’s board of directors, providing a clear and concise summary of analysis conducted, rationale for the recommendation, plan for oversight, and performance goals.
• Monitor and provide support to grantees to ensure their success, managing a portfolio of 10 to 15 grants.
• Provide consultation and collaborative advice to nonprofit leaders in the implementation of their strategies and growth plans; provide guidance to navigate change and overcome obstacles to their goals.
• Identify and manage external experts and consultants, develop contracts as needed, and work closely with them throughout the due diligence process.
• Maintain and expand understanding of Philadelphia’s nonprofit landscape through external events, meetings, and internal research. Represent Pew at conferences and meetings.
• Contribute to the work of the Pew Fund team and the Philadelphia program as requested.

Learn more and apply: https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/about/careers

The Philadelphia research initiative produces timely, well-documented and highly readable reports and issue briefs on issues facing Philadelphia for the benefit of decision makers, the news media and the public at large. Topics come from a number of subject areas including demographic trends, government performance and innovation, tax and fiscal policy, K-12 education, economic development and job creation, and public safety. In addition, the initiative performs research in conjunction with the Philadelphia Policy Exchange, designed to stimulate focused conversations among policymakers and policy influencers on a range of issues. Those issues include, but are not limited to, evaluating tax incentives, improving tax collections, managing revenue volatility through rainy day funds, strengthening public sector retirement systems, delivering cost-effective corrections services, and reducing opioid abuse.

The initiative’s staff conducts research using a range of methodologies, including representative-sample polling, and looks beyond the city for relevant information from comparable cities. The research typically is based on public or proprietary data, peer-reviewed research methodologies, close consultation with subject-matter experts, and regular interaction with officials of local governments and organizations. Most of its reports lay out the facts and findings on a given issue. Some go further to discuss the data-based pros and cons of various policy options. In either case, however, the initiative does not advocate for specific solutions or favor any particular point of view. Its mission is to be an honest broker on the issues and effective contributor to civic discourse in Philadelphia and, where applicable, other cities. The goal is to be a consistent and effective contributor to civic discourse in Philadelphia. Examples of the initiative’s work are available at http://www.pewtrusts.org/philaresearch.

Position Overview

The senior associate, who is based in Pew’s Philadelphia office, reports to the manager, Philadelphia research initiative. The senior associate’s job is to help conceptualize, design and complete research and analysis on key issues affecting the city of Philadelphia. A research background, relevant experience, expertise in one of the initiative’s key subjects, and/or strong writing skills are desirable.

Responsibilities – see job description on Pew’s career site for complete list:

• Help senior staff organize and write reports, briefs, and web analyses. When appropriate, take the lead on producing shorter pieces.
• Monitor and identify emerging urban policy issues that are relevant to Philadelphia. Help prepare internal written summaries and data charts, tables or visualizations to help researchers and senior staff track and assess current and emerging issues for potential further research.
• Under direction of the initiative’s senior staff, compile and maintain datasets from various sources that may be used in research projects, perform first-level analysis of data, and conduct general background research on issues, including literature reviews and media scans.
• Help organize events organized by the Philadelphia policy exchange that facilitate discussion of issues facing the city, sometimes working with outside partners, in order to engage policymakers and bring attention to Pew’s work. Assist in efforts to maintain contact with policymakers to ascertain their priorities and to increase their awareness of and input into Pew’s work.
• Participate in conferences, seminars and other professional development activities to keep current on a broad range of urban policy issues.

Learn more and apply: https://jobs-pct.icims.com/jobs/6085/senior-associate%2c-philadelphia-research-initiative/job

Pew’s 10th annual report reveals that Philly’s unemployment rate is at its lowest since 2000, and overall crime and incarceration are down. But homicides have increased, and poverty remains a major challenge.

Like many cities, Philadelphia has some neighborhoods that are thriving and others that are faltering. But it has more of the former than it did a decade ago. Even so, the numbers at the heart of this year’s “State of the City” report show the contrasts between the city’s neighborhoods to be as dramatic as ever.

On a citywide basis, Philadelphia’s population has been rising steadily for more than a decade, a strong sign of civic well-being. But the growth has been concentrated in the center of the city and in pockets of the Northeast where immigrants have settled. In large swaths of North, Northwest, and West Philadelphia, the population has been declining or has stayed about the same.

Home sale prices have risen 63 percent since 2010, creating wealth in some parts of the city but not in others. Center City has seen the most substantial increases. In much of the Northeast, Northwest, and Southwest, however, the gains have been far more modest.

The percentage of adults with four-year college degrees continues to creep upward. But Philadelphia has relatively few neighborhoods where the share of degree-holders exceeds 50 percent; by contrast, in places such as Seattle, San Francisco, Boston, and Atlanta, that figure is approached or even surpassed citywide.

And Philadelphians’ median household income is above the national figure—more than $60,000—in only about a quarter of the city. In an area nearly as large, the median income is less than half that amount.

Another way to look at Philadelphia in 2019 is to focus on elements that have been changing citywide, mostly for the better, and on a few that haven’t shifted much at all.

In terms of job creation, Philadelphia has taken advantage of a relatively robust national economy—and outperformed it in some respects. Preliminary federal estimates put the city’s average number of jobs over the course of 2018 at the highest level since 1991, and unemployment at the lowest level since 2000.

The four-year high school graduation rate in public schools—now run by a local school board after nearly two decades of state control—continued its steady climb, reaching 69 percent for the Class of 2018. Although that’s far below the national rate of 84 percent, it’s 12 percentage points higher than it was a decade earlier.

As part of a trend several decades in the making, the population keeps becoming more diverse. Fifteen percent of the population is Hispanic, and 8 percent is Asian. Fourteen percent of Philadelphians are foreign-born, and another 13 percent have at least one foreign-born parent.

And in a city that traditionally has had one of the country’s highest levels of incarceration, the jail population fell to 5,251 in 2018, down from 8,932 just five years earlier—perhaps the most dramatic sign of a broad attempt by the city to reshape its criminal justice system.

However, the city’s homicide total represented one troubling change. Although violent crime overall dropped slightly in 2018, the number of murders rose to 351, up 11 percent in a single year and the largest total since 2007. Police officials attributed the increase, at least in part, to the city’s opioid crisis, one of the main elements that did not change as much last year as city officials had hoped.

Preliminary estimates indicate that the number of drug deaths in Philadelphia in 2018 was in the 1,100 range, slightly lower than the 1,217 recorded the previous year but still among the highest in the nation on a per capita basis. The opioid problem has brought several related problems; the city’s unsheltered homeless population has tripled since 2014, a situation most visible in the Kensington section.

And poverty remains a persistent challenge. The city’s poverty rate has been stuck in the 26 percent range for the past five years, a time when the rate has dropped in many other cities. Philadelphia has nearly 400,000 residents living below the poverty line, a fact that affects numerous aspects of city life.

Until the poverty numbers fall, they will remain, as they have for years, the context in which many other indicators of the state of the city are judged.

For the full report, go here.

https://www.pewtrusts.org/-/media/assets/2019/04/sotc_2019.pdf

A new online resource center created by the Pew-MacArthur Results First Initiative provides case studies about effective use of data by state and county governments, offering insights that can help leaders make more evidence-based policy decisions.

Resource Center: https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2018/12/18/evidence-based-policymaking-resource-center

Officials are entrusted to provide critical services that, for example, protect vulnerable children from abuse or neglect, improve public safety, and prevent substance use and mental health disorders. But many leaders have limited information about whether such programs are effective.

As a result, they often rely on anecdotes or precedents when choosing which programs to fund—without clear evidence of whether they actually work. Policymakers can make more informed decisions and improve outcomes by examining the evidence behind the programs they fund, creating processes to track and continuously improve these services, and increasing the use of proven interventions.

The new resource center provides specific examples of how jurisdictions have used this approach in recent years to bolster programs and better serve constituents. For example, the New York Division of Criminal Justice Services revised procurement requirements to put a high priority on evidence-based programs that have been shown to reduce recidivism by up to 12 percent. In Maryland, meanwhile, Montgomery County created a uniform way to measure youth mentoring outcomes to help agency leaders better quantify the impact of specific programs at the community level.

Similarly, Texas reduced rates of abuse in programs for children and youth and improved behavioral health outcomes by prioritizing the use of evidence-based programs for this population. And in Iowa, the Department of Corrections conducted an inventory to determine which programs perform well—and which produce lackluster results.

The resource center is organized by the five components of evidence-based policymaking identified in the 2014 Results First report, Evidence-Based Policymaking: A Guide for Effective Government. The report highlighted the need for program assessment, budget development, implementation oversight, outcome monitoring, and targeted evaluation. Along with the case studies, the website offers information on each of the components, as well as links to other resources about implementing evidence-based policymaking.

Report: https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/reports/2014/11/evidence-based-policymaking-a-guide-for-effective-government

More information about the Pew-MacArthur Results First Initiative can be found on the project webpage.

https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/projects/pew-macarthur-results-first-initiative

Overview
By many measures, Philadelphia is on an upswing, with a growing population, an influx of new investment, and rising household incomes. Yet at the same time, a significant share of the city’s residents are struggling. More than a quarter—about 400,000 people—live below the poverty line, which is about $19,700 a year for an adult with two children at home.

In this report, The Pew Charitable Trusts examines the attitudes and personal experiences of poor Philadelphians, exploring several key aspects of life that are affected by, and potentially helping to perpetuate, poverty— including health outcomes, employment prospects, exposure to crime, and access to quality schools. It expands on research from Pew’s 2017 study “Philadelphia’s Poor: Who They Are, Where They Live, and How That Has Changed,” which presented a detailed demographic and geographic view of poverty in the city.

This new study is predominantly based on five sources: analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data, administrative data from government agencies, focus groups of poor Philadelphians, interviews with experts who provide services for them, and results from Pew’s latest citywide public opinion poll.

The 2016 poll, which surveyed a sample of all Philadelphians, poor and nonpoor, probed the experience of poverty in a number of ways. It asked respondents whether they considered themselves to be poor while also seeking to determine whether they actually fell below the federal poverty threshold, based on household size and reported income. Interestingly, 45 percent of respondents who qualified as poor did not describe themselves as such.

The results also shed light on the extent to which poverty is an intergenerational phenomenon for some Philadelphians, and the degree to which others have experienced upward or downward mobility. More than half of the respondents who qualified as poor said they remembered growing up in or near poverty, while nearly half said they recalled being better off financially as children.

According to census data, about 30 percent of poor Philadelphians ages 16 and older worked in 2016, most in jobs such as cashiers, personal care aides, and laborers. But only about 1 in 5 of these working poor had yearround, full-time positions. At the same time, 61 percent of the city’s working-age poor were neither employed nor looking for a job in 2016, the highest rate found among the nation’s 10 most populous and 10 poorest large cities.

Read more: https://www.pewtrusts.org/research-and-analysis/reports/2018/09/26/philadelphias-poor-experiences-from-below-the-poverty-line

Overview
When Kansas lawmakers found themselves facing a projected $900 million budget shortfall in 2017, then-Governor Sam Brownback (R) proposed tax hikes on cigarettes and liquor, among other measures—which would have been the state’s second cigarette tax increase in three years. But legislators on both sides of the aisle decided the measures, projected to raise $377 million over two years, did not do enough to address the state’s structural budget problems. The Legislature rejected the proposal, instead passing a budget that included over $1 billion in income tax increases directed at improving the state’s longer-term fiscal outlook.1

Although Kansas lawmakers rejected the tax hikes on alcohol and tobacco, their dalliance with the idea—and their passage of the earlier tobacco tax increase—is indicative of the widespread attractiveness of these taxes on specific behaviors. Since 2000, all but nine states have significantly raised tax rates on cigarettes and other tobacco products.2 The median state tax on cigarettes has increased more than fourfold—from 34 cents in 2000 to $1.57 in 2017.3 The circumstances behind the increases vary, but they point to two primary motives: advancing public health by making tobacco use more costly and collecting revenue from those who do not give up the habit.

This is the paradox of sin taxes, the class of taxes that includes tobacco. These extra dollars and cents levied on products and activities considered detrimental to consumers—traditionally tobacco, alcohol, and gambling—are intended to accomplish two contradictory goals: Like all taxes, they generate revenue for the taxing entity, but they also aim to deter the behavior being taxed—which can ultimately negate the first goal.

Indeed, research suggests that higher cigarette prices play a role in curbing smoking.4 A reduction in smoking is good for public health, but it has been so significant that inflation-adjusted tobacco tax revenue nationwide has waned in recent years despite frequent tax rate hikes. Revenue from tobacco taxes depends on high rates of smoking—which the taxes discourage—making these taxes an unreliable source of long-term revenue, especially for funding recurring budget items.

Research by The Pew Charitable Trusts and the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government similarly found that state revenue growth from taxes on alcohol and gambling is unlikely to be sustained due to how the products are taxed, changes in demand, and casino competition. In addition to studying state revenue trends for long- standing sin taxes, Pew and Rockefeller analyzed newer taxes on e-cigarettes and recreational marijuana. This report examines trends from 2008 through 2016 and relies on federal and state revenue data, academic and other relevant literature, and interviews with state officials.

Read more:

http://www.pewtrusts.org/research-and-analysis/reports/2018/07/19/are-sin-taxes-healthy-for-state-budgets#0-overview

Overview
Immigration has become a major driver of population growth in Philadelphia in recent years, with long-term demographic and economic implications for the city and the region.

In 2016, the last year for which census data were available for this report, the city had more than 232,000 residents who were born abroad, an increase of 69 percent since 2000. These immigrants represented nearly 15 percent of all city residents, 19 percent of workers, and 14 percent of those living in poverty.

More than a quarter of all Philadelphians in recent years—estimated at around 390,000 residents—were either immigrants or U.S. natives with immigrant parents, together comprising a population with significant potential to shape the city. They included nearly 76,000 children under age 18, or about 1 in 4 city children.

The degree to which immigrants have fueled the city’s population resurgence is striking. From 2000 to 2016, a period in which the city’s population grew for the first time in half a century, the number of foreign-born residents rose by roughly 95,000 while the number of U.S.-born Philadelphians fell by 44,500.

This statistical portrait of immigrants in Philadelphia was compiled with the goal of informing discussion about their impact on the city. The report looks at the economic and social characteristics of immigrants—including their countries of origin, income, level of education, and work status—and examines how those characteristics have changed in recent years, while also making comparisons with the nation, the Philadelphia suburbs, and nine other major cities: Baltimore; Boston; Denver; Minneapolis; New York; Portland, Oregon; San Jose, California; Seattle; and Washington.

The study relies primarily on census data and includes results of a public opinion survey taken by The Pew Charitable Trusts in 2016. In that survey, immigrants were overwhelmingly upbeat about the city’s future and more positive than U.S.-born Philadelphians about certain elements of city life, such as public schools. Most U.S.-born Philadelphians, for their part, had positive things to say about immigration, and nearly two-thirds described themselves as “sympathetic” or “very sympathetic” to unauthorized immigrants in the city.

Read more: http://www.pewtrusts.org/research-and-analysis/reports/2018/06/07/philadelphias-immigrants

Among other counties with the highest rates were Cuyahoga County, Ohio, which includes Cleveland; Palm Beach County, Florida; and Wayne County, Michigan, which includes Detroit. The national data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are available only at the county, rather than the municipal, level; Philadelphia is both a city and a county. Some jurisdictions with populations below 1 million, including the city of Baltimore, recorded higher death rates in 2016.

The CDC bases the rate on the number of residents who died from drug overdoses during a given year—regardless of where the overdoses occurred. According to the agency, 719 Philadelphians died of drug overdoses in 2016. There were 907 drug deaths in the city that year, recorded by Philadelphia’s Department of Public Health, mostly linked to opioids. That number includes people who were not Philadelphia residents but does not include Philadelphians who died elsewhere.

Being near the top of this list is nothing new for Philadelphia. In 1999, the first year the CDC collected county numbers on overdose deaths, Philadelphia had the highest drug death rate among counties with populations of at least 1 million. Still, the rate was much lower then at 18.7 per 100,000 residents. Most of the other counties on the 1999 list—including those representing the boroughs of the Bronx, Manhattan, and Brooklyn in New York City—are not on the 2016 list.

For the 44 counties examined by the CDC in 1999, the median rate was 5.7 deaths per 100,000 residents, less than half the 13 per 100,000 found in the most recent numbers. That year, Pennsylvania’s Allegheny County ranked ninth, with a rate of 8.8 overdose deaths per 100,000 residents, a fraction of its 2016 rate of 50.2 per 100,000, which led the nation.

Rising opioid misuse and dependence has driven the increase in drug overdose deaths. According to Philadelphia’s public health department, more than 80 percent of the 2016 drug overdose deaths involved opioids. City officials estimate that the 2017 death toll will jump by nearly 300 to about 1,200, up about one-third in a single year. Many more Philadelphians than in 1999 are struggling with opioid dependence, whether in the form of illegal heroin or legally produced pharmaceuticals, and the impact on families, communities, and the economy is far-reaching.

Local health department officials say the drug overdose problem is different from 15 or 20 years ago. Although opioids were a major contributor then, other drugs, such as cocaine and “crack cocaine,” accounted for about a third of deaths, more than is the case now. Since then, opioid-related deaths have gone up sharply, including, in recent years, a rise in those involving fentanyl.

The rates are age-adjusted by the CDC so that comparisons among jurisdictions are not skewed by one county having a significantly younger or older population than another. The agency does not make the same calculations within individual age groups. Drug overdoses ruled homicides or suicides are not included in the statistics.

The data help provide a demographic picture of overdose victims in Philadelphia. For instance, from 2014 through 2016, the overall rate of drug overdose deaths was higher for men than for women and for whites than for blacks and Hispanics. Looking at gender and race/ethnicity combined, the highest rates have been among white men, while the lowest have been among Hispanic women.

In terms of age, those who died of drug overdoses in Philadelphia in 2016 looked different than in the other counties. In Philadelphia, the hardest-hit were 45- to 54-year-olds. The death rate for this group was 104.4 per 100,000, more than double the rate for the city as a whole and double the rate for that age group in the other large counties in the top 10 for total overdose deaths. Philadelphia’s rate also was much higher than the other counties’ in the 55 to 64 age group. Both of these numbers may be partly due to continuing cocaine use among older residents. Philadelphia’s rate was lower than the other counties’ among 25- to 34-year-olds.

The most recent treatment data from Philadelphia’s Department of Behavioral Health, as reported by the National Drug Early Warning System, suggest that, relative to heroin addicts, a larger proportion of cocaine users are at least 45. The data also indicate that large-scale drug abuse has been a problem in Philadelphia longer than in many of the other counties. For that reason, city health officials say, a larger percentage of Philadelphia’s overdose victims may be older residents who have long struggled with substance use.

http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/analysis/2018/02/15/philadelphias-drug-overdose-death-rate-among-highest-in-nation

[Related workshop at upcoming PHENND Conference: Lessons from a Student-Led Initiative: The Positive Impact of a Naloxone Outreach Program on the Health of a Philadelphia Neighborhood]

Introduction and Key Findings

The ideal that all Americans have equality of opportunity regardless of their economic status at birth is the crux of the American Dream and a defining element
of our national psyche. This study investigates the health and status of that dream by analyzing economic mobility—Americans’ movement up and down the economic ladder—during the past generation. Pursuing the American Dream: Economic Mobility Across Generations is an update to the Economic Mobility Project’s (EMP) foundational work, Getting Ahead or Losing Ground: Economic Mobility in America, originally released in 2008.

This chart book moves the project’s work forward in two ways. First, the income mobility estimates have been adjusted for family size to account for shifts in
family demographics across generations. Second, the analyses now include mobility estimates of personal earnings and family wealth in addition to family
income. Using Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) data through 2009, the study provides the most current estimates of mobility and the first estimates that overlap with the recession.

Pursuing the American Dream looks closely at the mobility experiences of Americans on different rungs of the economic ladder, divided into five equal parts or quintiles. The study measures mobility in two ways. Absolute mobility measures whether a person has more or less income, earnings, or wealth than his or her parents did at the same age. Relative mobility measures a person’s rank on the income, earnings, or wealth ladder compared to his or her parents’ rank at the same age.

http://www.pewtrusts.org/~/media/legacy/uploadedfiles/wwwpewtrustsorg/reports/economic_mobility/pursuingamericandreampdf.pdf