Graph and download economic data for Estimated Percent of People of All Ages in Poverty for Philadelphia County/city, PA (PPAAPA42101A156NCEN) from 1989 to 2023 about Philadelphia County/City, PA; Philadelphia; PA; child; poverty; percent; and USA.

In 2021, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was the city with the highest poverty rate of the United States' most populated cities. In this statistic, the cities are sorted by poverty rate, not population. The most populated city in 2021 according to the source was New York city - which had a poverty rate of 18 percent.

This map shows the distribution of poverty in Philadelphia. With Smart Mapping, two variables are mapped and shown using both size and color. Here, the larger symbols represent areas that have a larger count of people in poverty while the brighter purple symbols highlight areas with a high percentage of poverty.

Graph and download economic data for Percent of Population Below the Poverty Level (5-year estimate) in Philadelphia County, PA (S1701ACS042101) from 2012 to 2023 about Philadelphia County/City, PA; Philadelphia; PA; poverty; percent; 5-year; population; and USA.

Philadelphia County/city, PA - Percent of Population Below the Poverty Level (5-year estimate) in Philadelphia County, PA was 22.00% in January of 2023, according to the United States Federal Reserve. Historically, Philadelphia County/city, PA - Percent of Population Below the Poverty Level (5-year estimate) in Philadelphia County, PA reached a record high of 26.70 in January of 2014 and a record low of 22.00 in January of 2023. Trading Economics provides the current actual value, an historical data chart and related indicators for Philadelphia County/city, PA - Percent of Population Below the Poverty Level (5-year estimate) in Philadelphia County, PA - last updated from the United States Federal Reserve on December of 2025.

Financial overview and grant giving statistics of The Philadelphia Poverty Action Fund

Graph and download economic data for Percent of Population Below the Poverty Level (5-year estimate) in Montgomery County, PA (S1701ACS042091) from 2012 to 2023 about Montgomery County, PA; Philadelphia; PA; poverty; percent; 5-year; population; and USA.

Graph and download economic data for Percent of Population Below the Poverty Level (5-year estimate) in Bucks County, PA (S1701ACS042017) from 2012 to 2023 about Bucks County, PA; Philadelphia; PA; poverty; percent; 5-year; population; and USA.

In 2021, the city of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania had the highest family poverty rate of the 25 most populated cities in the United States. The city with the next highest poverty rate was Houston, Texas.

Graph and download economic data for Percent of Population Below the Poverty Level (5-year estimate) in New Castle County, DE (S1701ACS010003) from 2012 to 2023 about New Castle County, DE; DE; Philadelphia; poverty; percent; 5-year; population; and USA.

BackgroundThe United States is experiencing a continuing crisis of gun violence, and economically marginalized and racially segregated inner-city areas are among the most affected. To decrease this violence, public health interventions must engage with the complex social factors and structural drivers—especially with regard to the clandestine sale of narcotics—that have turned the neighborhood streets of specific vulnerable subgroups into concrete killing fields. Here we present a mixed-methods ethnographic and epidemiological assessment of narcotics-driven firearm violence in Philadelphia’s impoverished, majority Puerto Rican neighborhoods.MethodsUsing an exploratory sequential study design, we formulated hypotheses about ethnic/racial vulnerability to violence, based on half a dozen years of intensive participant-observation ethnographic fieldwork. We subsequently tested them statistically, by combining geo-referenced incidents of narcotics- and firearm-related crime from the Philadelphia police department with census information representing race and poverty levels. We explored the racialized relationships between poverty, narcotics, and violence, melding ethnography, graphing, and Poisson regression.FindingsEven controlling for poverty levels, impoverished majority-Puerto Rican areas in Philadelphia are exposed to significantly higher levels of gun violence than majority-white or black neighborhoods. Our mixed methods data suggest that this reflects the unique social position of these neighborhoods as a racial meeting ground in deeply segregated Philadelphia, which has converted them into a retail endpoint for the sale of astronomical levels of narcotics.ImplicationsWe document racial/ethnic and economic disparities in exposure to firearm violence and contextualize them ethnographically in the lived experience of community members. The exceptionally concentrated and high-volume retail narcotics trade, and the violence it generates in Philadelphia’s poor Puerto Rican neighborhoods, reflect unique structural vulnerability and cultural factors. For most young people in these areas, the narcotics economy is the most readily accessible form of employment and social mobility. The performance of violence is an implicit part of survival in these lucrative, illegal narcotics markets, as well as in the overcrowded jails and prisons through which entry-level sellers cycle chronically. To address the structural drivers of violence, an inner-city Marshall Plan is needed that should include well-funded formal employment programs, gun control, re-training police officers to curb the routinization of brutality, reform of criminal justice to prioritize rehabilitation over punishment, and decriminalization of narcotics possession and low-level sales.

Graph and download economic data for Percent of Population Below the Poverty Level (5-year estimate) in Gloucester County, NJ (S1701ACS034015) from 2012 to 2023 about Gloucester County, NJ; Philadelphia; NJ; poverty; percent; 5-year; population; and USA.

Graph and download economic data for Percent of Population Below the Poverty Level (5-year estimate) in Delaware County, PA (S1701ACS042045) from 2012 to 2023 about Delaware County, PA; Philadelphia; PA; poverty; percent; 5-year; population; and USA.

Comprehensive demographic dataset for Olney, Philadelphia, PA, US including population statistics, household income, housing units, education levels, employment data, and transportation with year-over-year changes.

Graph and download economic data for Percent of Population Below the Poverty Level (5-year estimate) in Chester County, PA (S1701ACS042029) from 2012 to 2023 about Chester County, PA; Philadelphia; PA; poverty; percent; 5-year; population; and USA.

Graph and download economic data for Percent of Population Below the Poverty Level (5-year estimate) in Camden County, NJ (S1701ACS034007) from 2012 to 2023 about Camden County, NJ; Philadelphia; NJ; poverty; percent; 5-year; population; and USA.

• p<0.05**p<0.01***p<0.0011.All estimates include controls for median age, median household income, percent of the population with less than a high school-level education, and percent of households earning less than the federal poverty standard. 2. IRR: Incidence Rate Ratio; ratio of incidence rate of crimes per square mile at the treatment site to incidence rate of crimes per square mile at the control site 3. SE: Standard Error4. “-”indicates that numbers are too small to report.Adjusted Difference-in-Differences Estimates of Renovation Permit on Census-Tract Level Crime Outcomes, by City Section, Philadelphia, PA, January 2010 –April 20131.

Graph and download economic data for Percent of Population Below the Poverty Level (5-year estimate) in Burlington County, NJ (S1701ACS034005) from 2012 to 2023 about Burlington County, NJ; Philadelphia; NJ; percent; poverty; 5-year; population; and USA.

• p<0.05**p<0.01***p<0.0011. All estimates include controls for median age, median household income, percent of the population with less than a high school-level education, and percent of households earning less than the federal poverty standard. 2. IRR: Incidence Rate Ratio; ratio of incidence rate of crimes per square mile at the treatment site to incidence rate of crimes per square mile at the control site 3. SE: Standard ErrorAdjusted Difference-in-Differences Estimates of Violation Compliance on Point-Level Crime Outcomes, by City Section, Philadelphia, PA, January 2010 –April 20131.

Graph and download economic data for Percent of Population Below the Poverty Level (5-year estimate) in Salem County, NJ (S1701ACS034033) from 2012 to 2023 about Salem County, NJ; Philadelphia; NJ; poverty; percent; 5-year; population; and USA.