Pew’s Philadelphia research and policy initiative seeks to inform discussions on important issues facing the city and the region and to provide policymakers and other decision-makers with data, analysis, and examples of promising practices that may help them address key challenges.
We regularly release reports that often offer comparisons with other major U.S. cities, and we conduct polling to determine Philadelphians’ views on policy issues, elected officials, and various aspects of life in the city.
We also combine our local capacity with our state- and national-level expertise to convene city and regional stakeholders with experts and officials from around the country to discuss effective, evidence-based solutions being implemented in other jurisdictions and the impacts of those reforms.
Many Philadelphians dislike the city’s property tax. In a Pew Philadelphia Poll conducted in early 2022, respondents ranked the tax’s fairness below that of the city’s wage and sales taxes. And when property values from the latest round of assessments were posted in May, some City Council members said they were flooded with calls from outraged constituents
This is a pivotal moment for Philadelphia. More than two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, the decisions local leaders make now—about attracting and retaining residents, bolstering the workforce, and adjusting tax structures to reflect new realities like remote work—will greatly affect Philadelphia’s ability to thrive and become a more equitable city.
In the first of a series of briefs examining Philadelphia’s fiscal future, The Pew Charitable Trusts looked at how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the city’s economy.
Through its Philadelphia’s Fiscal Future series, The Pew Charitable Trusts, in collaboration with the William Penn Foundation, is exploring the various possibilities that lie ahead for the city’s finances and economy.
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Related Experts
Elinor Haider
Director
Philadelphia Research and Policy Initiative
Sandra Shea
Senior Officer
Philadelphia Research and Policy Initiative
Katie Martin
Senior Manager
Philadelphia Research and Policy Initiative
Octavia Howell
Manager
Philadelphia Research and Policy Initiative
Sophie Bryan
Senior Manager
Philadelphia Research and Policy Initiative
Larry Eichel
Senior Adviser
Philadelphia Research and Policy Initiative
Two years into the pandemic, Philadelphia is showing signs of an economic and public health recovery, yet some serious challenges remain. As of April 2022, the city had recorded more than 300,000 COVID-19 cases and over 5,000 deaths since the virus was first detected in Philadelphia in March 2020. A decline in coronavirus cases in the early fall of 2021 had offered the promise of recovery—a prospect disrupted by a surge of new cases in late 2021 and early 2022. By February 2022, the city’s case numbers had declined sharply, although new surges in Europe and Asia around the same time added fresh uncertainty about the future trajectory of COVID-19 cases in Philadelphia.
COVID-19 affected nearly all aspects of Philadelphians’ lives, magnifying existing inequities and exposing new fault lines at a time when calls for racial justice were mounting in the city and throughout the country.
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