Surviving vs. Thriving in Philly: Getting Honest About What It Takes

At the Wealth + Work Futures Lab, we see economic mobility as two-sided:

• the floor – stability, security, dignity

• the ladder – opportunity, growth, choice

One without the other doesn’t work. Mobility without stability is fragile and unrealistic; stability without mobility is stagnation. Both can create conditions that challenge people’s ability to thrive and be well. 

In a changing economy, stagnation makes people vulnerable to downward mobility. We need both: a sturdy floor and a real way to move up, so people gain economic power and can meaningfully share that power across generations.

When looking at some measures, you could say we’ve made progress. The city’s income-based poverty rate fell to 20.3% in 2023 (down from 21.7% in 2022 and the lowest since 2000). Median household income reached $60,302, and unemployment averaged 4.5% last year. These are often lauded as real improvements. But averages and medians can hide gaps: 12.5% of white (non-Hispanic) residents lived in poverty versus 24.5% of Black, 26% of Hispanic, and 19% of Asian residents (Pew’s State of the City, 2025). 

Metrics can be a powerful way to make sense of the world and often signal whether we’re moving in the right direction. But to use them well, we need to be honest about what they tell us and what they don’t. We need to distinguish survival (the floor of short-term stability) from thriving (the ladder of mobility), and start to name the real conditions it takes for Philadelphia households to do both.

What We Measure Matters: Poverty Line vs. ALICE vs. MIT Living-Wage Tools

• Federal Poverty Line (FPL) / Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM).
  In 2024, the FPL for a family of four was just $31,200—a bar so low a household can be counted “not poor” while still nowhere near stable in Philadelphia. These are deprivation measures, not sufficiency. The SPM does adjust for housing costs and taxes and is better for comparisons, but it’s still a poverty benchmark, not a local cost-of-living budget. These metrics can be useful for eligibility and trend lines, yet they set a very low floor—and reporting on them without context risks obscuring the realities of people’s lives. (HHS, 2024)

• ALICE (United For ALICE).
  Think of ALICE as the research term for the working poor—Asset Limited, Income Constrained, and Employed. These are individuals who are “playing by the rules” and still not finding the stability they need to survive. ALICE measures a survival budget that prices the basics of where people live, including housing, food, childcare, health care, transportation, taxes and a 10% misc budget. In Philadelphia (2022), ALICE puts essentials at roughly $29,000 for a single adult and $92,200 for a family of four—far above the poverty line and closer to what families face as they work to stabilize. 

• Living-Wage Calculators.
  Tools like the MIT Living Wage Calculator build a bottom-up budget and translate it into a wage by family type. In Philadelphia County (updated Feb 10, 2025), a single parent with one child needs $43.77/hour (about $91,046/year) with housing (~$19,723) and childcare (~$17,685) as major drivers. A two-worker, two-child household needs $30.83/hour per adult (about $128,236/year); if only one adult works, the target jumps to $42.52/hour (~$88,441/year) but assumes $0 childcare because one caregiver is home. Bottom line: childcare, who’s working, and health plan design swing the “living wage,” so there isn’t one right number.

  It’s ok for different tools to answer different questions. However, we can often silo the conversations about financial precarity and affordability leading to challenges 

Costs are Rising & Wages Continue to Fall Behind 

Household Budget Realities in 2025 

Citywide data tells a consistent story: even as a few indicators improve, household budgets are tight. Across the country, essentials have been eating up any gains experienced by households. The Urban Institute’s new American Affordability Tracker shows child care is up 40%, rents 50%, ACA Silver plans 41%, and since 2019 groceries are up 32%. These rising costs are eating families bottom-lines. Urban finds about 52% of people in American families don’t have the resources to cover what it really costs to live securely in their communities. (The American Affordability Tracker, The Urban Institute, October 28th, 2025). 

Two Clear Ranges for 2025: What It Takes to Survive in Philly (The Floor)

Let’s stay focused on the short term—what it takes to avoid a monthly crisis. Long-term mobility is deeply connected, but it’s broader than wages or take-home pay alone.

• Single parent + one child (renter).
  On a good month, the budget just about balances when income lands somewhere in the mid-$40ks to low-$50ks — if childcare is subsidized or reasonably priced and the job includes employer health coverage that doesn’t wipe out January’s paycheck. Take away one support—a waitlisted childcare slot, a high deductible, a cut in hours, an unexpected expense —and the math breaks fast, turning small surprises into rent-threatening crises. With this in mind, does this equal stability? Does this give you a floor or foundation to move forward from? 

• Two adults + two kids (both working).
  When both adults can count on steady hours, a total household income around $80k–$95k generally keeps the lights on and the bills current in Philly. To actually breathe—to build a small emergency cushion, chip away at debt, and put something into retirement—households need roughly 10–15% more (about $90k–$110k). 

As of 2023, Black households in Philadelphia had a median income of about $45,000, and Latino households about $51,000—both below the city’s overall median of $60,302 – and significantly below white, non-hispanic households median of 82,940 (Pew’s State of the City, 2025).

Starting the Conversation about Quality Jobs in Philly: It’s Pay and Conditions

When we talk about stability, we often look to “good jobs,” but I urge us to not stop at hourly pay. For a Philly household to move beyond surviving, benefits and predictability matter as much as dollars. A stability-focused benefit stack might include:

• Health plans that actually reduce risk for individuals (affordable premiums and deductibles; reasonable out-of-pocket maximums).

• Paid sick and family leave so people can care for loved ones without missing rent.

• Predictable schedules (posted weeks in advance, with minimal last-minute cuts).

• Childcare supports (stipends, slots, or hours aligned with shifts).

• Transit or parking help to stabilize both time and cost.

• Emergency-savings tools or zero-interest employee loans to prevent predatory debt cycles.

• Retirement matches that help convert today’s work into future security.

• Employee ownership models that allow all employees to share in the wealth of a company. 

The Employment Capital framework (Brandeis IERE, 2013) shows how job conditions—benefits, flexibility, consistent hours—can build and protect wealth, not just supplement wages. Health insurance and retirement plans, that don’t move risk onto the employee, can preserve income by buffering shocks and converting work into assets over time. Flexibility and reliability determine whether workers can hold steady hours, upskill, and stay attached to better-paying roles long enough for compounding to matter. In short, employment capital has the opportunity to turn stability (the floor) into mobility (the ladder).

Citywide wage medians—especially for workers of color—still sit below what many families need for stability once you factor in childcare, healthcare, transportation, and other costs. That gap won’t close if we only focus on pay and ignore all the other conflating factors - affordability, stability, and access to quality benefits.

Be Honest About What Stability Costs

Numbers without context can keep us treating hardship like a budgeting mistake—as if families simply need more willpower. What gets obscured are the systems and conditions that hold financial precarity in place across Philadelphia: rents that outpace wages, health plans that shift risk onto paychecks, commutes that steal time with loved ones, and neighborhood disinvestment that still shapes options. If we only look at the line items, we’ll keep missing the architecture around them.

Reflection: How are you seeing this tension between true stability and opportunity show up in your work or community? Where are you seeing the data underperform—or even mislead—the conversation?

Alicia Atkinson is the Research and Innovation Officer at the Wealth and Work Futures Lab.