Last year brought many serious challenges, chief among them the pandemic and its impacts on cities around the world, including our hometown of 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.
Data from our Philadelphia research and policy initiative's annual “State of the City” report documents the pandemic’s consequences, both direct and indirect.
As it grappled with the coronavirus, Philadelphia also faced spikes in gun violence and drug overdose deaths as well as questions about what lasting effects the pandemic might have on its economy and its people.
Here, we tell the city’s story, providing a snapshot of what life looks like now and how it has evolved in recent years.
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COVID-19
A deadly pandemic stuns a city
Nearly 2,500 Philadelphians lost their lives to the coronavirus in 2020, with more than 96,000 confirmed cases.
The world wasn’t prepared for the novel coronavirus, and many Americans weren’t prepared for how rapidly it spread. But as Philadelphians learned more about how to protect themselves, the number of deaths per month in the city fell gradually from spring to summer before rising sharply in late fall.
As the pandemic stretched on, the city steadily increased the availability of COVID-19 testing for residents. Although tests were relatively limited in the early months, more than 200,000 tests per month were administered in November and December.
From March through December 2020, Philadelphia recorded more than 96,000 cases of COVID-19. Like many other U.S. cities, Philadelphia experienced two major spikes in cases: in April, shortly after the start of the pandemic, and once more toward the end of the year.
Hispanic and Black Philadelphia residents were far more likely to know someone who died from the virus than were non-Hispanic White residents, our August 2020 poll revealed.
The pandemic affected not only physical health but also mental health. In our survey, 49% of Philadelphians said that they or someone in their household felt seriously depressed or anxious.
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Mask Compliance
Face coverings become the new normal
Did most people in Philadelphia wear masks?
Despite controversy around mask mandates throughout the country, a large majority of people in Philadelphia abided by the rule.
To help stem the spread of COVID-19, Mayor Jim Kenney signed an executive order on June 28, mandating that masks be worn in a number of social or public settings. The city’s Department of Public Health then began tracking the rate of mask compliance by counting the number of people seen wearing masks on security cameras throughout the city.
Compliance both outside and at retail locations was generally high and rose over time.
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Employment
Job growth halts, unemployment spikes
The city’s unemployment rate more than triples within five months.
Before 2020, the number of jobs in Philadelphia had been rising steadily, with the city recording a historically low unemployment rate in 2019, at 5.5%.
But that progress came to an abrupt halt. The pandemic was declared a national emergency on March 13; businesses and institutions in Philadelphia and across the country had to shutter their doors, and, except for essential workers, residents were asked to remain at home.
Shortly afterward, the city’s unemployment rate jumped to levels not seen even in the worst days of the Great Recession, reaching 18.2% in June. The leisure and hospitality sector was hit the hardest: A third of its jobs disappeared in 2020.
Unemployment gradually fell as businesses started to reopen, ending the year at 9.3%. It was 6.7% nationally in December 2020.
Although the unemployment rate began to decrease in the latter half of the year, the city’s average, 12.2%, was still the highest in decades and above the national average of 8.1%.
The number of jobs in the city declined by more than 40,000 from 2019 to 2020, though at times that number dipped by almost 100,000.
Philadelphia underwent a 5.6% contraction in the number of jobs from 2019 to 2020, similar to the country’s 5.8% decrease. This came after years of job growth in the city, which outperformed the country as a whole in 2016, 2018, and 2019.
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Public Safety
Increase in violence raises concerns
Homicides are up by 40% in one year.
In 2020, homicides in Philadelphia increased to levels not seen since the early 1990s. The number of homicides was more than 40% higher than in 2019—and more than twice as high as in 2013, when the total was the lowest since the 1960s.
As homicides spiked, residents grew more concerned. Philadelphians polled in the summer said that they were more worried about public safety and crime than about COVID-19’s impact.
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Public Transportation
As travel plummets, so does ridership
City Transit use fell by almost 24%.
Mass transit ridership, which had already been declining in previous years, dropped sharply in 2020, largely because of the pandemic. Many companies shifted to remote work, and all large events and gatherings were canceled amid government stay-at-home and social distancing orders. For instance, our August 2020 poll found that 52% of Philadelphia residents said they had been working mostly or entirely at home. As a result of these changes, use of public transit dropped considerably.
Ridership through the 12 months ending June 30—which included only the first few months of the pandemic restrictions—was down almost 24% from the prior year for SEPTA’s City Transit Division and down 23% for Regional Rail. Use of PATCO’s high-speed line declined 64% for the entire year.
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City Revenue
An uncertain fiscal future
Revenue from sales, business, and wage taxes is down by more than half.
Like most U.S. cities, Philadelphia’s city government took a revenue hit from COVID-19—with fewer people spending money at local shops and restaurants, fewer businesses operating, and fewer workers in the city.
Many other city governments get much of their local revenue from property taxes. But Philadelphia relies heavily on a wage tax and is one of only six of the 20 most populous U.S. cities that has a city- or county-level tax on compensation, according to the Tax Foundation.
Commuters who are now working remotely no longer have to pay the wage tax, which is normally paid by anyone working within the city. The wage tax was projected to account for 47% of locally generated tax revenue in fiscal year 2021.
The fiscal 2021 budget, adopted in June, was based on an anticipated decrease in general fund revenue of more than $190 million. The biggest projected declines were in business and sales taxes, both of which were expected to drop approximately 10% from fiscal 2020.
The city’s fiscal 2022 budget will be somewhat easier to balance, thanks to federal funds coming to the city via the American Rescue Plan, enacted by Congress in March 2020.
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Evictions
Evictions are paused as pandemic keeps people home
Eviction filings dropped from 20,350 in 2019 to 7,620 in 2020.
In March, in response to the pandemic and shelter-at-home mandates, the city’s court system placed a moratorium on evictions and stopped accepting new filings that could lead to eviction. The first coronavirus relief bill also outlawed evictions from March to July in most federally subsidized housing.
In July, the courts started allowing new cases to be filed but permitted evictions only in cases of breach of lease related to criminal conduct or damage to the property.
Residential eviction filings in Philadelphia, which had gradually declined in recent years, plummeted in 2020 as a result of the evictions moratorium, which was extended through June 2021.
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Drug Overdoses
Crisis intensifies amid social isolation
Drug overdose deaths remain at historic highs.
Philadelphia’s opioid crisis and drug overdose death rate have been major concerns for several years. In fact, in 2019, Philadelphia had the highest rate of overdose deaths among counties with more than 1 million people.
Fatal drug overdoses continued to be a major concern in 2020. People with substance use disorders faced intensified challenges during COVID-19 because of social isolation, job loss, and reduced access to in-person treatment.
City officials estimate Philadelphia’s 2020 death toll from drug overdoses to be around 1,200, roughly matching the peak recorded in 2017. Should that estimate hold, the total would be slightly higher than in 2019.
Philadelphia reported 62.2 drug overdose deaths for every 100,000 residents in 2019, the latest year for which comparison data was available. Generally, overdose data is collected at the county level. Among the comparison cities and the counties that include them, Philadelphia had the second-highest rate, behind only Baltimore.
To examine these takeaways in greater detail and access comprehensive data, charts, maps, and other findings, download the full “State of the City” report.