Leading Indicators

New Residents in Philadelphia – Part 1

In this Leading Indicator we dig into the new resident population of Philadelphia since 2018 to better understand changes in the region’s labor market in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Philadelphia has seen growth in its out-of-state resident population since the start of the pandemic [1], and we explore some key features of these newcomers. This is Part 1 of a series exploring the new resident population in Philadelphia, in which we will explore how the pandemic impacted the residential migration patterns in Philadelphia and what this means for the future of the local labor market.

 

What You Need to Know

  • In 2020 and 2021, New York, New Jersey, and Florida were in the top five originating residences of recent out-of-state residents who moved to Philadelphia.

  • New residents moving to Philadelphia are roughly evenly split between males and females, but the average proportion of female residents increased during the COVID-19 pandemic from 46.6% to 53.4% while the average proportion of male residents decreased from 52.6% to 47.4%.

  • Since the start of the pandemic, the proportion of new Black, Hispanic/Latinx, and Multi-Racial residents moving to Philadelphia has increased, while the share of new white and Asian residents has decreased.   

  • A large portion of new residents moving to Philadelphia since the pandemic come from lower income brackets with the median income of new residents declining by 31% between 2018 and 2021.

 

Where do Philadelphia’s New Residents Come From?

Large scale remote and hybrid work introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic created opportunities for unprecedented mobility and choice in where people can live and work [2]. We analyze this mobility in the labor market by looking at the new resident population of Philadelphia since 2018. Using household survey data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau’s Integrated Public Use Microdata Series or IPUMS, we highlight descriptive statistics of recent new residents moving to Philadelphia at the county, state, and international level. Historically, Philadelphia has experienced an average influx of roughly 35,000 out-of-state residents each year between 2010-2019. Figure 1 shows the top five places outside Pennsylvania where recent residents were living—prior to their move to Philadelphia—in 2020 and 2021, respectively. New York, New Jersey, and Florida were in the top five originating residences for both years; however, Philadelphia saw a much higher influx of residents moving from New York in 2021 compared to New Jersey. Interestingly, almost 2,800 new residents arrived from Brazil in 2021 despite low levels of international travel during that year [3]. Overall, the top five out-of-state new residents accounted for more than 50% of all new residents in Philadelphia in both years.  

 

FIGURE 1 

SOURCE: Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) USA

 

New Residents Demographics

We further explored changes in new resident demographics by looking at their gender, race and ethnicity, and median income since 2018. We analyze these trends from 2018 to account for incoming resident patterns two years before and during the pandemic. All estimates for demographic populations are derived from Philadelphia residents who had moved into the city one year prior to the survey. So, for example, a resident who was being surveyed in 2020 and had moved to Philadelphia in 2019 but was included in the “new-resident” sample for 2020. Residents living longer than one-year in Philadelphia prior to the survey, however, were not included in our analysis.

 

Figure 2 shows the average proportion of new residents in Philadelphia by gender before and during the pandemic. We used the proportion of new male and female residents in Philadelphia between 2018 and 2019 to calculate an average proportion of new residents coming to Philadelphia before the pandemic. We ran the same analysis for 2020-2021 to calculate proportions during the pandemic. We found, for both time segments, that new residents are roughly evenly split between males and females, but the average proportion of female residents increased by almost seven percentage points during the pandemic from 46.6% to 53.4% while the average proportion of male residents decreased from 52.6% to 47.4%. 

 

FIGURE 2 

SOURCE: Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) USA

 

Figure 3 shows the average proportional change in Philadelphia’s new resident population by ethnicity before and during the pandemic. The plot shows which populations of certain racial or ethnic groups—as a proportion of all new residents—increased, stayed the same, or decreased since the start of the pandemic. We found that many racial and ethnic groups saw a proportional increase in their new resident population with the notable exception of white and Asian populations, which saw declines. White residents accounted for almost 54% of new residents moving to Philadelphia before the COVID-19 pandemic. However, this number declined to roughly 43% since 2020. Similarly, the average proportion of Asian residents decreased from 13.7% to 8.6% during the same time-period. It is also noteworthy that new residents in Philadelphia are largely comprised of white individuals which might speak to the overall disparity in geographical mobility among different racial and ethnic groups in the U.S.

 

FIGURE 3 

SOURCE: Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) USA

 

We also looked at the median income (adjusted for inflation) of Philadelphia’s new residents between 2018 and 2021. The median income is imputed from the average pre-tax wage and salary income of respondents in the survey, representing individuals who recently moved to Philadelphia and were employed at the time of the survey. Starting in 2018, we see a decline in the median income of every new cohort of residents moving into Philadelphia – going as low as $38,000 in 2020 and staying at roughly the same level in 2021. While there was a decline in median income of new residents from 2018 to 2021, we examined new residents' median income trends back to 2005 and saw similar fluctuations from year-to-year.

 

FIGURE 4 

SOURCE: Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) USA

 

Looking Ahead

Our descriptive analysis of new residents in Philadelphia is the first step towards understanding the changes in the city’s labor market brought about by remote and hybrid work and the COVID-19 pandemic. We will further explore county-to-county migration in Greater Philadelphia as well as the types of occupations new residents in future Leading Indicators.

 

Works Cited

[1] “Economy League - Remote Working in Philadelphia,” Economy League of Greater Philadelphia. http://http://economyleague.org//providing-insight/leadingindicators/20… (accessed Jan. 10, 2023).

 

[2] “Remote work and related mobility are on the rise – and the role of the state is changing | University of Helsinki.” https://www.helsinki.fi/en/news/equality/remote-work-and-related-mobili… (accessed Jan. 10, 2023).

 

[3] C. Danisewicz, “The Status and Outlook of International Travel in 2021,” On Call International Blog, Jan. 21, 2021. https://blog.oncallinternational.com/the-status-and-outlook-of-internat… (accessed Jan. 10, 2023).