Families in the Philadelphia suburbs are struggling to pay for basic needs, including high child care and housing costs, according to a new study.
A family of four with young children needs to make about $90,000 just to make ends meet in the Philadelphia suburbs, a new study released this month by the nonprofit Pathways PA shows.
According to the study, more than 846,000 working-age Pennsylvania households lack enough income just to cover those basic needs.
The 2020 Overlooked and Undercounted report examines the cost of basic necessities by creating a "Self-Sufficiency Standard" for each Pennsylvania county. The newly released Self-Sufficiency Standard, which uses data from 2019, shows what you need to make just to be able to pay for housing, child care, food, healthcare, transportation, taxes, and other miscellaneous basic needs.
The most expensive suburban Philadelphia county is Chester, where families made up of two adults and two preschool-aged children need to earn more than $93,100 just to pay their bills.
The largest expense for young families in the region by far is child care, which costs more than housing if both parents work full-time and more than one child is in daycare.
"With one out of four Pennsylvania households lacking enough income to meet their basic needs, the problem of inadequate income is extensive, affecting families throughout the state, in every racial/ ethnic group, among men, women, and children, in all counties. Nevertheless, inadequate income is concentrated disproportionately in some places and among some groups," the report summary states.
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