152,000 Philadelphia children live in families earning too little to meet their needs, new report finds

PHILADELPHIA - More than 324-thousand children call Philadelphia home. 

The nonprofit Children First released a new report titled "A Decade of Stalled Progress: Opportunity Stunted for Children in Philadelphia" and presented the findings at the School District of Philadelphia Tuesday morning.

What we know:

The report analyzes data on Philadelphia children over the last decade, including family income and poverty, early childhood education, K-12 education, child health, child welfare and juvenile justice. 

"Over the last ten years we haven’t really moved the needle on kids," said Donna Cooper, Executive Director of Children First. "There’s some really good news, like more kids are in high quality early childhood education, kids are doing much less risky behaviors and they’re less involved in crime. So kids are actually doing a little bit better but we as adults need to boost family income. Nearly half of the families in this city have to make a decision between rent and food."

The report said 152,000 children live in families earning too little to meet their needs, and too many families of all races and ethnicities are facing economic hardship in Philadelphia.

Areyonna Tompkins is newly hired as a Youth Peer Specialist at the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) and was among the advocates who attended the Children First report presentation. 

"Nothing was surprising to me. Let me just say that," said Tompkins. "We know what the problems are, these problems are continuing to happen and we’re trying to find the resources to mitigate long term effects."

The Children First report said youth violent crime dropped by more than 50 percent since 2014, but noted property crimes are recently on the rise. 

Most risky youth behaviors have also gone down such as drinking, smoking and marijuana use except for vaping, which has persisted. 

While some progress is being made, Superintendent Tony Watlington of the School District of Philadelphia said the consistently high prevalence of mental health symptoms is very concerning.

"It struck me that nearly half of our students, half of our young people in Philadelphia, are suffering from stress and anxiety and are sad most of the time," said Dr. Watlington. "It tells us that we’ve got to double down on providing resources and supports. It tells us we have to build really strong effective partnerships with our community and we have to figure out how to get our young people what they need so that they can learn in school."

Children First is hopeful the report will lead to solutions through financial support for families, adequate school funding and mental health resources.

"We can get families out of the struggle that they face every day that put stress on the families and really makes kids scared," said Cooper.

Children First also released reports in Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery Counties detailing the progress and challenges over the last decades and the policies needed to improve the lives of children.