Underwater: What’s Sinking Families

Children First’s report series: “Underwater: What’s Sinking Families” looks at how The American Dream is eroding where incomes that use to provide a comfortable middle class life are no longer enough to even cover the basics.  The bleak situation facing families will only change with large-scale action.  The policies laid out in these reports must be implemented, or the cycle of financial stress will never end. The children in these struggling families will become the next generation of struggling families. The American Dream will become the American Drain.

The American Dream is eroding in Southeastern Pennsylvania.  Incomes that use to provide a comfortable middle class life are barely even enough to cover the basics. Families in difficult financial situations bank on the hope that their children can rise up the economic ladder and one day feel more monetary comfort than they, the parents, did.

The bleak situation facing many of these families will only change with large scale action.  This series of reports lays out a set of recommendations and policies that must be implemented, or the cycle of financial stress will never end and the children in these struggling families will become the next generation of struggling families.

Children First will release five reports on the status of children in Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties, titled, “Underwater: What’s Sinking Families”.  Click the links below to download a copy of the reports.

Bucks County Report – Released April 2019

Chester County Report – Released February 2020

Delaware County Report – Released March 2019

Montgomery County Report – Released June 2019

Philadelphia County Report – October 24, 2019

There are more than 180,000 children in southeastern Pennsylvania who live in families with incomes at or below the federal poverty level. The parents of most of these children work, but low wages and an unstable job market makes it difficult for families to make ends meet.  Children First works to help lift families out of poverty by pushing for increased investment and access to services for families such as the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit.  These valuable resources help tens of thousands of children in southeastern Pennsylvania rise out of poverty every year.