Philadelphia, PA (Southwest Schuylkill)

There are two complementary measures for understanding the income of a neighborhood's residents: the average and the extremes. While a neighborhood may be relatively wealthy overall, it is equally important to understand the rate of people - particularly children - who are living at or below the federal poverty line, which is extremely low income. Some neighborhoods with a lower average income may actually have a lower childhood poverty rate than another with a higher average income, and this helps us understand the conditions and character of a neighborhood.

The neighbors in the Southwest Schuylkill neighborhood in Philadelphia are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 98.2% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 50.2% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 94.3% of U.S. neighborhoods.

What we choose to do for a living reflects who we are. Each neighborhood has a different mix of occupations represented, and together these tell you about the neighborhood and help you understand if this neighborhood may fit your lifestyle.

In the Southwest Schuylkill neighborhood, 57.2% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations, with 23.9% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (12.3%), and 8.8% in government jobs, whether they are in local, state, or federal positions.

Languages

The languages spoken by people in this neighborhood are diverse. These are tabulated as the languages people preferentially speak when they are at home with their families. The most common language spoken in the Southwest Schuylkill neighborhood is English, spoken by 91.7% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Chinese and French.

Ethnicity / Ancestry

Culture is the shared learned behavior of peoples. Undeniably, different ethnicities and ancestries have different cultural traditions, and as a result, neighborhoods with concentrations of residents of one or another ethnicities or ancestries will express those cultures. It is what makes the North End in Boston so fun to visit for the Italian restaurants, bakeries, culture, and charm, and similarly, why people enjoy visiting Chinatown in San Francisco.

In the Southwest Schuylkill neighborhood in Philadelphia, PA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Sub-Saharan African (13.5%). There are also a number of people of Asian ancestry (5.1%), and residents who report Jamaican roots (4.8%), and some of the residents are also of Italian ancestry (3.7%), along with some German ancestry residents (3.3%), among others.

How you get to work – car, bus, train or other means – and how much of your day it takes to do so is a large quality of life and financial issue. Especially with gasoline prices rising and expected to continue doing so, the length and means of one's commute can be a financial burden. Some neighborhoods are physically located so that many residents have to drive in their own car, others are set up so many walk to work, or can take a train, bus, or bike. The greatest number of commuters in Southwest Schuylkill neighborhood spend between 30 and 45 minutes commuting one-way to work (45.3% of working residents), which is at or a bit above the average length of a commute across all U.S. neighborhoods.

Here most residents (32.7%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also take the train to get to work (19.6%) and 10.1% of residents also ride the bus for their daily commute. In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.