Living the American Drain in Delaware County

“We’re hurting every single day but so are most of our friends and neighbors. We’re average, normal people, living right and working hard, but the hits keep coming and you can feel them eating away at our children’s future.” Stacie Flynn, Delaware County Mother, told PCCY.

They played by the rules and worked hard to earn what they have. They live in a nice neighborhood in Delaware County with their children. But four in ten of these families are likely to be unable to cover the costs of raising their children. 

“There are a lot of families who are poor, working or middle class in Delaware County who are drowing and think they are on the only ones, but it’s clearly not the case,” said Donna Cooper, Executive Director of PCCY, at a panel discussion this week, marking the launch of a new study. “The shame here is just how common the stress and struggle to stay afloat is in Delaware County.”

Our latest report, Underwater: What’s Sinking Families in Delaware County, was the topic of discussion yesterday at a panel discussion, moderated by Phil Heron, Executive Editor of the Delaware County Daily Times.

“I get a thousand emails a day,” said Heron, “but it’s not often that they stop me in my tracks. When I saw that families in Delco making $75k a year are struggling to make ends meet, I was stunned.”

Our report details the stark reality of the spiraling costs of raising children and recommends practical and large-scale actions to restore the promise of upward mobility lost for too many in the region. 

Comfortably ensconced in the middle-class, Delaware County 2-child families earning $75,000 annually have less than nothing left over, likely incurring over $2,000 of debt after covering the basics. For nearly every one of these families, child care is the biggest costs, eating up as much as $17,000 a year.   

Other families who are working class (earning about $50,000 a year) might be among the fortunate few who receive child care subsidies. Even still, they end up with a $3,000 hole in their budget from the basics alone. And those are the lucky ones as only 40% of families in the county eligible for child care subsidies are able to get them.

The poorest families are in the same boat. If these families can tap every public benefit, which are often in short supply, they still have to choose which bill to pay every month because they can’t meet every cost.

For the children in these families, good schools are a lifeline – usually the only one available to them – for rising up the economic ladder and escaping the financial stress their parents face.

But Delaware County schools are facing similar pressure as families, struggling to cope with skyrocketing costs mandated by the State. Since 2010, the costs of pensions, special education and charter schools have grown at more than twice the rate of State funding, creating a $130 million hole that districts have to fill on their own just to avoid cuts.

Even with near constant property tax increases, districts are unable to get more money into the classroom. In fact, seven of the 15 districts in the county have less to spend on instruction today than they did in 2010. As classroom funding diminishes, so do the odds of upward mobility for the children in these struggling families.

In Underwater, the follow-up to the Left Out series of reports documenting the status of children in Southeastern Pennsylvania, PCCY recommends a slate of key actions policymakers can take to support Delaware County’s beleaguered middle-class.

Click here to read Underwater: What’s Sinking Families in Delaware County.

Click here to read a summary of the Underwater recommendations for Delaware County.