Philadelphia Unemployment Project

PUP has always believed that having a ready availability of decent jobs for all is the most important thing we can do to ensure economic justice in America. However, since our beginning in 1975 we have seen a tremendous out flow of such jobs from Philadelphia and most other large American cities.

Our approach for years has been to organize for decent jobs in the city. We have fought for public service jobs, higher minimum wages for all, fought plant closings and had the nation’s first municipal plant closing ordinance passed, campaigned to raise wages in the fast food industry, fought mandatory overtime in the post office… all to create better jobs in the city where the largest part of the unemployed live. These have had modest success, but the overall the problem remains and I have yet to see a strategy that would turn this trend around.

Tax incentives have had an abysmal record for influencing corporate location decisions. Witness the $79 million Empowerment Zone in Philadelphia or the vacant Keystone Opportunity zones. The reality, in my opinion, has been that the free market has decided to disinvest out of major cities and no one has come up with a strategy to reverse that trend. More investment in the cities, including major upgrade in infrastructure, would help I think. The Center City Districts efforts aimed at improving quality of life in center city has helped for down town development. Unfortunately the political will to make major investments in big cities has deteriorated as urban populations have declined and the suburbs have grown. We can hope that changes in the politics in Washington could help in this area after years of control by Republicans who see no political benefit from helping the cities.

But until someone comes up with a viable strategy to reverse the flight of business from urban centers a system that makes it easier for city residents to get to decent paying jobs makes sense to us. Better mass transit in general would help with the regional economies that have grown. Our Commuter Options project is an attempt to run a system to make commutes reasonable for inner city workers, which SEPTA with its large scale bus lines cannot do economically for many of the thousands of work sites in the suburbs.