Eight Reasons Not to Move to Erie, Pennsylvania

And this isn’t even the complete list, just the ones I wanted to highlight here

Extreme poverty

This city on Lake Erie is one of the poorest in the country. In fact, zip code 16501 is the fourth poorest in the entire United States. The East Side is starkly poorer than the West Side and the average household income in Erie is $37,894 (2019 figure). The median property value is $89,100.

The poverty rate in the city of Erie is 26.2%. The poverty rate is higher than the national average and the income and property values are well below the national averages. The average household income in the United States is $67,521 and the median national property value is $374,900. The poverty rate is roughly 11.4% nationally.

Low pay and slow job growth

The slow job growth hasn’t been helped by the pandemic. This one goes hand in hand with the first reason not to come. In fact, many businesses have closed and the job growth has been nearly non-existent. Even the projected job growth over the next 10–15 years for the region is at about half of the percentage increase of the United States average.

The average Erie resident’s average annual salary is around $19,000 a year. For full-time work, that equates to about $9.50 an hour, and the data is unclear whether that is before or after taxes but I’ll just assume that the wage listed is before taxes because you’d be lucky to find a job paying double figures in town, although the job market as of late has driven up wages in the area.

Restaurant and tipped workers, though, still make $2.83 an hour before tips and if a server makes more than $30 in tips per month, they’re not guaranteed federal minimum wage at $7.25 for other types of work. Pennsylvania has some of the lowest wages for workers in the United States.

High unemployment rate

Currently, the federal unemployment numbers are 6.0%. Erie’s official unemployment number is at around 10.6%, almost double the national average. This is another product of the economy right now during the COVID pandemic. Jobs are low-paying, and businesses are closing as I had previously stated in the last two reasons.

The job sector still carries a lot of manufacturing work and hasn’t adapted as quickly to the changing times even in a close city such as Pittsburgh, which was also a Rust Belt City but has now become a hotspot for technology, housing Facebook offices, and a Google office as well.

Extreme weather

Winters are rough here. Erie is one of the highest cities every year in terms of snowfall. The average snowfall per year is 101.2 inches (257.0 centimeters). Snow can fall in the city anywhere from October to as late as early June. The wind speed is also extreme at times, with wind gusts occasionally going over 65–85 mph (105–137 kph).

Summer temperatures are definitely comfortable but can also produce rainfall in all months. Erie, PA is also an above-average rainy city as well averaging 44 inches per year. For reference, Seattle averages about 37 inches per year, and that city is known for its rain.

Increasing violent crime

This one is harder to get updated numbers on from year to year since most of the stats are from a couple of years back. As of 2021, the numbers that are available are that an Erie resident has a 1 in 155 chance of being the victim of a violent crime. In comparison to other US cities, Erie is safer than only 16% of US cities.

I do come from a more violent city so I might not notice the difference but the crime seems to be a little less than in some larger cities, particularly the one I’m from but there is still some activity in the city. The last homicide count reported for the year 2019 was nine total homicides.

Increasing drug problem

A reason why violent crime might be up is also because of this increasing drug problem that has been plaguing many Rust Belt cities. The influx of fentanyl, methamphetamine and heroin has plagued Erie, PA. A good indicator of the increasing drug problem is the increasing overdose count in the city from the years of 2019 to 2020. Overdose incidents increased by 196% and overdose deaths increased by 400% in that time.

The high number of registered sex offenders

As of 2022, there were 472 registered sex offenders in the city of Erie. That’s roughly a rate of 1 in every 209 residents. If the city had a larger population, it would be near the top of the list of major cities. Erie, however, is no longer considered a major city. I don’t really want to elaborate on my thoughts on this. Simply put, I’m a bit disgusted at this figure.

Shrinking population

When a population is shrinking, people must be seeing something and staying away for good reason. The population had been above 100,000 before the 2020 Census. The official numbers from the census are 94,831 people as of April 1, 2020, and continuing to shrink. This is a reflection pretty much of all of the other factors combined that are driving people away.

Complicated and very deep-seated systemic issues

The problems are obviously very complicated and are going to be difficult to identify and address. There are other problems that I haven’t listed but are certainly ones that should be addressed as well and that I’ve written about previously. These are definitely serious issues that the city leaders need to start addressing instead of just putting a gloss over and makeover the city’s downtown thinking it’ll fix the problem.

Again, I’ve said before, Erie is in a great location, but a lot of factors are essentially killing the city. I still have hope for the future but it’s going to take a community effort. It’s really hard for the community to get involved when the community is facing these and the other major issues.