Amid rising inflation and business costs, many Philadelphia corner stores, bars, laundromats, and smoke shops have turned to skill games, the slot machine look-alikes, to help keep their slim margins afloat.
The machines, which shop owners say also encourage their customers to linger in stores and make additional purchases, are particularly profitable because theyare not taxed or regulated like slot machines — and they have been operating without state oversight in a legal gray area for more than a decade. But a recent state Supreme Court ruling may force that tochange.
Last week, Pennsylvania’s highest court handed down a decision deeming skill games the same as slot machines. That means the skill game terminals proliferating around the state will soon be illegal if not operated and taxed at 52%, and housed in a highly regulated casino or truck stop with a license to carry slot machines. Those terms will take effect in less than four months unless the state legislature intervenes.
Owners and clerks at several corner stores throughout Philadelphia that offer the games say they do not contribute a lot of revenue to their establishments directly, but they foster more of a lounge atmosphere in the shops that leads patrons tostay longer and purchase more snacks, drinks, lottery tickets, and other goods. Many of the business owners said they are willing to stomach a tax on skill games, but additional regulations would make them rethink keeping the machines.
José Pérez, who runs a corner store on Opal Street in South Philadelphia, said his store runs on incremental profits. And, he said, when people play the skill game machines and start feeling lucky, they often are inclined to make other purchases there.
“This business is about getting a little bit of money from every product, and the machines are a tiny source of income that adds up to that,” he said in Spanish between transactions at the store’s register. “While people play, they buy other stuff in the store. And if they win, they buy lottery tickets. Because when someone has one vice, they probably have two.”
Tax proposals from Harrisburg
Lawmakers in Harrisburg have for years failed to reach an agreement on how to tax and regulate the so-called skill games
The issue has proved to be tricky in Pennsylvania’s split legislature, where Democrats narrowly control the House and Republicans control the Senate. The skill games industry leader, Georgia-based Pace-O-Matic, long maintained a friendly relationship with the Senate GOP, and the Republican lawmakers appeared willing to support policies that benefited them. But last year, the goodwill began to sour after the company backed political campaigns against incumbent Republican state lawmakers who did not support its requested low tax rate on the machines.
State Rep. Danilo Burgos (D., Philadelphia) and State Sen. Anthony H. Williams (D., Philadelphia) have introduced a bipartisan bill in their chambers to impose a $500-per-month fee on each skill game machine operated in Pennsylvania, with a 50,000-machine cap across the state. There are currently an estimated 70,000 skill game machines in Pennsylvania, according to the state attorney general’s office.
Skill games can be seen through the door of a mini mart on Kensington Avenue in the Kensington section of Philadelphia on Wednesday, July 30, 2025.
The proposed legislation would split revenues among transit and infrastructure, local governments, and state police for enforcing the cap and fee. The bills also prohibit small businesses whose “primary source of net revenue” is from skill games, in an effort to prevent mini casinos in stop-and-go corner stores around the city. Burgos estimates the regulations would bring in $300 million in new revenue to the state in their first year.
The bill includes additional protections for Philadelphia, where City Council voted in 2024 to ban the machines. The ban never went into effect, after a lawsuit was filed seeking to block it. In the legislation before the General Assembly, Philadelphia has specific carve-outs that would allow city officials to block stop-and-go businesses or “chronic nuisance” businesses from getting a license to carry the games.
Surrounded by hundreds of skill games supporters at a news conference Wednesday on the Capitol steps in Harrisburg, Williams said rank-and-file lawmakers would hold up passing the state budget, due June 30, if there is not a deal to protect small businesses from losing their skill games altogether.
“In this time when everybody talks about affordability, I can’t afford a 52% tax,” Williams said.
The fee-per-machine option offered in the Democratic-sponsored bills is backed by Pace-O-Matic, which has spent millions of dollars on political campaigns and lobbying in the state, in addition to millions more spent by other parts of Pennsylvania’s booming gambling industry.
Meanwhile, a separate proposal backed by the Senate GOP and penned last year would set the tax at 35% on gross terminal revenue, in addition to annual license fees. A small portion of those fees would go toward the state’s resources for problem gambling.
Gov. Josh Shapiro, a first-term Democrat, has proposed taxing the machines at the same rate as slot machines — a hefty 52% levy on each machine’s net revenue — in his last two budget proposals. As the machines have continued to proliferate around the state, Shapiro’s office estimated the newly regulated industry could bring in nearly $800 million in revenue in its first year.
Uncertain future with uncertain revenue
Philly store owners were divided on whether it would be worth keeping the machines if they needed to pay a lofty tax on either housing the devices or the profits they made on them.
Andrew Karki, who operates a laundromat near Pérez‘s store in South Philadelphia, said the machines occupy the customers while they wait for their laundry to finish and, as at Pérez‘s store, lead to purchases of candy and soda from the small bodega he runs inside the laundromat.
He estimated the machines make up 15% to 20% of his monthly revenue, and he said he would likely be willing to take on a tax on the games, even a rather large one, to keep them around.
“It’s hard, but we got to pay it. We got to pay it,” Karki said.
For others, like Diego Reyes, who runs a secondhand shop on Kensington Avenue with about a dozen skill machines inside, taxing the small businesses for the machines does not seem fair. The terminals are often owned by small amusement companies, and are largely operated by Pace-O-Matic. The business owners get a cut from the machine’s revenue for allowing the terminal in their building.
“They should tax the owner,” Reyes said in Spanish, wearing a Phillies cap and T-shirt with a size-medium sticker still stuck on the back, as three people played the machines.
Pérez agreed that any tax should be on skill games companies and not on the businesses that carry them.
It is frustrating to think another tax may be coming down the line,he said,when small-business owners already pay so many of them and see little return on the investment in the community.
“Look outside, that pothole has been there for six months. We have no safety,” Pérez said. “What do you want me to pay more taxes for if you are not doing anything to better the conditions with it?”
Staff writer Isabel Maney contributed to this article.
A nascent property tax relief program for New Jersey seniors has been at the center of budget negotiations between Gov. Mikie Sherrill and lawmakers as the state’sbudget deadline quickly approaches.
That program, called Stay NJ, is expected to undergo changes that would slice the income eligibility by more than half, kicking off seniors that made hundreds of thousands of dollars and started reaping the benefit this year.
The benefit is currently available to seniors making less than $500,000, but that cap would be lowered to $200,000 under an agreement between the governor and legislative leaders, according to reports of closed-door budget talks. Those making less money would be eligible for a larger refund under the arrangement.
The proposal is a compromise between Sherrill, who pushed for cuts to the program, and House Speaker Craig Coughlin (D., Middlesex), a key player in budget negotiations who has championed Stay NJ.
As the name suggests, Stay NJ was created in 2023 to incentivize New Jerseyans to remain in the Garden State by providing refunds to eligible seniorhomeowners. The program was designed to start payments in 2026, so the very first checks had just begun going out when the first term governor presented her early March budget proposal.
Here’s what to know about the status of the Stay NJ program.
Is there a budget deal?
Sherrill, Coughlin, and State Sen. President Nicholas Scutari (D., Union) announced Tuesday that they came to a budget “agreement.” The closed-door deal wasn’t made public, and legislators continue to iron out the details ahead of the deadline this coming Tuesday.
They said the budget agreement totals $60.7 billion, the same total Sherrill proposed in March. The governor has touted her proposal as “fiscally responsible,” though it’s still the highest price tag in the state’s history.
The joint statement mentioned few details but cited a handful of measures, including Stay NJ.
The state leaderssaid their agreement ensures the program “is a sustainable benefit retirees can count on.”
The propertytax relief program issues refund payments to eligible seniors in quarterly installments. The first Stay NJ payments were issued in February with an average of $600 each, according to the state treasurer’s office.
Under the current policy, eligible homeowners over 65 years old who make under $500,000 a year are eligible to get refunds for as much as half their property tax bills. The refunds are capped at $6,500 in a year.
What did Gov. Sherrill want to change about Stay NJ?
Sherrill wanted to slice the eligibility cap in half so only seniors with an annual household income below $250,000 would qualify.
She also wanted to lower the maximum benefit to $4,000.
“That’s a fairer, more efficient use of taxpayer money,” she said in her budget address in early March.
Stephen Sigmund, a spokesperson for Sherrill, said at the time of her proposal that 90% of Stay NJ recipients would keep their benefits.
The AARP expressed outrage at her proposal as New Jersey seniors struggle with the cost of living. But critics of the program who believe it directs too much state money to higher earners praised her for wanting to rein it in.
So what’s actually changing?
According to reports of the budget agreement, Sherrill and legislators agreed on a compromise.
Sherrill agreed to steer an additional $100 million funding to the program, NJ.com reported.
Meanwhile, legislative leaders agreed to lower the income threshold to qualify for the program to $200,000, even lower than what Sherrill initially suggested.
And as part of the new plan, those earning the least would get bigger deductions, according to the report.
Seniors making $100,000 or less would qualify for up to $6,500; those making between $100,000 and $150,000 would be eligible for up to $5,000, and those making $150,000 to $200,000 would qualify for up to $4,000, according to the report.
Coughlin said at an AARP town hall that Sherrill’s proposed cap across the board of $4,000 was “too low,” and that he would “stand up for Stay NJ,” New Jersey Monitor reported earlier this month.
Spokespeople for the governor did not respond to a request asking for confirmation of the plan.
Acting director of national intelligence Bill Pulte, installed Friday by President Donald Trump, has at Trump’s urging begun trimming his organization, which coordinates the nation’s 18 spy agencies.
This week Pulte fired a half-dozen political appointees and notified several dozen career officers on loan to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence that they were being sent back to their home agencies.
Pulte’s immediate predecessor, Tulsi Gabbard, had already culled hundreds of personnel, boasting that she had slashed the staff by 40%. Trump has long been distrustful of what he calls the “deep state” intelligence community, and the cuts by Pulte are the latest in a series of shocks that have roiled the ODNI.
Gabbard, who left office last week, had a stormy tenure, falling in and out of favor with Trump’s White House. Current and former officials criticized as ham-handed her release of files related to President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. She selectively declassified data on Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. election and other matters that supported Trump’s views.
In recent months, the ODNI has seen a number of high-level resignations and a roller coaster of leadership announcements by Trump.
The agency “is being so hollowed out that its new name might become DNR — do not resuscitate. It’s on life support already,” said Beth Sanner, a former ODNI deputy director who served as Trump’s intelligence briefer in his first administration.
While a number of current and former intelligence officials note that there are merits to shrinking the ODNI, the Trump administration, they say, has gone about it in a haphazard way that could undermine the intelligence coordination that Congress created the agency to do.
“Reasonable people can debate ODNI’s size and mission, but sacking dozens of seasoned officers in your first week isn’t reform — it’s performative firing to please a president who treats his own intelligence community as the enemy within,” said Julia Curlee, who served as a director for intelligence programs in Trump’s White House until last year and recently resigned from the CIA after 20 years as an analyst.
Pulte asked program heads for a rank-ordered list of personnel to guide decisions on who could be let go, according to former intelligence officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.
One apparent casualty of the personnel moves that began under Gabbard is the National Intelligence Council, which was staffed primarily by career officers on loan from other agencies, such as the CIA. The NIC is considered the most authoritative intelligence analysis unit, producing in-depth reports on key topics for top government officials using information gathered by multiple spy agencies.
About 20 NIC personnel have been removed or have chosen to leave, including several senior officers who oversaw the production of analysis on Russia, China, and Europe.
The deputy director for mission integration, Will Ruger, who effectively led the council, was placed on administrative leave, according to three former intelligence officials.
It is unclear whether and to what extent the vacancies will be filled. When the principal deputy intelligence officer for Russia left last year, the position was kept open.
Trump told the Wall Street Journal this month that he’d like to see a “smaller” ODNI. “I think there are a lot of people in there that shouldn’t be there,” Trump said, noting that he was referring to holdovers from the Biden and Obama administrations.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton said on the Senate floor Wednesday that “mass firings” were not taking place. He said Pulte told him that “a small handful of front-office personnel” were leaving, “which is not at all uncommon when a senior leader leaves an agency or one comes into an agency.” He added that “around 45 or 50 career officers” were returning to their home agencies.
“I think that’s a step in the right direction,” said Cotton, who has long called for shrinking the ODNI and last year proposed legislation that would cap its full-time staff at 650.
Some agency insiders have heard that there could be subsequent rounds of cuts and that keeping each round relatively small will help avoid congressional blowback, according to one former intelligence official.
Trump’s appointment of Pulte, who has no intelligence or national security experience, has alarmed Democratic lawmakers, as well as some Republicans. Some current and former intelligence officials fear he will use the post to further Trump’s agenda, including weaponizing intelligence against the president’s enemies.
As head of a federal mortgage regulation agency, Pulte has launched mortgage fraud probes of people Trump considers adversaries, including Sen. Adam Schiff (D., Calif.) and Federal Reserve Board member Lisa Cook.
Government reorganization efforts under Trump have been marked by chaos and missteps, such as when Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency last year dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development and conducted mass firings at the State Department and other agencies.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence was created by Congress in the wake of the September 2001 terrorist attacks, after investigations found that the CIA, the FBI and other agencies had failed to share critical information about al-Qaeda plots.
The ODNI had a little more than 2,000 employees at the start of Trump’s second term. By the time Gabbard left last week, the number had shrunk to 1,300, according to congressional aides.
Morale was shaken last year when Gabbard dismissed the chair and vice chair of the NIC after it produced a report that found that the Venezuelan government was most likely not directing the activities of Tren de Aragua, a criminal gang that Trump has vilified. The finding contradicted his rationale for invoking the Alien Enemies Act and deporting alleged Venezuelan gang members without due process.
“Getting [the agency] smaller makes sense, but this isn’t the way to do it,” said John Sipher, a 28-year veteran CIA operations officer and former Moscow station chief, who has argued that the ODNI should be dismantled.
Sipher said the ODNI’s problem is that it suffers not just from bureaucratic bloat, but from political interference. “The office that was meant to safeguard intelligence from fragmentation has become another perch from which intelligence can be politicized and bent toward partisan narratives,” he wrote in the Bulwark.
This week’s cuts do not appear to have significantly affected the agency’s largest component, the National Counterterrorism Center, which was set up by Congress to be the government’s primary organization for analyzing international terrorism and which in its heyday had more than 1,000 personnel, according to former senior intelligence officials.
Trump has nominated Jay Clayton, U.S. attorney and former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman, to be the permanent director of national intelligence.
But last week, Trump abruptly froze Clayton’s nomination, prompting the Senate to postpone a confirmation hearing, in a fit of pique over lawmakers’ failure to pass unrelated election legislation.
WASHINGTON — Pennsylvania is not participating in President Donald Trump’s Great American State Fair, which kicked off Wednesday, after state leaders failed to find a company willing to represent it at one of the hallmark 250th anniversary events in Washington that some say have become overly partisan.
Pennsylvania’s state government, like those in some other Democratic-led states, had already chosen to not sponsor a booth at the 16-day fair. Gov. Josh Shapiro’s office had still been trying to connect Freedom 250, the nonprofit behind the fair, with organizations and companies that could represent the state, according to federal and state sources familiar with the planning.
“Unfortunately, due to the high cost to taxpayers and not being able to secure PA businesses to sponsor the booth, Pennsylvania will not be a participant in the Great American State Fair,” the Pennsylvania Department of Economic and Community Development said in a statement.
The fair, being held at the National Mall to celebrate the nation’s 250th anniversary, was originally planned to feature a pavilion dedicated to each state and territory.
But as tourists visited Thursday on the fair’s first full day, there were no signs of the commonwealth where American democracy was born 250 years ago.
Almost every other state was showcased — with most sending state or local government staff and tourism boards to host educational or interactive exhibits.
Cape May County, a Republican stronghold that is representing New Jersey after the state government declined to participate, featured an 8-ton sand sculpture that a sculptor from Wildwood took 4½ days to create.
An 8-ton sand sculpture promotes Cape May at New Jersey’s pavilion at the Great American State Fair, in Washington, D.C. The pavilion was sponsored by Cape May County, a Republican stronghold that chose to represent New Jersey after the state government declined to participate.
Maryland’s state tourism department handed out information about its vacation hot spots. Staff in the Lone Star State’s pavilion greeted tourists with a cheerful “Welcome to Texas” and offered an interactive space flight exhibit, a replica of the Alamo, and an Austin City Limits music display.
Delaware highlighted Founding Father Caesar Rodney’s ride to cast the decisive vote for independence in Philadelphia.
Delaware’s pavilion at The Great American State Fair highlights Caesar Rodney’s ride to cast the deciding vote for independence.
Pennsylvania joined seven other Democratic-led states — Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Oregon, and Washington — in declining to participate.
Some of those states had flags outside the pavilions where they would have been located. A few chairs and a sign with the state’s name were also inside.
But in the booth where, according to an interactive map, Pennsylvania’s location was supposed to be, a flag reading just “250″ was outside and the room was blocked off for the fair’s staff.
As recently as this month, Pennsylvania was still seeking companies to represent it, but Rosie Lapowsky, Shapiro’s spokesperson, confirmed Thursday that the state had given up that effort.
“None were interested,” Shapiro said to the New Republic in a story that first reported Pennsylvania’s lack of participation. “It reflects this sad state of affairs that we find ourselves in — that the president has politicized this to a degree that businesses don’t want to participate.”
Trump’s presence has increasingly hung over events tied to the 250th anniversary in the nation’s capital, with the president planning to hold a political rally on the Fourth of July as part of the long-planned fireworks celebrations. It has made the decision to participate by entertainers and states alike more politically fraught.
“Freedom 250 is a nonpartisan organization, full stop — and our track record of collaboration across red, blue, and purple states speaks for itself,” Freedom 250 spokesperson Rachel Reisner said in a statement earlier this month. She did not respond to a request for comment Thursday about Pennsylvania’s lack of involvement or Shapiro’s comments.
Cape May represents New Jersey at the Great American State Fair Thursday, June 25, 2026, in Washington, D.C.
In New Jersey’s pavilion, visitors were met with not just the sand sculpture but also a new three-minute video highlighting Cape May County and a giant image of George Washington lounging at the beach with a cold drink.
County administrator Kevin Lare said it took a significant amount of work — and at least $150,000 from the county’s tourism budget — to pull it all together in recent weeks. It is worth it, he said, to highlight the county in the hopes of bolstering its largest economic engine — tourism.
“It’s a once-in-a-250-year event,” Lare said. “It’s not something the county will do every year at this level. It’s a celebration of our country, and our board of commissioners still believe we live in the greatest nation in the world. They’re happy to be a part of it.”
Staff writer Gillian McGoldrick contributed to this article.
BOSTON — A federal judge on Thursday halted President Donald Trump’s executive order that sought to create a federal voter list and limit who can receive a mail ballot.
U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani, who was nominated by Democratic President Barack Obama, sided with a coalition of nearly two dozen states that challenged the Republican president’s order in granting a summary judgment. Her ruling applies to this year’s midterm election cycle.
Plaintiffs argued in two lawsuits, both filed in federal court in Boston, that Trump’s order should be found unconstitutional because the states and Congress, not the president, have the power to set election rules. The judge agreed, noting in her ruling that the provisions of Trump’s order “unconstitutionally violate the separation of powers.”
It was the second ruling in as many days against executive orders Trump has signed seeking oversight of the nation’s elections. A separate ruling Wednesday prohibited an executive order he had signed last year that would have required people to show documents proving their citizenship when registering to vote.
The administration, in its motions to dismiss the lawsuits challenging the order seeking to establish a federal voter list, argued that the motions are premature and that plaintiffs lacked the legal basis to bring their claim based on the Administrative Procedure Act, which governs how federal agencies develop and issue regulations.
But in an interim order before Thursday’s ruling, Talwani said the motions pertaining to this year’s election cycle were relevant: “In light of the EO’s specific deadlines over the next three months, and the reality that elections will be occurring throughout this period with the November 3, 2026 midterm occurring in just five months, postponing judicial review is impracticable and may inflict significant hardship on Plaintiffs,” she wrote. That order denied the Trump administration’s motion to dismiss the challenges.
Trump’s executive order, the second one aimed at elections during his second term, comes as he continues to raise the specter of widespread voting by noncitizens as a reason to change election rules. But states already have detailed processes aimed at keeping their voter rolls accurate, and voting by noncitizens has been shown to be rare. It also is a felony that can be punishable by deportation.
Trump issued his second order in March after a bill he supported to overhaul voting stalled in Congress. The order would have had the federal government create a list of eligible voters and then directed the U.S. Postal Service to deliver mail ballots only to those on the list. Election officials argued that it was ripe for abuse and could cause chaos, and the postal union has objected to the idea of mail carriers policing ballots.
The Postal Service has published a proposed rule required by Trump’s executive order in the Federal Register. Among other things, the rule would not apply to primary elections or overseas ballots.
The lawsuit seeking summary judgment was filed by Democratic attorneys general representing 22 states and the District of Columbia. Also signing on were attorneys representing Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, which has a Republican attorney general.
“Donald Trump’s illegal and unconstitutional Executive Order sought to undermine eligible voters’ ability to make their voices heard in our democracy,” Pennsylvania Shapiro posted on X Thursday. “Our Constitution is clear: the authority to set our election rules belongs to the states.”
The states also told the court that the move imposes a costly burden on election officials to comply and would spread fear about the possibility of prosecution. Stephen Pezzi, a lawyer for the Trump administration, had argued that no one would be prosecuted for violating the order.
In a separate lawsuit filed against the executive order, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., in May agreed with the Trump administration that it was too early to block the order because it had yet to be implemented. That lawsuit was brought by Democratic and civil rights groups, who have appealed.
An overwhelming majority of Philadelphians feel safe in their neighborhoods and more than 40% believe that the city has become cleaner under the leadership of Mayor Cherelle L. Parker, according to a new poll, suggesting that city residents see significant progress on the mayor’s key campaign promises.
However, there is not a broad citywide consensus on Parker’s tenure as she heads into an expected reelection campaign next year, and there were also red flags for her and the city, including alarmingly bad evaluations of the public school system.
That is according to a recent Suffolk University/Philadelphia Inquirer poll that surveyed 500 Philadelphians across the city on issues including crime, quality of life, city services, and education. More than half of those surveyed said they would rate Philly as a “good” or “excellent” place to live.
About 83% of residents reported feeling safe in the city just five years after record-high rates of gun violence in Philadelphia, with respondents in neighborhoods most affected by violent crime most likely to say they feel that crime has decreased since Parker took office in 2024.
And the city’s public school system emerged as a primary concern, with 45% saying they would rate Philadelphia’s schools as of “poor” quality, while more than half of the poll’s respondents said that schools play an important role in whether they stay in the city or move out.
The survey was conducted last week, after the financially struggling Philadelphia School District and its controversial school closure plan dominated local headlines for more than a month.
David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center in Boston, said the poll provides Philadelphia policymakers with a blueprint for how to keep people in the city: continue progress on crime and improve the public schools.
“If that happens,” he said, “then Philadelphia is poised to be a renaissance city.”
Mayor Cherelle L. Parker attending the Juneteenth Block Party at the African American Museum in Philadelphia on June 19.
Parker said in a statement that her administration “values both qualitative and quantitative information.”
“The real-life, lived experiences of people in this city are what matters most,” she said. “Polling is not my North Star in how I govern. My solutions always come from the ground up, from what people can see, touch, and feel.”
For Parker’s political fortunes, the poll represents mixed results. It showed that the substantial base of support that lifted the mayor to office in 2023 is holding up, with Black residents and older Philadelphians most likely to say they have a favorable view of her and see progress on her campaign promises.
But Parker has not consolidated broad citywide enthusiasm, with 44% of respondents saying that they have a favorable view of the mayor and 35% saying they have an unfavorable one. That is positive territory for Parker more than halfway through her first term, but not overwhelmingly so.
Her biggest vulnerability is with young people — respondents under age 45 were more likely to say that they had an unfavorable view of the mayor than a favorable one. White residents were also more sour on Parker.
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Paleologos said that the poll shows there are “pockets of strength” that make Parker, a centrist Democrat, electorally strong, but that he would not consider her support broad-based.
Those results come as the city’s most prominent progressive political groups are weighing whether to mount a challenge against Parker next year. As the incumbent, Parker would be the hands-down favorite in any contest, as no Philadelphia mayor has lost a campaign for reelection in modern history.
Aren Platt, the executive director of People for Parker, the mayor’s political arm, said in a statement that Parker’s support “has always been under-counted, especially in public polling.” He cited polling conducted during the 2023 mayor’s race that showed her tied with or trailing her top opponents in the Democratic primary, in which Parker prevailed by a commanding 10 percentage points.
Platt also said the Suffolk University/Inquirer poll is not necessarily predictive of how the mayor could perform in a theoretical reelection race. The poll was of Philadelphia residents, not likely primary voters.
“This poll may reflect the demographics of Philadelphia, but elections are decided by the people who show up to vote on election day,” he said. “In Philadelphia, those are two very different universes.”
The poll also showed relatively positive marks for one of Parker’s potential successors: City Council President Kenyatta Johnson. He has said that he supports Parker for reelection, but Philadelphia mayors are limited to two terms and Johnson is widely seen as a potential future contender for the city’s top office.
Overall, 48% of respondents said they had a favorable view of Johnson and only 12% had an unfavorable one. Johnson is also far less publicly known than Parker, with 40% of those surveyed saying they had either never heard of him or were undecided on their view of him.
Negative reviews of the Philadelphia School District
About one in five respondents said that schools and education are the most important issue in the city, making it second only to crime. Paleologos said that is somewhat unique to Philadelphia — in other major cities where he has polled public opinion, he said, respondents often rank jobs and the economy as greater concerns.
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Nearly 75% of respondents said they would rate the quality of Philadelphia’s public schools as “fair” or “poor.” Younger residents were far more likely than older ones to rate the schools as “poor,” and more than half of all respondents said the public schools are an important factor in determining whether they and their family stay in the city or move away.
“That’s a big number,” Paleologos said. “That research alone gives the policymakers a bird’s-eye view of what they need to do to keep people here in Philadelphia.”
The survey also shows that residents see issues across the school system. When asked what should be the highest priority in improving the schools, there was little consensus among respondents: About a third said teacher pay, while a quarter said school safety, and another quarter said building repairs.
Just 4.4% said the highest priority should be instituting year-round school, an initiative that Parker campaigned on and that the district is piloting.
Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr., School Board President Reginald L. Streater, and Mayor Cherelle L. Parker stand together during an announcement at the School District of Philadelphia Headquarters on June 10.
In a statement provided to The Inquirer after the initial publication of this story, Monique Braxton, a spokesperson for the School District of Philadelphia, said district leaders share “the public’s sense of urgency to significantly improve public schools in the City of Philadelphia.”
She said the district is making progress toward the superintendent’s goal of making the district the “fastest improving large urban district in the nation.”
Braxton added that the district’s own survey suggests most parents are satisfied. The district’s 2024-25 survey, Braxton said, found that 90.3% of more than 26,000 parents whose students attend district schools said they were pleased with the quality of education their child received.
The quality of Philadelphia’s public schools has been a perennial concern, and city leaders have long pointed to the chronic underfunding of the Philadelphia School District. In 2023, the state Commonwealth Court ruled that Pennsylvania had for years unconstitutionally deprived students in low-wealth districts of an adequate education, and state lawmakers are now funding schools under a new formula.
District leaders have undertaken significant efforts in recent years to improve academic performance. There have been some positive results, including improvement on test scores and a recent report that said Philadelphia School District students’ learning post-pandemic was tops in the nation among large urban districts.
The district also earlier this year adopted a sweeping, $3.3 billion effort to renovate and modernize 169 schools. That multiyear plan was hotly debated, as it included the closure of 17 schools.
Councilmember Nina Ahmad shows off her T-shirt during a rally outside of the School District of the Philadelphia School District headquarters building on May 28. Council members rallied to oppose the school closure plan.
Parker said the Commonwealth Court “got it right” in declaring that low-wealth districts like Philadelphia’s are chronically underfunded.
“If we had all the resources we need, we’d see even more enhanced improvements in our schools,” Parker said. “I’ll never stop fighting for our children and their right to a high-quality education.”
Crime is the top concern, but most residents feel safe
Despite rates of violent crime in the city plummeting to record lows under Parker, public safety remains the top concern for three in 10 Philadelphia residents, suggesting that people who live in the city are still anxious about crime.
When asked about whether they believe crime in their neighborhood has increased or decreased over the last two years, a third of respondents said they believe it has increased, about 32% said it has decreased, and 28% said they believe it has stayed the same.
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A closer look at the results shows that a plurality of respondents in the neighborhoods most affected by violent crime, including North and West Philadelphia, believe that crime has decreased.
The respondents most likely to say that they believe crime in their area has increased live in Northeast Philly. But public data maintained by the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office show overall crime has decreased there, too. There are five Northeast Philadelphia police districts, and the total number of crime incidents reported to police declined in all of them between 2023, the year before Parker took office, and last year.
Despite the mixed poll results, a vast majority of Philadelphians — nearly 83% — said that they feel safe in their own neighborhood.
That is good news for Parker, who ran for office as a tough-on-crime Democrat amid a historic wave of gun violence and who vowed often to “bring order back to our city.”
Philadelphia police officers stand along the 2800 block of Kensington Ave. after a police involved shooting on May 23. Police shot a robbery suspect.
Parker said in a statement that the polling results are evidence that her public safety strategy is working, calling it her “number one priority.”
She also vowed to continue her administration’s efforts in Kensington, the epicenter of the city’s opioid crisis. The Parker administration has deployed a multipronged approach, including increased police patrols in the neighborhood and an expansion of offerings for people in addiction.
But 53% of poll respondents said they do not believe the mayor’s efforts there are working, and those who live closest to the problem were the least supportive. In the region that encompasses the Lower Northeast and the river wards, where Kensington is located, 68% of people said Parker’s strategy is not working while only 18% said it is.
The mayor’s overall favorability was also lowest in that area of the city, the only region where more respondents said they had an unfavorable view of the mayor than a favorable one.
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Parker acknowledged that there is “much more work to do” in Kensington and said that “changing culture and going to war with the status quo is never easy.“
Parker’s ‘clean and green’ message is landing
For a city derisively called “Filthadelphia” and where cleanliness has been a longtime concern, a significant number of people seem to think Philadelphia is getting cleaner.
When asked about trash and litter, 41% of poll respondents said they believe the city has gotten cleaner over the last two years. Just 19% said Philadelphia has gotten dirtier, and 38% said it has stayed the same.
A sanitation department truck is seen along Cresson Street at West Earlham Street in Philadelphia on the first day of trash collection after a strike on July 14, 2025.
Those are positive marks for a mayor whose slogan is “safer, cleaner, greener” and who has instituted new programs including twice-weekly trash pickup in the densest parts of the city.
Despite those efforts, Philadelphians gave worse reviews to the overall quality of city services in their neighborhood. About six in 10 respondents said the quality was either “fair” or “poor,” while 40% said “good” or “excellent.”
Staff writer Michelle Baruchman contributed to this article.
Consensa Francisca Silva Silva moved to Camden from Costa Rica more than two years ago knowing nobody. She lived on the street for two months, she said, and thenwas bouncing from house to house when a young man in the neighborhood told her to check out the Hispanic Women’s Resource Center in Camden, one of several such centers in the state.
She went. With help from the program, Silva received food, obtained a work permit, made a down payment for a studio apartment, and started a job at McDonald’s.
That statewide initiative is now facing detrimental cutsunder DemocraticGov. Mikie Sherrill’s budget proposal. The governor has proposed cutting nearly 80% ofits funding, and Silva worries that other immigrant women looking to improve their circumstances will not get the help she received.
“It was very hard to come here without knowing anyone, and it was really hard because at first I couldn’t find any work,” Silva, who is Nicaraguan, said in Spanish, translated by Jesselly De La Cruz, the executive director of the Latino Action Network Foundation, which funds the centers.
Sherrill and legislative leaders announced Tuesday they had come to an “agreement” on a budget totaling$60.7 billion, the same price tag Sherrill proposed in March. But it has not been made public and it is unclear how far into the details they have gotten. They have until Tuesday to figure it out.
And the process is still underway. State Sen. Nilsa Cruz-Perez, a Camden Democrat who sits on the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee, has been a supporter of the centers.She was unable to speak Wednesday afternoon because she was in a committee budget hearing.
Client Consensa Francisca Silva Silva (right) participates in a workshop at the Hispanic Women’s Resource Center in Camden Thursday, June 11, 2026.
On a recent Thursday, Silva participated in a healthy life skills workshop in Spanish at the Camden center, where she learned about taking care of herself as summer temperatures get hotter in the city. About 20 adults clapped for one another with big smiles on their faces, and they received goody bags with sunscreen, lip balm, a towel to keep cool, and a little fan. A young girl played with magnetic tiles and a baby was kept calm, passed between women.
The governor proposed cutting funding for the center’s programs to$535,000, down from more than $2.5 million this year and more than $3 million in 2025. Murphy had proposed a similar cut last year, but the funding was restored during budget negotiations.
Hispanic Women’s Resource Centers were established through 1991 legislation to address the wage gap for Latinas. New Jersey is one of the states with the biggest wage gap for Latina workers, according to the National Women’s Law Center.
Staff members observe from back of the room during a workshop at the Hispanic Women’s Resource Center in Camden Thursday, June 11, 2026.
The Latino Action Network Foundation funds these resource centers in partnership with six nonprofits across 14 sites, including five in South Jersey. The Camden center is located at the nonprofit Healthy Families and Communities, and there are centers in Vineland in Cumberland County, Hammonton in Atlantic County, Pennsville in Salem County, and Rio Grande in Cape May County.
Sherrill’s proposal would “drastically cut” the number of resource centers, and sites in Hammonton and in Lakewood, in Ocean County, would likely be on the chopping block, De La Cruz said, adding that services would need to be cut in eight of 11 counties.
Martha Infante, 38, who lives in Pennsauken, said she was disoriented when she moved to South Jersey from the Dominican Republic. But through the Camden center, she found out how to apply for work online and learned basic English. She obtained coats for her daughters’ first U.S. winter, and a staffer accompanied her to a New Jersey Department of Motor Vehicles center to get her driver’s license.
“I came here and my mind was all over the place, I didn’t know where things were,” she said in Spanish.
She now works as a home health aide, thanks to training she got through the center, and even participated in a program where she learned about advocating for her community in Trenton.
“Don’t cut these funds, Gov. Sherrill,” she pleaded. “Don’t cut the funds! This is like a family. It’s like a home for the community.”
Client Martha Infante (left) talks with staff member Chailienisse Vega (right) after participating in a workshop at the Hispanic Women’s Resource Center in Camden Thursday, June 11, 2026.
Some of the women in the program are fleeing domestic violence and seeking financial independence. Others are struggling to get a work permit, or may have lost a family member who helped pay the bills to deportation. A lot of former “Dreamers” — undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children — utilize the center as well, De La Cruz said.
The need for the centers has only escalated under President Donald Trump’s second administration, she said.
The social worker-turned-executive said she was surprised by the severity of Sherrill’s proposed cut, especially because of the governor’s efforts to push back against Trump’s immigration policies.
A 2023 Rutgers study funded by the Latino Action Network Foundation found that the most popular services at these resource centers were English-language classes and employment services, such as job referrals, assistance filling out applications, resume writing, and interview preparation.
Staff member Andreina Pardo pauses to stretch with participants as she leads a workshop at the Hispanic Women’s Resource Center in Camden Thursday, June 11, 2026.
“Aside from helping them with the technical aspects of job hunting, the assistance from the Centers seemed to provide a boost of confidence for many of the women, giving them an additional push to apply for positions even if they felt hesitant to do so at first,” the study said.
Gladys, 48, who declined to give her last name due to concerns over her safety, said in Spanish that the free English courses made her feel like she could “come up for air and breathe” after not being able to communicate.
The Camden resident had been an ecologist in Nicaragua and has gotten involved in the center’s community garden. She said she would love to pursue a career teaching children about the environment, but her plans are on hold because her work visa was canceled.
In the meantime, Gladys said, activities at the center like art classes have made her feel less alone. She has been able to connect with women in the same situation as her, and those who migrated to the U.S. earlier who can give her advice from their experiences.
“Maybe my circumstances don’t change, but my emotional well-being changes because I’m able to connect with others,” she said in Spanish.
The minimum wage would be raised to $25 an hour under a new bill to be introduced by Sen. Chris Murphy (D., Conn.) on Thursday, in a bid to enthuse the working-class voters who have abandoned the Democratic Party.
The legislation, dubbed the Living Wage for All Act, has a companion bill already introduced in the House.
Murphy, whose name is frequently floated as a potential 2028 presidential candidate, said he is pushing his party to take more aggressive stances on affordability, following its punishing defeats in the 2024 elections.
“Democrats need to offer solutions that are as big as the problems people are facing,” Murphy said in an interview. “The way you solve people’s basic economic problem — not having enough money to pay the bills — is by making a minimum wage be a living wage.”
The bill would incrementally increase the minimum wage from its current rate of $7.25, with the first jump to $12 an hour in the first year of enactment. Major corporations would have six years to work up to a $25 minimum wage, while smaller employers would have a 13-year runway. The legislation would also do away with subminimum wages for tipped workers, such as restaurant servers, youth workers and workers with disabilities. Nearly half of the American workforce makes less than $25 an hour.
The legislation is unlikely to get very far in this Congress, with Republicans in control of both chambers, but the $25-an-hour push is one of the more significant proposals aimed at boosting Americans’ wages, which have been rising but not as quickly as inflation, especially in recent months.
Some 34 states, territories or districts, including Washington, D.C., have increased the minimum wage above the federal minimum, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Saru Jayaraman, president of One Fair Wage, a left-leaning advocacy group that worked with Murphy on the bill, credited support for a $25 minimum wage for primary wins in competitive races in Illinois, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and California. She said she has heard support for the proposal from liberal and MAGA voters alike.
The $25 figure was drawn from calculations by MIT that analyzed a living wage, which takes into account costs such as food, childcare, healthcare, housing and transportation.
Democrats have long advocated raising the federal minimum wage from its current $7.25, but Murphy’s bill would set the highest floor of any proposal in the Senate. Rep. Delia C. Ramirez (D., Ill.) is leading a House version of the bill, which she introduced earlier this year with wide support across the Democratic caucus. A similar bill by Sen. Bernie Sanders (Ind., Vt.) would set a $17 minimum wage and has 33 Democratic senators as cosponsors, including Murphy.
Murphy’s bill also has the backing of Democratic Sens. Richard Blumenthal (Connecticut), Andy Kim (New Jersey), and Ron Wyden (Oregon).
Congress has not raised the federal minimum wage since 2009, though only about 1% of workers make $7.25 an hour or less.
Business groups have often campaigned against raising the minimum wage, suggesting that the economy works best when employers are responsive to market forces.
A higher federal minimum wage could create “really damaging consequences,” including businesses closing or cutting jobs, especially in rural areas where the cost of living is low, said Ryan Bourne, an economist at the libertarian Cato Institute.
He said the rising average wage shows that state and local governments are already responding to market changes.
“I think it makes much more sense for it to be set at a local level where policymakers have a better sense of the local industries,” Bourne said.
Murphy called those kinds of arguments a “red herring,” saying cities that have already established a $15 minimum wage have not seen major adverse effects. He said the staggered adoption would help assuage employers’ concerns.
“The business community cried murder, and the job losses they predicted did not materialize,” Murphy said.
Alex Jacquez, the chief of policy and advocacy at the left-leaning Groundwork Collaborative and a former Sanders aide, helped craft a $15 minimum wage proposal that Democrats attempted to include in their climate and economic policy bill in 2021. He said the surge in wage growth as the economy recovered from the coronavirus pandemic has led more liberal policymakers to believe that a $15 minimum wage would now be too low.
“It’s also an organizing tool,” he said. “It’s something big and bold that people can hang on to and run on and be able to see the Democrats are fighting for them.”
So far, most congressional action has tried to address affordability through tax cuts, including the child tax credit, covid-era Affordable Care Act credits or the numerous tax cuts in Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill.
While Murphy supports programs such as the child tax credits and student loan forgiveness, he said tax cuts have proved insufficient in motivating voters.
“People don’t want to be written a check. People want to work for pay,” Murphy said. “[Tax breaks] are designed to compensate for a rigged system. Why don’t we just unrig the system?”
Rep. Thomas Kean Jr., who has been missing from Washington for nearly four months with little explanation, is back home in New Jersey.
He could be seen from the street Wednesday evening, standing in a brightly lit front room of his Westfield home just before 8:45 p.m.
“It’s good to see you,” he said after a reporter for the New York Times rang his doorbell. He was wearing a dark suit and a red tie. “I’ll talk to you next week,” he said. “Thank you.”
Kean’s wife, Rhonda, stood in the background, smiling pleasantly. He declined additional comment and closed the door.
Aides had said that Kean, 57, was being treated for a health condition and was expected to fully recover, but had offered no additional details as their boss missed more than 100 floor votes since the middle of March.
Kean, a Republican, is running for a third term in November in one of the country’s most competitive midterm races. His absence from the campaign trail, though, had left even some of his biggest Republican boosters frustrated.
A spokesperson for Kean, Harrison Neely, said last week that Kean was expected to return to Washington on June 30. He declined to say how long Kean had been home or to offer any additional details about the representative’s long absence.
“He will be fully transparent on the 30th,” Neely wrote in a text message.
Earlier this month, Kean, in absentia, locked in the Republican nomination for his 7th District seat; he was running unopposed. Democrats selected Rebecca Bennett, 39, a former Navy helicopter pilot.
The Democratic Party considers Kean’s seat one of its best pickup opportunities as it seeks to tip the balance of power in Washington and had been aggressively targeting the race long before he began missing votes in Washington.
Kean was last spotted on Capitol Hill on March 5. He spoke that day during a committee hearing and cast a crucial “yea” vote in support of funding President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and moving to end a government shutdown.
Then, he seemingly vanished. Neighbors in Westfield said there had been no obvious sign of Kean for months, and the family’s vacation house in Bay Head, N.J., appeared shuttered the weekend before Memorial Day. Year-round residents of Fishers Island, N.Y., where the Kean family owns a large estate, said they had not seen him, either.
Kean’s aides repeatedly insisted that he had no plans to abandon his reelection effort and that he was expected to return to work “soon,” even as they refused to discuss the medical condition that had sidelined him.
In May, after a debate between the four Democrats vying to run against him, Dan Scharfenberger, Kean’s chief of staff, offered a cryptic explanation for why there had been no sightings of the representative in Washington or in his New Jersey district. “There’s no cameras where Tom is,” he said, and did not elaborate.
During his absence, Kean has nonetheless bought and sold stock, introduced remarks into the Congressional Record and urged House colleagues from afar to oppose Ireland’s effort to limit trade with Israel.
A handful of Republican leaders in the 7th District’s six counties reported getting calls from Kean. And his office has released two statements attributed to Kean, including one on primary day, June 2, when he made no public appearances.
“Right now I am focused on my recovery and under the advice of healthcare professionals,” the June 2 statement said.
The statement indicated that he planned to be “completely transparent as to the nature of my medical condition.”
“I understand the need for transparency on this matter,” he wrote, “and I look forward to sharing my experience with the public.”
A federal judge on Wednesday tossed out a lawsuit filed by the Justice Department that accused four New Jersey cities of having “sanctuary” policies that shield immigrants in the U.S. illegally from federal immigration enforcement.
Justice Department lawyers had sued the mayors and City Council members of Newark, Jersey City, Hoboken, and Paterson last month as tensions were rising between local governments in the Garden State and immigration authorities.
The complaint accused local officials of thwarting federal immigration enforcement by impeding access to immigrants in local custody, restricting the ability of local officers to turn over immigrants to agents, and barring “willing local officers from providing mission-critical information to federal immigration authorities.”
But Judge Evelyn Padin, who was appointed by President Joe Biden, ruled that the federal lawsuit had “a fundamental flaw” because it challenged only the cities’ policies and did not take into account an order from the state attorney general’s office, known as the immigrant trust directive, that dictates how local law enforcement officers must engage with immigration authorities.
That 2008 directive, which has been upheld by previous court rulings, was not raised in the lawsuit, Padin wrote. That means, as a legal matter, the federal government lacks the standing to file the suit.
The judge dismissed the lawsuit without prejudice, meaning the Justice Department could refile it. A spokesperson for the department did not immediately return a request for comment.
The ruling came as protesters have swarmed Delaney Hall, an immigration facility in Newark, with nearly daily demonstrations.
Local officials praised Padin’s ruling, saying the immigrant trust directive was one key to maintaining good relationships between local police agencies and immigrants without permanent legal status. Police departments depend on cooperation in immigrant neighborhoods to stop crime.
Amol Sinha, the executive director for the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, wrote in a statement that the sanctuary policies “help people access public services” without fear of being detained, separated from their families and perhaps deported.
“Public safety is strengthened when people can report crimes, and public health is improved when people can seek medical care,” he said.
