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Primary Discipline

Social Sciences

Abstract

This paper purports to find a cause for the larger differences in poverty rates between black and white Americans in Philadelphia and the same two groups in New York City. Three hypotheses, the education spending per student hypothesis, the economic hypothesis, and the social spending per capita hypothesis, are each respectively devised to explain these differences in the respective poverty rates. The education spending per student and social spending per capita hypotheses are tested using data from each city, leading to the conclusion that the lower social and education spending per capita in Philadelphia when compared to New York City are potential causal factors of the higher poverty rates in Philadelphia.

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