Philadelphia Wage Tax / LVT Article (progress.org)
The Commission
Floyd Marinescu directed Hugh (via Slack commonwealth, 2026-05-27 ~12:31 PDT) to write an article about a Harvard study on Philadelphia’s wage tax for publication on progress.org. Floyd shared the PDF directly. [Source: User (Floyd Marinescu), Slack commonwealth, 2026-05-27]
Key Paper Findings
Study: Harvard study on Philadelphia wage tax and land value tax counterfactual.
- Headline finding: Replacing Philadelphia’s wage tax with a land value tax would bring 26,000 jobs back into the city from the suburbs — and up to 78,000 once productivity gains from denser urban clustering are counted [Source: Hugh session 6a4f08b9, 2026-05-27]
- Mechanism: As the wage tax rose from 1.5% to 4.3% between 1960 and 1980, the proportion of residents working in the city fell sharply in suburban tracts just outside the boundary — a clean natural experiment using the city boundary as identification [Source: Meeting/session, 2026-05-27]
- Elasticity: 1% wage tax increase → 6.39% drop in suburb-to-city commuting [Source: Hugh session 6a4f08b9, 2026-05-27]
- Direct paper quote: “Replacing the wage tax with a non-distortionary land value tax would bring 26,000 jobs from the suburbs into Philadelphia. Such gains…” [Source: Paper abstract/intro, via Hugh session 6a4f08b9, 2026-05-27]
- Direct paper quote on identification: “As the wage tax rose from 1.5 to 4.3% between 1960 and 1980, the change in the proportion of residents working in the city fell sharply in suburban tracts just outside the boundary…” [Source: Paper, via Hugh session 6a4f08b9, 2026-05-27]
Article Title
“How Philadelphia’s Wage Tax Pushed Jobs to the Suburbs — and What a Land Value Tax Could Fix” [Source: Hugh draft, 2026-05-27]
Article Versions
- v1: Initial draft with methodology, headline number, LVT counterfactual — Floyd requested exec summary at top, Canadian context removed, lead buried [Source: Floyd feedback, Slack, 2026-05-27]
- v2: Exec summary added as first callout; Canadian context removed; international framing for hollow urban core [Source: Hugh session 6a4f08b9, 2026-05-27]
- v3: Two direct paper quotes woven into article; additional author interview questions added [Source: Floyd request + Hugh session, 2026-05-27]
Floyd’s Editorial Decisions
- “Put a brief exec summary at the top that includes the key LVT findings, instead of burying the lead” [Source: User (Floyd), Slack, 2026-05-27]
- Remove Canadian-specific context — frame for international audience [Source: User (Floyd), Slack, 2026-05-27]
- Add more paper quotes and develop additional interview questions for paper author [Source: User (Floyd), Slack, 2026-05-27]
Status
- Notion card created with v3 draft + author interview questions [Source: Hugh session 6a4f08b9, 2026-05-27]
- Pending Floyd approval before publishing to progress.org