webserver created files are not readable by sftp

Question

I have a webserver that runs apache 2.2.14 in ubuntu with php 5.3.2-1ubuntu4.14. Php files in my webserver run as www-data. Any php script that creates a file or folder automatically creates it with owner/group "www-data:www-data" and sftp does not have permissions to even read the files/directories. I want sftp to have rw permission on every file in the web directory. How do I fix this?