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6 figures considered low income for family of 4 in some Bay Area counties [ABC7]
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Extra Sauce
Member
Those food stamps get you a hundred dollar bottle of wine.
GameAddict411
Member
100k is low income, what about 25-50k? They should be on food stamps by their standards. I guess, anyone who is smart would have left the bay area already.
In addition to the points others have brought up, as Slayven mentioned there are few or no places for service industry workers or relatively lower paid office workers or students or unemployed persons to live if the salaries are leading to such exorbitant housing costs. It seems unsustainable to create cities where there isn't a diversity of income supported with a diversity of housing costs.
FutureLarking
Member
It appears I am greatly missing out on the investment market if we're all meant to be getting $20K+ a year out of it. How many thousands did I invest into what? Help a poor guy out here
I wish they'd increase limits for assistance here in London too. Our housing marketing has sky rocketed in the last decade or two but aid really hasn't.
Darklor01
Might need to stop sniffing glue
In the areas around NYC, 100K doesn't buy you much either. You'd be hard pressed to have a decent place to live.
I'm in a New York City suburb (actually, it's a suburb after the a suburb but still listed as suburb of NYC, and the median income here is 80-100K. My wife and I fall into the low end of this category and have a 940 Sq. Ft. 1 bedroom condo with full size private basement, two lower end Mazdas, no kids. We make ends meet, but we can't save much money above it.
I'm in a New York City suburb (actually, it's a suburb after the a suburb but still listed as suburb of NYC, and the median income here is 80-100K. My wife and I fall into the low end of this category and have a 940 Sq. Ft. 1 bedroom condo with full size private basement, two lower end Mazdas, no kids. We make ends meet, but we can't save much money above it.
The Albatross
Member
I'm definitely not a libertarian, but I don't think that San Francisco is really a haven of libertarianism. I believe San Francisco is considered the most liberal city in the United States.
San Francisco cannot be a "rule" for anywhere else, yet everybody tries to apply it as a rule. Yesterday or the day before there was a cautionary tale using San Francisco as "the rule" for an argument against fixed rent prices, today SF is the "rule" against something else. San Francisco is an extreme outlier, because of its history, geography (a geographically exclusive penninsula), and unique socio-political makeup... Socially progressive fiscally conservative technocrats who dominate the tax rolls, yet young progressives want to live there because "it's san francisco," and housing never meets demand because of impractical progressive laws or "not in my backyard" nobby citizenry.
There is nowhere like San Francisco in the US or the world, and it can't be used as a rule.
TarpitCarnivore
Member
Schattenjäger;234662589 said:
My theory: Having you in the office means it's easier to keep you around and working longer. The sole purpose of all the amenities these companies offer is to keep you on the campus and thinking about work.
Random Painted HIghway
Member
Even the poor have refrigerators in the us, right?
How is it irrelevant? Maybe regarding the tax situation, but I don't see how San Francisco will end up being an affordable place for anyone seeking to live or work there as a transplant or as a native.
Ziltoidia 9
Member
Old Gimlet Eyes
Member
Try 3 or 4 families sharing a 1-2 bedroom apartment. And commuting as well. I'm in contra costa and I'm in between extremely low and very low income. I do plan on moving out of state in the next few years at it has become extremely unaffordable to live here.
They all live Richmond/Vallejo/Fairfield and even out to Sacramento
Costs of life are higher in the US compared to the World just as the Bay Area has higher costs than the rest of the US.
TarpitCarnivore
Member
I live 30-40 miles outside of NYC down in the Jersey Shore area. My wife and I have a combined income over 100K and we do fine, but it's definitely by no means "worry free" living. Average house cost in our area is between 350-400K, but the average property tax is 8-10K.
If you're a service worker why wouldn't you work in one of hose communities? Are there no jobs in them?
I know fuck all about the Bay Area.
The Albatross
Member
It's irrelevant because it's a lone, over-referenced comic from a ~8 year old tax policy article that was about the increase in taxes and health care premiums on upper income. And yet, it's posted in almost every thread about income or the Wall Street Journal and it always derails the thread.
The person who posts it never provides any context around it and they post it as a sort of "look at me! quote me! look how irreverant I am! I'm so clever! quote me!" It's the videgame-side equivalent of posting the Doritos Pope image in every thread about metacritic, gaming press, or inflated game scores.
It's just annoying. If you want to derail a thread, try using words. If your point is "I don't see how San Francisco will end up being an affordable place for anyone seeking to live or work there as a transplant or as a native," then that oft-posted image does not represent that point at all, and yet that's a very valid, relevant point.
Our house has gone up in value about $100k- a third- since we bought it in late 2011. Boston metro area. Prices are not stable in many areas.
entremet
Member
Correct. SF is messed up due to some really dumb regressive policies, such as limits on construction.
Zoe
Member
You can make up to $101,750 as a single person in SF and still be eligible for housing programs.
http://www.calhfa.ca.gov/homeownership/limits/income/income-fha.pdf
Service industry in SF can pay 20+ an hour whereas service industry along 80 corridor pays 10-12
I personally know people that are software engineers making six figures and working in SF only to buy homes in Sacramento and take the train on because of the ridiculous housing costs
The housing scenario out here in the bay is insane.
Into the Light
Banned
Can we talk about the homeless problem in SF. Its so out of control.
I disagree that there is a bubble. Housing prices are correlated to tech salaries. I am seeing this happening real time in Seattle. I want to live closer to the city but basically cannot because there has been a tech boom in the last couple of years and flooded the market with people who have high salaries.
Similarly here, people are saying it's a bubble and it's going to crash. I don't think that it is the case. If salaries become unsustainable, salaries will stop growing at the same rate, and housing prices will similarly slow down. It's not just going to crash one day. This is a completely different situation than 2008 where a lot of people were getting sold loans they couldn't afford.
SF is too disarable for people all of sudden to leave and the market crashes as a result.
This is a completely different discussion of whether this is good or not. I definitely thinks it's shitty that people with non tech jobs cannot live in the city.
Who cares about recruiting quality teachers for public schools for poor children in San Francisco when little Johnny goes to private?
This is what i'm seeing as well. I would argue that this is not stable. Many things are overvalued, (look at stocks for example) in this market, but housing (especially in cities) is especially egregious in many cases.
Didn't actually know that, interesting.
Private schools generally pay their teachers even less than public schools.
This is a good point. The cost of child care out there almost completely negates having a 2nd income. My wife and I looked long and hard at child care and costs, but in the end we decided, hey we can have someone else raise our kid and maybe make extra $500 a month, or my wife could quit working and we'd be down around $500, but she gets to raise our kid. I think it was at that point we decided we weren't comfortable with either choice(either make a lot less $$, or have someone else raise our kid).
Man, this really bothers you. I was not trying to derail but I'll be more mindful of what I post in context.
The Last Wizard
Member
What in the ever loving fuck?
These people are out of touch.
These people are out of touch.
Yoda
Member
I'd like to reinforce this, I went to a private school for most of my primary school years and the ratio of administrators to teachers was nearly 1:1. Everytime Mr./Mrs. X was leaving it was because they were getting a job @ a public school.
It doesn't, though, because they have very different expenses. Having a household income of $100K for a single person is a much different standard of living than having a household income of $100K for a family of 4.
This is why things like the federal poverty level and income taxes use formulae based on the size of the household.
Smarts alone may not allow one to leave the area. My understanding is that port incomes are heavily correlated with lower opportunities for mobility.
djSyndrome
Member
Same. When we were looking to buy two years ago it was "find a condo or townhome in Seattle" or "find another county". We bought a new house in an amazing development in Pierce County for less than half of what the equivalent would have cost in Seattle. The gap has widened since then.
Sucks, but better to be financially stable than house-poor.
I would hope you're right, as I own a house. I just don't think this is sustainable. Can any place support prices that are over 40% above their long-run average when compared to income? I just don't accept that this will become the new normal. Some catalyst will swing things back into line. Whether this is in 1 year or 10 years though is the important question.
rokkerkory
Member
Is this for households? If so then yeah it is real and yeah it sucks around bay area for living costs. =/
You need to make combined like 250k to have a nice living with a mortgage around here.
You need to make combined like 250k to have a nice living with a mortgage around here.
MugiwaraCole
Member
On what planet? Not this one.
I remember my French teacher in high school told me she previously worked at a private school that I attended for a year. I asked her why she left and she candidly said, "Because I didn't make enough money!"
I've worked at a private school and a public charter school in my career and witnessed it firsthand as well. Many teachers leaving the private school due to pay concerns. To be fair, they didn't pay shit, so I didn't blame them.
m_shortpants
Member
Who, the government?
Jeronimo Jones
Member
Well they don't just make up numbers, there's a formula.
Very high income households are obviously pushing up the median and lower income households with the ability to leave are probably making the decision to do so.
Very high income households are obviously pushing up the median and lower income households with the ability to leave are probably making the decision to do so.
Manmademan
Member
This is irrelevant because in virtually every metro area 100k as a household income is well above the median.
It simply isn't necessary to look at household sizes in that case, since any household making that much but still falling into "lower middle" or "poor" due to having 8 kids or whatever would be such a ridiculous outlier that it's not worth bringing up when discussing where "most" 100k incomes are in most metro areas.
Median household takes into account all households, whether they're 1 person or 10. 100k falls into upper end of that outside of everywhere but the DC metro.
I bought a house in 2008 that's value has only gone up 10k over the past decade, but didn't lose any value in the crash. I'm not sure if I should be happy or sad.
Technobabel
Member
Yeah it sucks. I could live like a king anywhere else on my salary, but with living in an apartment that is almost $3k a month (can't find much cheaper around here), and my wife being a full time mom we are barely able to save anything each month (but we are fortunate that we can save anything at all).
Chmpocalypse
Blizzard
I wonder what it's like to earn 80k a year. I've never even been close to that here in SoCal.
More_Badass
Member
Six figures is considered rich? Isn't it all relative based on location and career?
Like my mom's a guidance counselor in a Bronx public middle school and she makes six figures. Barely, and because she's been in the system for 30 years, but still.
Like my mom's a guidance counselor in a Bronx public middle school and she makes six figures. Barely, and because she's been in the system for 30 years, but still.
It doesn't say in the story unless I missed it, but the calculation here appears to just be 80% of the median income for the area. So really this means that the median income in the area is very high, it doesn't necessarily mean anything as far as what people making this amount can afford.
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