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Anyone else bothered by the misleading chart "Rent as a percentage of income, people age 22-34"? It claims 78% for San Francisco and 65% for New York, which is
by shoyer 11y ago
Anyone else bothered by the misleading chart "Rent as a percentage of income, people age 22-34"? It claims 78% for San Francisco and 65% for New York, which is absurd considering that people pay taxes.
I suspect the graphic is really showing the ratio of "median rent in San Francisco" to "median income income in San Francisco for people aged 22-34", which is much less meaningful (though it does say something about how expensive housing is).
Does anyone have actual statistics on the percentage of income that young people pay on rent, i.e., "median ratio of rent to income for people aged 22-34 in San Francisco"?
- a_c_s 11y agoAs a percentage of take home pay, those figures are quite plausible at least for NYC. Looks like StreetEasy agrees, putting the figure at 58.4% for all renters: http://streeteasy.com/blog/new-york-city-rent-affordability/ http://streeteasy.com/blog/new-york-city-rent-affordability/
- runamok 11y agoI'd assume it's a percentage of net income. If the median 1 bedroom apartment is $3000 and that is ~80% of net income that means they make $3750 a month which is 45k per year net. Gross would be about 70k. That seems ballpark correct. That means they have $750 a month for food, transportation, school loans, etc. If you don't have a car and your company provides weekday dinner and public transportation it's probably doable but clearly a terrible idea...