4 ms·

She might also just be, you know, poor. She might live far away and spend a lot of time on a bus, sharing a studio apt with other family members that also work

She might also just be, you know, poor. She might live far away and spend a lot of time on a bus, sharing a studio apt with other family members that also work low wage jobs.

yummyfajitas 10y ago
That's also possible, but in that case she isn't paying an SF cost of living. Also, either $37k or $63k isn't poor. Lets remember that French GDP/capita is only $42k/year; is half of France and more than half of Spain (plus nearly all of Bulgaria) "poor"?
- talmand 10y ago
  Depends on cost of living.
  - grandalf 10y ago
    Yes, it's definitely poor in SF
- bzbarsky 10y ago
  Three things: 1) Comparing GDP/capita numbers to income numbers is a pretty useless exercise, because GDP/capita is total production divided by total population. For France, let's posit that GDP is $42k/year per capita. What is the number of workers this corresponds to? (Note that using the "employment to population ratio" is not right here, because that's typically cited for a limited age range.) http://www.tradingeconomics.com/france/labor-force-total-wb-data.html http://www.tradingeconomics.com/france/labor-force-total-wb-... quotes a labor force of about 30 million, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_labour_force https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_labour_fo... agrees, but note that this includes the unemployed who are looking for work. The unemployment rate in France is about 10% (see http://www.tradingeconomics.com/france/unemployment-rate http://www.tradingeconomics.com/france/unemployment-rate or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_unemployment_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_unemploym... for that), so figure 27 million workers. The population of France is about 64-67 million people (depending on whether all these numbers are including non-metropolitan France); let's be charitable and assume 64 million. That gives us a GDP/employee of $42k/year * 64/27 = $100k/year. Of course this is an average number, not a median, but at least comparing it to _average_ incomes might not be completely unreasonable. I haven't looked at the numbers for Bulgaria, but it's entirely possible that by current US standards nearly all of it _is_ poor, in terms of material standard of living... (For comparison, the US labor force is about 160 million; it went up by 5 million in the last two years; see http://www.dlt.ri.gov/lmi/laus/us/usadj.htm http://www.dlt.ri.gov/lmi/laus/us/usadj.htm . The unemployment rate is about 5%. US GDP is about $18 trillion this year. So we get GDP/employee of 18e9/(160e6 * 0.95) = $118k/year. Not that much more than France, unsurprisingly, and we haven't even gotten into the differences in hours worked.) 2) As noted above, the concept of "poor" is a relative concept, not an absolute one. Someone living today in the US who enjoys the median 1950 US standard of living because that's all they can afford would be considered poor. Someone who enjoys that standard of living in Somalia... not clear. 3) In addition to all of the above, looking at just income to determine "poor" or not is quite weird. A $30k/year salary for an adult who supports a partner and 2 children is not at all the same thing as a $30k/year salary for a single adult.
someone7x 10y ago
I think this is the most reasonable conclusion. In CA this is a very common pattern. Growing up I had more than a few friends with very large immediate families sharing very tiny apartments.
sgnelson 10y ago
For more information, you can read about Spatial Mismatch Theory, which is almost exactly this point. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spatial_mismatch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spatial_mismatch

She might also just be, you know, poor. She might live far away and spend a lot of time on a bus, sharing a studio apt with other family members that also work low wage jobs.

yummyfajitas 10y ago

That's also possible, but in that case she isn't paying an SF cost of living. Also, either $37k or $63k isn't poor. Lets remember that French GDP/capita is only $42k/year; is half of France and more than half of Spain (plus nearly all of Bulgaria) "poor"?

talmand 10y ago
Depends on cost of living.
- grandalf 10y ago
  Yes, it's definitely poor in SF
bzbarsky 10y ago
Three things: 1) Comparing GDP/capita numbers to income numbers is a pretty useless exercise, because GDP/capita is total production divided by total population. For France, let's posit that GDP is $42k/year per capita. What is the number of workers this corresponds to? (Note that using the "employment to population ratio" is not right here, because that's typically cited for a limited age range.) http://www.tradingeconomics.com/france/labor-force-total-wb-data.html http://www.tradingeconomics.com/france/labor-force-total-wb-... quotes a labor force of about 30 million, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_labour_force https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_labour_fo... agrees, but note that this includes the unemployed who are looking for work. The unemployment rate in France is about 10% (see http://www.tradingeconomics.com/france/unemployment-rate http://www.tradingeconomics.com/france/unemployment-rate or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_unemployment_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_unemploym... for that), so figure 27 million workers. The population of France is about 64-67 million people (depending on whether all these numbers are including non-metropolitan France); let's be charitable and assume 64 million. That gives us a GDP/employee of $42k/year * 64/27 = $100k/year. Of course this is an average number, not a median, but at least comparing it to _average_ incomes might not be completely unreasonable. I haven't looked at the numbers for Bulgaria, but it's entirely possible that by current US standards nearly all of it _is_ poor, in terms of material standard of living... (For comparison, the US labor force is about 160 million; it went up by 5 million in the last two years; see http://www.dlt.ri.gov/lmi/laus/us/usadj.htm http://www.dlt.ri.gov/lmi/laus/us/usadj.htm . The unemployment rate is about 5%. US GDP is about $18 trillion this year. So we get GDP/employee of 18e9/(160e6 * 0.95) = $118k/year. Not that much more than France, unsurprisingly, and we haven't even gotten into the differences in hours worked.) 2) As noted above, the concept of "poor" is a relative concept, not an absolute one. Someone living today in the US who enjoys the median 1950 US standard of living because that's all they can afford would be considered poor. Someone who enjoys that standard of living in Somalia... not clear. 3) In addition to all of the above, looking at just income to determine "poor" or not is quite weird. A $30k/year salary for an adult who supports a partner and 2 children is not at all the same thing as a $30k/year salary for a single adult.

someone7x 10y ago

I think this is the most reasonable conclusion. In CA this is a very common pattern. Growing up I had more than a few friends with very large immediate families sharing very tiny apartments.

sgnelson 10y ago

For more information, you can read about Spatial Mismatch Theory, which is almost exactly this point. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spatial_mismatch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spatial_mismatch