26 ms·

Cafeteria workers at Facebook struggle to make ends meet

• austenallred 9y ago
  “Back in the day, [the wage] would have been a great number,” said Victor, “but because of Facebook moving in, everything is so expensive. I have to get payday loans sometimes. We barely make it.” They make a combined (rounded) $75,000/year. The real tragedy is that you can't afford to make it in the Bay Area on $75k/yr. I don't think that's something you can blame solely on Facebook.
  • denzil_correa 9y ago
    > I don't think that's something you can blame solely on Facebook. I don't think "Facebook" is solely blamed. Facebook is used as a canonical example of SV companies.
    • austenallred 9y ago
      Even then. Housing prices are obviously related to Silicon Valley companies, but there's much to be said about housing policy as well.
      • princekolt 9y ago
        The sad part is that California, being the largest state in the US, should be the last one to have this sort of housing problems...
        • rm_-rf_slash 9y ago
          It has been attempted, and the only thing to show for it is perhaps America's most over-hyped ghost town[0]. Few Californians or transplants to California want to live anywhere but near the coastline. California's climate is not as pleasant once you go further inland. Also, the coastline is seismically active, and does not pose as a great location for Manhattan-style skyscrapers. (For that reason, I have always found San Francisco's skyline to be underwhelming). [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_City,_California https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_City,_California
          • icebraining 9y ago
            Also, the coastline is seismically active, and does not pose as a great location for Manhattan-style skyscrapers. So is Tokyo, yet there's plenty of high buildings.
          • lostboys67 9y ago
            Skyscrapers withstand earth quakes better than lo rise in most cases
          • taysic 9y ago
            >Few Californians or transplants to California want to live anywhere but near the coastline. California's climate is not as pleasant once you go further inland. That's so untrue. If some of the large open areas in the South Bay or east bay were turned into suburbs people would happily move in
            • estebank 9y ago
              More suburbs is probably a bad solution to lengthy commutes.
              • princekolt 9y ago
                Not if you have high speed transport. If you can commute at 200mph, living as far as 100 miles from work you could commute faster than people who live closer and go by car.
              • deleted 9y ago
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        • umanwizard 9y ago
          This comment is wrong on many levels... 1/ State borders within the US aren't any sort of obstacle to commuting for work, so how big your state is is completely irrelevant (it's only a slight exaggeration to say that half of New Jersey is fully integrated suburbs of NYC). 2/ Even if it did matter, California is definitely not the largest state in the US.
          • galdosdi 9y ago
            > it's only a slight exaggeration to say that half of New Jersey is fully integrated suburbs of NYC) By land, yes. If measured by population, your "exaggeration" is probably even an understatement.
          • pascalxus 9y ago
            But still, 95% of CA is undeveloped. Even in the bay area, you can see vast amounts of land that are undeveloped or underdeveloped. I see prime real-estate near bart being squandered with these tiny little 2-4 story buildings - it's pathetic. From 580 you can see nothing but land in every direction - none of it being developed on at all. Meanwhile, people are driving farther and farther to work to find cheaper housing, x10 the amount of traffic. All due to politics - zoning and NIMBY.
    • thanksgiving 9y ago
      > They earn too much to qualify for state health care, but not enough to afford the health insurance offered by their employer. They frequently struggle to find enough money for basics like food and clothes for their children. Victor recently borrowed money from his mother to hold a birthday party for one of his daughters, and from a friend to pay for a dentist appointment. This one might be a little unpopular but it needs to be said. I have an ax to grind / pet peeve here. What we need to do is get rid of means testing for entitlements and government services in general. I want to live in a world where the excelsior scholarship[1] does not ask how much your parents (or you!) make. If we can afford a program to feed the poor, we can afford a program to feed everyone (who meets residency requirements I guess if we are talking state or city level funding). The real devil is means testing and nobody talks about it because we are essentially using it as a vote bank / scare tactic. "Don't vote for Republicans or they'll starve you and/or let you die without health care." we say. tl;dr we should get rid of means testing. [1] https://www.ny.gov/programs/tuition-free-degree-program-excelsior-scholarship https://www.ny.gov/programs/tuition-free-degree-program-exce...
      • dpark 9y ago
        > If we can afford a program to feed the poor, we can afford a program to feed everyone This isn't actually true, which is why means testing exists. If San Francisco gave every resident just $200/month for food, it would cost the city over $2 billion/year. And that's assuming only $200/month and no other assistance programs. The only way to get rid of means testing while maintaining existing social services would be to drastically raise taxes.
        • bryanlarsen 9y ago
          "drastically raise taxes." Sure, on paper it would drastically raise taxes, but the net effect would be nil. The average taxpayer would have taxes raised by $200 and receive a benefit of $200/month. And the raise should be substantially less than $200 because you no longer have to pay for the old food assistance program, nor most of the bureaucracy for it.
          • 9y ago
  • deleted 9y ago
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  • dpark 9y ago
    Where is their $75k/year going? I totally get that the bay is ridiculously expensive, but they're living in his parents' garage. Are his parents charging him that much rent? I'd think someone living in their parents' garage and earning $75k would be doing pretty well in terms of money. (Setting aside the fact that living with your family in a 2-car garage would definitely suck.)
    • austenallred 9y ago
      They must be paying a lot of rent for the garage. Otherwise the numbers don't work (or... not work, as it were)
    • mattmanser 9y ago
      Could be that they're not getting the hours to actually earn anywhere near $75k.
    • bluedino 9y ago
      "Living in a garage" sounds a lot worse than "staying with your parents rent free"
    • rbanffy 9y ago
      Maybe the parents also rent the house. At 29/26 the parents could easily be 49/46 and still working. Also, mind that poverty has a role in poor economic decisions (payday loans being one of them). https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/11/your-brain-on-poverty-why-poor-people-seem-to-make-bad-decisions/281780/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/11/your-br... (edit: added some extra info)
      • robmass94 9y ago
        Unless this is referring to a different house, no, the parents do own it: >When Victor was growing up, his father was able to buy a small house in Menlo Park with his earnings a [sic] landscaper.
    • esMazer 9y ago
      75K before taxes with 3 kids..
  • davidiach 9y ago
    The only reason $75k/yr is considered low wage has to do with the housing prices in that area. Everyone knows the solution to that problem is to increase the supply of housing, yet little is being done. Maybe soon enough, $100k/yr will be the new $75k$. What then?
    • tormeh 9y ago
      The long-time residents have enacted legislation that insulates them from price increases, so house prices are irrelevant to them. Rent controls, property tax freeze, etc. aren't failed policies, but wildly successful ones because they allow long-time residents to pretend that SF is still a small town. That it puts a hard squeeze on people moving in to SF is probably just frosting on the cake.
  • s3r3nity 9y ago
    This - the headline of the article is a bit click-bait-y, but you nail the crux of the issue. When I worked there years back, I recall chatting with a few cafeteria workers and learning that they were paid more than the average contract worker; the issue isn't that they're being paid poorly, but rather that the Valley is _so expensive_ to live in. It should be more of a commentary on the state of California and the cities north, and including, of San Jose, rather than the tech companies that populate the region.
    • ringwalt 9y ago
      Well you can't really consider the Bay Area housing bubble and cost of living spike without taking the tech boom into account. I think it's both the fault of NIMBYism/failure to build sufficient housing in the South Bay, and the fault of large companies, VCs, and startups for doubling down on the South Bay instead of distributing new jobs more evenly throughout the rest of the country.
      • wbl 9y ago
        Why should they given the gains to concentration? Other metro like Chicago and NYC do have tech offices.
        • eropple 9y ago
          Maybe to not effectively destroy cities and communities with CoL traps? Y'know. Basic "we are members of a society and should be working to make it better" stuff. (Shocking, I know, but there have been eras where even Big Businessmans thought about this.)
          • selectodude 9y ago
            Those cities should stop destroying themselves and allow new construction.
            • eropple 9y ago
  • ProAm 9y ago
    > I don't think that's something you can blame solely on Facebook You'll never be able to solely blame macro economic issues on a single entity, they certainly contribute to the to the issue however.
    • refurb 9y ago
      Contributing to the issue? You mean by creating a ton of high paying jobs? Are you saying they should stop doing that?
      • ProAm 9y ago
        A ton? Yes high paying jobs that clearly have had an effect on the local economy as shown by this article. Like I said it's a macro economic issue that can't be fixed with a comment on a discussion board.
        • selectodude 9y ago
          I’m literally any other situation, supply and demand would have taken care of this a decade ago. PA doesn’t allow new construction and then blames a third party for housing costs. It’s asinine.
  • little_cat 9y ago
    Removed, changed my mind.
    • austenallred 9y ago
      To be fair, though, is your health insurance covered by your employer?
      • little_cat 9y ago
        This is fair point, medical expenses are largest risk in their situation, but I found that article is not about this.
    • joaomacp 9y ago
      now I ain't sayin she's a gold digger...
  • VeejayRampay 9y ago
    This is precisely why the USA need to get on the HST gravy train. Fast, reliable trains provide a way for people who cannot afford living in the more densely populated area (or don't want to) a way to live in a huge house with a yard and a pool 100 miles from said populated area. You then have an hour long commute every day (door to door), which is quite long, sure, but bearable.
    • wbl 9y ago
      The valley is not densely populated. It has acres of luxury zoned single family housing.
      • akgerber 9y ago
        Neighboring Atherton has a land use goal of 'preserv[ing] the Town's character as a scenic, rural, thickly wooded residential area with abundant open space.'
        • sokoloff 9y ago
          Should the residents of the town of Atherton be able to vote and enact policies on how Atherton should evolve? I think they should.
          • wbl 9y ago
            When every city in the bay thinks that way we get a situation where only the lucky get to live here.
            • Danihan 9y ago
              And that's a bad thing why? Why shouldn't there be nice, exclusive areas to live in, just like there are exclusive schools to attend and exclusive companies to work for?
              • 9y ago
  • rbanffy 9y ago
    > I don't think that's something you can blame solely on Facebook. They could pay their cafeteria workers better. Of course, it's not only Facebook that's a problem. I doubt many cafeteria workers make 75K/year. That said, aren't social housing projects an option here?
    • wavefunction 9y ago
      >>I doubt many cafeteria workers make 75K/year Isn't that 75k the gross from both adults in the family? And the worker even mentions facebook is their second gig so that's at least three jobs to hit 75,000. I don't think people working that hard should be living hand-to-mouth.
      • rbanffy 9y ago
        > Isn't that 75k the gross from both adults in the family? One reason I mentioned it is that requiring both parents to work in order to make ends meet limits their movement, limits their ability to change jobs and limits their ability to save for retirement. > I don't think people working that hard should be living hand-to-mouth. I imagine there are studies indicating this is bad for the overall economy.
  • turc1656 9y ago
    That's why they should be commuting to from a more reasonably-priced area of CA instead of living in the hideously expensive place they chose to live. This is colossally stupid on their part.
  • mcgrath_sh 9y ago
    I agree so much. At $75k/yr in my area, you would be able to live in a top 15 school district and go on a family vacation anually. I literally cannot conceptualize scraping by on $75k a year. That is just unfathomably expensive!
    • xenihn 9y ago
      What area is that?
      • AnOscelot 9y ago
        Kansas City, and it's nearly infinite suburbs, would be incredibly comfortable at 75k. Could easily afford a nice home in one of the bustling urban neighborhoods, or a 2,000+ sq ft. in the burbs, or something with a few acres out in the country but near an interstate for commuting.
        • xenihn 9y ago
          Ahh, could you recommend any specific neighborhoods? I'm starting to seriously consider Kansas City, coincidentally enough.
          • AnOscelot 9y ago
            My knowledge of what neighborhoods are currently great is a little rusty. I moved away from the area for a while, and now I'm one of those people with acreage outside of the city. But when I was in the city full time, my favorite area was around 39th street just over the state line on the Missouri side. Walking distance to quite a few restaurants, coffeeshops, bookstores, and other funky shops. Another fun place was the area around the Plaza. Some nice old apartments and houses. Walking distance from the Nelson art museum, the Plaza stores and restaurants, and fairly close to the bars in Westport. Westport is a fun place to hang out, but it's a little dodgy in terms of living there. Lots of petty crime, and a sad uptick in shootings of late. But when you're in your twenties, it's one of the most fun places in the city. At least it was for me. One thing which changed after I left was the revitalization of downtown. Used to be dead, and now you can have a semblance of urban living there. Lots of lofts and townhouses available, and in walking distance of the new bar / restaurant district, plus the convention center and the new performing arts hall. Related is the River Market area. It's on the edge of downtown with lots of rennovated apartments & lofts. Has the main farmers market, and the usual bars, restaurants, and odd stores. And is very walkable. The new streetcars have a very limited route, but River Market and Downtown are covered (or will be). The place I used to live now has a name: Crossroads Arts District. Stretches between downtown and the area around Crown Center. Has lots of art galleries, predictably enough, and all the other usual stuff. Holds a street art & food festival (First Fridays) once a month. Streetcar service will be coming soon-ish, but not quite there yet. There's also the West Bottoms. Used to be a swamp, then was a warehouse / industrial district, then was abandoned (when I was there), and now is an up & coming area with the usual lofts and stuff. Used to be one of my favorite areas of the city due to the interesting abandoned factories and how quiet it was despite being in the middle of the city. Probably a lot of fun now. I don't know much about the burbs. Johnson County (suburbia on the Kansas side) was great for big box stores but was otherwise a black hole for me. However, one great thing about Johnson County is that it has a Microcenter and it's glorious. Need a Raspberry Pi Zero + a handful of sensors for a project and need it now? Done. Though speaking of the burbs, if you have a little extra money for buying, check out some of the inner ring suburbs. Places like Leawood. Some beautiful houses with old huge trees. Some of the more expensive neighborhoods in the city, but cheap compared to the Valley. If you want to get off the beaten path, and are interested in fixer uppers, I always kinda liked Kansas City, Kansas. There are some neat old homes there on bluffs overlooking the Kansas River. And, last time I looked, many of those neighborhoods haven't gentrified, so there are bargains to be had. The neighborhoods are rough in spots, but there's something about the old blue collar neighborhoods that I always liked. KCK and the area around Bonner Springs can also give you some country living on the edge of the city. There's still some farms left and still some acreage while being 10-15 minutes away from the city center. The only risk is that you buy your perfect quiet piece of land and then get swamped with development a few years later, but I suppose that's a risk for any city's edge. Another good place for quiet small town-ish living while being very close to the city center is Parkville, MO. It's adjacent to the city. Probably one of the first KC suburbs. The town's center is Victorian and has a vibrant downtown with the typical Main Street USA feel. Also has a huge riverfront park on the Missouri River. The latter is quite nice because in much of KC, they've turned their back on the river and there's not much in terms of waterfront parks. This will be changing in the upcoming years with parks planned. But for now, there's not many. One last place to mention is Lawrence, Kansas. It's about 30-40 minutes away from the city, and is the home for Kansas University. It's an absolutely wonderful place to live. Reminds me of Austin but without the crowds and high prices. Very vibrant downtown and music scene. Low crime. Very walkable for both the neighborhoods and in terms of hiking trails that start in the city. Tons of interesting old houses. Extremely laid back. Surprisingly hilly. One of my favorite places on earth. Didn't mean to write a novel but that should give you some places to start looking. I spent much of my twenties in KC before heading out west in the dot-com boom, and then came back ten years later when I wanted some quiet times. I would sometimes be jealous of other larger cities, but KC was in many respects perfect for me. Unpretentious, unjudgemental (outside of the burbs, of course), and was a live and let live place from every angle. The biggest downside of KC is that a car is essential. I've tried to point out walkable neighborhoods, but public transportation is mostly limited to bus. No metro, no light rail (beyond a couple of miles of the streetcars). And a level of sprawl which is enormous. I suppose with Uber / Lyft these days, a personally owned car isn't quite so required now. But it was mandatory in my day. On the plus side for cars, traffic is usually not too terrible outside of rush hour. And if you end up living in the city center and working in the suburbs, there's a good chance you'll be going opposite to the huge traffic flow, and even rush hour will be easier. That's what happened to me. If you end up coming here, I think you'll like it. If I can help any further with your search, just let me know.
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• cabaalis 9y ago
  Serious question, politics aside. How many jobs have been prior filled by teenagers or recent college graduates, that are no longer being filled by those groups for whatever reason? Is every single type of profession required to support a family of 4? Edit: 5, per the photo on the article
  • deleted 9y ago
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  • princekolt 9y ago
    It's the opposite. Middle aged people used to work in manufacturing, farming, and other industrial positions. Now that these industries have either died or gone automated, they have to join teenagers in service jobs as well. It is not a matter of how many children they have either because families used to be a lot more numerous in the past and it was not considered a problem at all.
    • yorwba 9y ago
      > It is not a matter of how many children they have either because families used to be a lot more numerous in the past and it was not considered a problem at all. I think in theory you could raise an 1800s-size family today, but you'd have to settle for 1800s-level quality of life, which nobody is likely to do. And in practice you can't just set up a shed on unclaimed land, because there is no unclaimed land left and NIMBYs wouldn't want a slum anywhere near their property. If you tried making your children useful as labor, you'd quickly lose custody for your child exploitation. And so on. The things our society expects and accepts have changed, so you can't always point to the past and say "it worked then, so it will work now"; because if the social structure enabling it has changed, this may not be true.
  • frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
    About half of minimum wage workers are at least 25 and three-quarters are at least 20. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/09/08/who-makes-minimum-wage/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/09/08/who-makes-mi... >Is every single type of profession required to support a family of 4? "A man must always live by his work, and his wages must at least be sufficient to maintain him. They must even upon most occasions be somewhat more, otherwise it would be impossible for him to bring up a family, and the race of such workmen could not last beyond the first generation." "They who feed, clothe, and lodge the whole body of the people should have such a share of the produce of their own labor as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged." "Our merchants and master-manufacturers complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price, and thereby lessening the sale of their goods both at home and abroad. They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits. They are silent with regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains. They complain only of those of other people." All from Adam Smith.
• miguelrochefort 9y ago
  I wonder how much interest they're paying on those "payday loans".
  • jmcdiesel 9y ago
    A good bit. Payday loans aren't something anyone wants to do, ever. They are predatory, they know people only turn to them at the last resort (ie, cant feed your kids) so they can charge whatever they want. The justice comes in the fact that they lose a shit ton of money, because of how sleazy they are, the important credit companies (Equifax, Transunion, etc) wont work with them, so if you don't pay them back, your only loss is not being able to get more payday loans... (there is a specific payday loan/pawn shop loan credit bureau). So, dont give people shit if they have to take a payday loan, i've been there... i've had to, when i got laid off and went 2 months without income and borrowed from about every family member I could... i basically asked my prior manager to lie and say i still worked there so i could get a loan to feed my family. I'd never walk into one of those places if I werent in dire straits...
  • lostgame 9y ago
    Yeah, um, protip: avoid those.
• thg 9y ago
  > “He doesn’t have to go around the world,” said Nicole. “He should learn what’s happening in this city.” The journalists probably wouldn't notice and thus there would be no (noteworthy) PR and thus no reason to do it. But now that there's negative publicity he might just get around to that.
• tadam 9y ago
  Very frugal living with their Dyson AM09 on the floor
• misingnoglic 9y ago
  The big problem seems to be the lack of affordable housing in the area - when I was looking for 1br apartments, none of them were under $2700 a month (plus 300+ for car parking), and they were all brand new luxury rooms.
  • spike021 9y ago
    I've been looking to move from San Jose further up the peninsula. There are apartments under $2700. Even under $2000. However, there are differences of quality. A unit around $2000 won't have in-unit laundry, a dishwasher, a/c, a pool, etc. A place about $2700 likely will have those things, new appliances in the kitchen (oops, forgot "newly renovated"), etc. It's definitely tough to find a good, decent quality place.
  • galdosdi 9y ago
    When I hear stuff like this I'm flabbergasted. I live and work in downtown Manhattan, and it's much more affordable to get housing [1] or parking [2] than what online commenters describe about the bay area -- contrary to what stereotypes would have you believe. If the world's richest, densest, most economically productive city is outperforming you on affordability, you're doing something really wrong. Get out of the bay area and come to NYC. You can live well here on $20 an hour (if it's fulltime with health benefits and you have no dependents), and amazingly on a developer salary. You can live in a small place walking distance to work, or in a huge place a comfy train ride away, or something in between, all for substantially less than in the bay area. All the big tech companies are here and a lot of startups have come from here -- and we actually have other industries too, helpful if you have a spouse that doesn't work in tech -- or if you change careers someday -- or if you just enjoy having friends who don't all do the same thing you do and offer different perspectives. It's just a much bigger place. Computer tech had its day in the california sun, but I honestly believe NYC will ultimately capture the US based computer tech industry, the same way it has captured many industries in the past -- by outperforming all other US cities at things that matter for employees and employers. __ [1] I pay $1850 for a 1 bedroom near Houston St. It is still easy to find similar and slightly cheaper deals. You can pay much less if you trade away space or the luxury of being able to walk to work. For an example of trading away for price alone, a friend of mine recently easily found and leased a room (in a 3br share) for $650, a 30 min subway or bike away from downtown manhattan. [2] I had a car for a while for purely stupid fun impractical reasons (don't anymore, for practical reasons) and paid almost nothing for parking by parking it on the street, which is easy once you learn the tricks. Paid maybe $65 or $130 a month for the occasional ticket. But parking is unnecessary anyway since car ownership is unnecessary due to excellent transit (and walkability/bikeability) -- and if you really needed a car once in a while, you're surely in walking distance of a zipcar or one of its several competitors.
• mc32 9y ago
  MacDonald's is also a multibillion dollar corp., nobody in their right mind thinks they can raise a family working at MacD's without additional income or subsidy. It's a job for teenagers to get experience and for blue collar retirees to make some money to and to their SS checks. People should stop thinking teenager jobs sustain families. It doesn't have the value add. If you want to make a living open up a stand and maybe if you do things well, you'll survive and thrive. Even in developing economies, this is ceasing to be the case. Never mind mature economies.
  • celim307 9y ago
    I don't understand, what point are you making? Your solution is pull yourself up by your bootstraps?
    • kesselvon 9y ago
      "have the poor considered making more money?"
    • mc32 9y ago
      No, but you cannot in good conscience believe that you can raise a middle class family if that's your one skill. We also have people complaining about vanishing steel jobs, listen, they're not coming back and you are going to have to adjust.
      • Applejinx 9y ago
        Have you considered there is no possible skill that will establish a societal middle class for the population, no matter what effort or resources are put behind it? In less than ten years you'll be talking about vanishing coding jobs, and the word is they're not coming back. What then? There is nothing we can't optimize to require less human labor. There is no possible skill that will translate to 'humans as a class' remaining relevant to productivity and a labor pool that's increasingly nonhuman. It's like expecting people to hammer in railroad ties, or dig through rock with pickaxes. Absurd, unreasonable, insane. I quite agree with 'adjust', but I'm shocked by the idea that 'acquiring skills' is your notion of the standard to apply to all humans. There is no skill or skills that will do what you think is going to happen. All that will happen is, desperate people will obliterate the labor value of coding and thinking, during the final phase of human-centric thinking as a type of labor.
• jmcdiesel 9y ago
  Facebook didn't make the area expensive. No tech company did. Those local businesses, and the chains alike, have made it expensive. So much blame gets put on the tech companies, but the tech companies aren't raising the prices, they are just paying people better, and the local businesses abuse that to the fullest extent. There is no NEED to charge $6 for a gallon of milk, when milk from those same cows is sold for $2 50 miles away... thats not a SV valley tech company problem, its a SV valley retailer problem, and the blame needs to shift that way... [edited because splellings]
  • dgacmu 9y ago
    > Facebook didn't make the area expensive. No tech company did. Those local businesses, and the chains alike, have made it expensive. So much blame gets put on the tech companies, but the tech companies aren't raising the prices, they are just paying people better, and the local businesses abuse that to the fullest extent. There is no NEED to charge $6 for a gallon of milk, when milk from those same cows is sold for $2 50 miles away... thats not a SV valley tech company problem, its a SV valley retailer problem, and the blame needs to shift that way... You're attacking a false target. Buying food in the bay area isn't expensive. Rent and housing is expensive. There's a great Costco in mountain view that charges the same prices as Costco most other places. Similar for other grocery options. When I lived there last year, our food bills were comparable to living in Pittsburgh. Our rent on a 3br/1ba house, not renovated since 1956, with a portable dishwasher in the garage... was 50% more than my mortgage is in Pittsburgh for a decent size house in a lovely little neighborhood 3/4 of a mile from my work. It was rather shocking. It's a combination of high salaries and crappy housing policy leading to an explosion in property costs.
    • Domenic_S 9y ago
      > Buying food in the bay area isn't expensive. Yeah, I found that to be pretty much true. Of course there are plenty more options (organic/natural/raw) if you WANT to spend more, but no intrinsic cost increase. But there are a lot of marginal cost increases in the Bay vs other places. Car insurance is more expensive. Gas is more expensive. Simple one-offs (like oil changes) are more expensive. You're more likely to eat out because of the brutal commute times. Etc.
• gmarx 9y ago
  It is terrible that he can't live in Menlo Park on 75K. On the other hand the reason he lives in a garage is because he and is family are living with his parents, most likely to save money and avoid the horrendous commute most of his coworkers probably face. On yet a third hand I can't feel all that bad for this guy since he someday stands to inherit a house worth millions of dollars
  • rhizome 9y ago
    You had to pull out a third hand, but I'm glad you were able to figure out a reason not to feel bad for them. That was close.
    • gmarx 9y ago
      haha, yeah. It's petty but I'm well into adulthood, have what I would have considered an excellent income (had you asked me as a teen) and rent what I would have considered (had you shown me as a teen) kind of dump because my job is here. So yeah I have a bit less sympathy for the people who complain about their income while ignoring the fact that they have a large financial asset which is only ridiculously valuable because of the same things that make it too expensive to live around here.
  • Johnny555 9y ago
    On yet a third hand I can't feel all that bad for this guy since he someday stands to inherit a house worth millions of dollars. He's 29 years old, so his parents could be in their 50's. So living in a garage and then inheriting a million dollar house 20 years from now after his kids are grown and out of the house (well, garage) doesn't sound like much to be happy about.
    • gmarx 9y ago
      I take it you aren't old enough to have started sweating about retirement ;)
• tmh79 9y ago
  The real story here is how the political conditions of the SFBA have prevented growth of the housing supply. The sad reality is that housing here is now a zero sum game, and any broad based increase in wages would pretty quickly be captured by landlords. The real solution to this issue is not higher wages, but targeted efforts to decrease the cost of living through building a ton of of "missing middle" housing like 4-plexes near office space in the sea of land populated by single family home zoning as well as renters protections (rent control and eviction protection) ADUs ("accessory dwelling unit": stand alone units in peoples garages or back yards) and likely some for of social housing subsidy for the worst off among us.
  • frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
    Why is the real estate market "the real story"? Seems like the real story is that facebook ought to pay its cafeteria workers more.
    • henraldp 9y ago
      Don't be so susceptible. The literal story is about food workers who can't afford to raise a family in Palo Alto. The intended message seems to be that Facebook should pay food workers more than $20/hr. I think it's acceptable for people to ponder outside of that claim.
      • frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
        I think people are pondering outside of that claim because young programmers in Palo Alto also want cheap real estate so there's a shared interest. But things this article brings up that are more uncomfortable for the members of this board to think about like paying service workers more or pondering this: “They look at us like we’re lower, like we don’t matter,” said Nicole of the Facebook employees. “We don’t live the dream. The techies are living the dream. It’s for them.” The smaller indignities are numerous. At the end of every shift, Nicole watches large amounts of leftover food go into the compost – food that she’s not allowed to take home. Cafeteria workers only enter Facebook’s medical clinics if they’ve been selected for a mandatory drug test. Facebook recently held a “Bring your kids to work” day, but cafeteria workers’ children were not allowed. are going to go untalked about. And what's the problem with saying that Facebook should pay it's workers more than $20/hr? If it's not enough to live on, that's kind of all there is to it isn't there?
• frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
  Everybody here is focusing on real estate. (because young wealthy programmers and older poorer workers have a shared interest in cheap real estate) But I'm really interested in how HN feels about this section: “I felt more secure at my other job. You didn’t have people looking down at you,” Nicole said. Now she works at cafeterias with names like “Epic” and “Living the Dream”, and the distance between the two classes of Facebook workers can feel immense. “They look at us like we’re lower, like we don’t matter,” said Nicole of the Facebook employees. “We don’t live the dream. The techies are living the dream. It’s for them.” The smaller indignities are numerous. At the end of every shift, Nicole watches large amounts of leftover food go into the compost – food that she’s not allowed to take home. Cafeteria workers only enter Facebook’s medical clinics if they’ve been selected for a mandatory drug test. Facebook recently held a “Bring your kids to work” day, but cafeteria workers’ children were not allowed. A spokeswoman for Facebook said that none of the company’s contingent or contract workers have access to facilities such as clinics, gyms, or bring your kid to work days, but that other policies were a matter between the contractor and the workers.
  • bantunes 9y ago
    You must be new here. You'll get 20 comments on how government and real estate and the market not being free enough are the problem before someone goes into this aspect of the article.
    • humanrebar 9y ago
      I think employers should be more accountable for how the people that work for them (directly or indirectly) are paid and treated. I also think making them legally accountable is the wrong way to go about fixing the problem. I don't think you can legislate individuals and groups enough to make them decent. You have to go about it another way. I also don't think it's reasonable to imply that people who think free markets are more efficient and humane are also somehow less compassionate.
  • jarboot 9y ago
    This is the real problem.
• dqv 9y ago
  >They look at us like we're lower, like we don't matter :\ Please stop doing this. You know who you are.
  • humanrebar 9y ago
    Management often contracts out food service, security, and janitorial work. This means they do not qualify for perks that are described in the article. It also means they don't qualify for company picnics, etc. Good managers will often do retreats, mixers, happy hours, etc. to encourage sales and accounts staff to mix with the engineers. I've never seen the same concern about how white collar workers get along with blue collar ones. I understand all the above reasoning. I'm just saying it's not just a problem in personal interactions.
• bluedino 9y ago
  A few things. They aren't Facebook employees, as some people might infer when reading the headline. They're working for the cafeteria contractor - Flagship Facility Services. They are making $2 and $4/hour more than the $15/hour minimum wage people are fighting for. Obviously $15 isn't enough and neither is more than $15. >> Earlier in their relationship, the couple both earned about $12 per hour as managers at Chipotle and were able to afford their own apartment. What changed? Having the 3 kids? Did they move to a different area? $12/hr isn't going to get you an apartment in most of CA.
  • eropple 9y ago
    > They aren't Facebook employees, as some people might infer when reading the headline. They're working for the cafeteria contractor - Flagship Facility Services. Not saying you're doing this, but this is very regularly used as a dodge to erase the responsibility of very large companies (and smaller too, of course) to ensure that the people working for their contractors to be treated fairly and equitably, too. Contractors-as-plausible-deniability is a bad, bad scene.
    • rlanday 9y ago
      What is "fairly and equitably"? If I choose to live in the most expensive metro area in the country, have ten kids, and then kill my wife so there's no one else to help support them, is it my employer's fault I'm struggling? At what point do people's situations stop being other people's fault?
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• notadoc 9y ago
  In summary: wages have not kept up with dramatic cost of living inflation. A very common story on the west coast.
• whack 9y ago
  > "Working at a Facebook cafeteria is an enviable job in many ways. Nicole earns $19.85 an hour as a shift lead, while Victor makes $17.85 – well above the $15 per hour minimum for contractors that Facebook established in 2015." Assuming they work 40-hour-weeks, for 49 weeks every year, they make a combined family income of $74k/year. I've volunteered with low-income families in SF. I've seen families just as big as theirs, getting by in San Francisco, with half their salary. The way they are demanding attention, and comparing themselves with others in far worse situations, makes them sound really petty. I've personally met people who are truly struggling in horrendous ways. If Mark Zuckerberg wants to use his personal time to help those at the very bottom, good for him. Someone making ~$18/hour really has no business chiding him for doing so.
  • humanrebar 9y ago
    > I've seen families just as big as theirs, getting by in San Francisco, with half their salary. It's hard for me to judge individual budgets out of context. Some people are in financial holes in various ways: healthcare debt, personal debt, usurious lones, bad credit, bad investment choices, support payments, victims of investment fraud, etc. Sometimes we can say it's their fault, but it's not fair to assume it is. It's also worth pointing out that "getting by" in the short term does not mean living a net-wealth-building lifestyle in the long term.
• frankydp 9y ago
  The low income limit in the Santa Clara County is 75K for a family of 4. Which should trigger a lot of program eligibility, especially for housing through HUD. I would guess that availability of Section 8/HUD subsidized housing is a critical factor with regards to this county though. Most section 8 properties seem to be on long waiting list. The exceptional property values would most likely limit the participation of developers in any of the Section 8 lending or construction programs. Only mentioning this because there are programs in place to support families in this scenario, but local governance and investor behavior can directly negate the effectiveness and availability of these programs. https://www.wetakesection8.com/search/CA/palo-alto/ https://www.wetakesection8.com/search/CA/palo-alto/ http://section-8-housing-income-limits.credio.com/l/227/San-Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa-Clara-CA-HUD-Metro-FMR-Area http://section-8-housing-income-limits.credio.com/l/227/San-...
• kelvin0 9y ago
  There is no Photo OP for Mark if he is working within his own company walls to genuinely try to help his 'own'. T'sall 'bout managin' perception.
• mc32 9y ago
  One way to minimize the cost of living impact is to set up satellite offices. Set up a campus in Texas or Oklahoma. It's not like people would not take jobs there. I'm sure some globe trotters would not, but most jobs don't need the globe trotter kind of mentality.
  • tsunamifury 9y ago
    Janitors, bus drivers, food service workers and security can't work from a "satellite office". This is about more than engineers.
    • mc32 9y ago
      Fewer engs in the bay area lowers pressure on cost of housing, among other things.
    • dfrey 9y ago
      Yes, but a lot of the big tech companies like Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Google and Microsoft want people to work at their head office location rather than opening up satellite offices across the world. I understand how it simplifies logistics and communication, but it's not without its own problems.
    • deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  • lghh 9y ago
    I live in and grew up in Oklahoma and every time I hear a horror story about housing in these high-population areas I balk. I have a good, challenging job making what would be poverty-level income in SF but I have a house, a nice car, and can travel a few times a year. I guess the night life isn't as good or there is "not that much to do" but I hang out with my friends, eat good food, and drink good beer so I'm not so sure what else I could really want. The tech giants could put satellite offices in OK, or people could just move and shoot for one of the good jobs that are already here. I really don't get why anyone puts up with SF.
  • cr0sh 9y ago
• myroon5 9y ago
  Almost 80k/year in salary leaves a family stuck in a garage over there? That's absurd
  • c0nfused 9y ago
    Only if you need to live in the most expensive housing market in the nation.
    • notacoward 9y ago
      ...which you do, if your job is tied to a location in that market. Uprooting a family to move elsewhere is more of a burden than a lot of affluent young single people seem to think.
    • zlynx 9y ago
      Right. Raising their pay wouldn't even help. Oh, it would help them but whatever place they manage to move into with their improved cash flow would displace someone else. Then those displaced people would have a sob story until they get their pay raised, and displace someone... The real problem is the lack of housing for the number of people that want to live there. A few good skyscraper high density developments would fix it better than pay increases.
  • dahdum 9y ago
    They are living in his parent's garage, so it's likely rent free or below market, and they would have access to the home I'd imagine.
  • tsunamifury 9y ago
    80K/y is barely above the poverty line for a family of four in the area.
  • bykovich2 9y ago
    The cost of living in the Bay Area is -- and I say this with no figuration -- frightening. It provokes genuine fear in me.
• confounded 9y ago
  If you're interested in trying to improve the conditions of those who serve you at your workplace, consider attending a meeting of the Tech Workers Coalition. Free beer! https://techworkerscoalition.org https://techworkerscoalition.org
• cosinetau 9y ago
  Zuckerburg is running for president.
• koolba 9y ago
  > They earn too much to qualify for state healthcare, but not enough to afford the health insurance offered by their employer. They frequently struggle to find enough money for basics like food and clothes for their children. Victor recently borrowed money from his mother to hold a birthday party for one of his daughters, and from a friend to pay for a dentist appointment. They might want to look into not being married. A single mother with three children would qualify for quite a few benefits. The lower income (single parent) would also qualify her for Medicaid. Separately, the husband could continue to work and pool his income with her, though not on paper. It's pretty sad that the combination of the tax code, income based benefit eligibility, and a high local cost of living make something like "Divorce for the sake of the children" a real option.
  • notyourwork 9y ago
    > but not enough to afford the health insurance offered by their employer. This is what is wrong with health care in the US. How can this not be considered a serious flaw in the way the system is currently structured?
    • dopamean 9y ago
      Plenty of people consider it a serious flaw. It's just that very few of them are in government.
      • astrange 9y ago
        Single-payer in California is currently blocked by just one guy (CA speaker of the house) because the people haven't bribed him as well as the health insurance lobby has.
        • khuey 9y ago
          No single payer in California is blocked by 40 years worth of voter approved laws and constitutional amendments that tie the state's hands in ways that make it impossible for the state to raise the revenue necessary and direct it solely to healthcare. https://theintercept.com/2017/06/30/california-single-payer-organizers-are-deceiving-their-supporters-its-time-to-stop/ https://theintercept.com/2017/06/30/california-single-payer-...
• redorb 9y ago
  They have been priced out of their own neighborhood and that is really unfortunate. Theoretically they should move to a place with a cheaper cost of living. People move all the time for wages and cost of living; I would guess its the number one reason people move. They don't work for Facebook they work for a contractor; I would say they need to find a better job or a less expensive place to live (cost of living).
  • rhizome 9y ago
    Theoretically they should move to a place with a cheaper cost of living. Theoretically the entire company could do that.
    • jogjayr 9y ago
      So...make all of their employees choose between uprooting their lives to move to a low-cost area (which they they didn't get to pick), or leaving their job? Didn't Reddit catch some flak over that recently? (yes I'm aware it was the other way, into the Bay Area rather than out)
      • rhizome 9y ago
        Please. Most (if not "basically all") of their employees already moved to work there.
        • jogjayr 9y ago
          I'm one of those employees. I'd still be resentful if my company unilaterally imposed a move on me. And I don't even own a house here. If I move away, I'd want it to be a place I chose, taking into account my own needs and preferences. People put down roots after a while; friends, family, schools, social clubs.
    • deegles 9y ago
      I mean, they slowly are... Seattle is booming. Google, Facebook, et al. are all massively expanding their presence. Admittedly, the COL is going up rapidly there too, but at least there's a huge amount of construction happening. I wish the large tech companies would experiment with more remote-only teams, it would be great to eliminate the commute and live anywhere I want.
• jeffdavis 9y ago
  They make decent money -- good money even. This is really an article about the high housing costs in the Bay Area. I don't see any other real message here. All of the people who oppose residential development near work sites are to blame. Period.
  • kevin_b_er 9y ago
    They make terrible money because they have no net money after basic expenses.
  • placeybordeaux 9y ago
    > All of the people who oppose residential development near work sites are to blame. Period. Are you saying that is the only thing that is keeping the bay area's cost of living high?
    • crooked-v 9y ago
      Housing costs are exaggerated in San Francisco by orders of magnitude more than every other component of cost of living.
      • JSDave 9y ago
        There are other factors that also push up housing costs. placeybordeaux just disagrees that NIMBYism is the ONLY factor. I don't know if NIMBYism is even the primary factor. For example, we have a small public transit network resulting in few options for high density construction. There's a construction labor shortage that will likely worsen. There's a sudden surge in jobs.
    • abalashov 9y ago
      No, I don't think the GP is. But it's a rather predominant factor!
  • elmar 9y ago
    doesn't say how much are they paying for the two car garage, even at lower rents how much lower they must be, to be cheaper then what they are paying now, so that they increase their standard of living.
• JustAnotherPat 9y ago
  What I get from this article is that these people should be salaried employees, not contractors. Sure it's not as cheap for Facebook, but folding them into a system that already exists is probably more cost efficient for society itself than having them fend for themselves in the money-pit of a private marketplace.
• mcrad 9y ago
  But he is on a journey to connect the world, since that is the greatest challenge of his generation
• derekdahmer 9y ago
  > A spokeswoman for Facebook said none of the company’s contingent or contract workers have access to facilities such as clinics, gyms, or bring-your-child-to-work days One thing I liked about AirBnB was their entire staff including cafeteria workers and security guards were full-time employees who ate the same food, had access to the same facilities and events, and went through the first week 'bootcamp' alongside developers, HR, and upper management. That doesn't solve the wage gap, but it does make a huge difference in developing empathy to see people you've had common experiences with at all levels of the organization.
  • danso 9y ago
    Thanks for mentioning this example. Every time I see complaints of how FB (or any big company) should not be using contractors, I'm at a loss to think of companies that employ this kind of support staff. I think most of the companies I've worked have generally outsourced cafeteria and janitorial work, albeit these companies were in much more affordable metros.
    • derekdahmer 9y ago
      It's a lost opportunity that companies who view themselves as socially progressive and invest heavily in marketing and PR around inclusivity then continue inadvertently maintaining an internal class system of knowledge vs service workers.
      • MarkPNeyer 9y ago
        It's almost like they value the image of being progressive more than actually being progressive.
        • vl 9y ago
          It's almost like market demands them to be seen as progressive.
          • 9y ago
• oh_sigh 9y ago
  They're living in their parents garage. With the single biggest cost of living(housing) removed, I'm curious how they can't afford life at 80k/yr. Besides for housing, cost of living does not need to be particularly higher in SV than elsewhere. Either that, or the parents are charging them market rate to live in the garage, which is probably illegal anyway...
  • bykovich2 9y ago
    How do you figure that "besides for housing, cost of living does not need to be particularly higher in SV than elsewhere"? While housing is undeniably the most wildly out-of-control expense in Silicon Valley, the rest of the essentials of life ain't cheap either.
    • codebook 9y ago
      But my family (4 persons) lived at apartment ($2600/month) in south bay with 90k/year income. 80k/year wasn't that bad if they pay more than $1000/month for that garage.
    • jogjayr 9y ago
      > the rest of the essentials of life ain't cheap either. Rent makes up between 1/2 and 2/3 of my monthly spending. Most "essentials" are actually pretty cheap in SV (gas maybe being the exception). Unless you have kids and need to pay for childcare; and that's also a function of the high housing prices because the workers there need to pay rent also.
    • oh_sigh 9y ago
      What other essentials of life? A car and car insurance are within bounds of normalcy. Food at grocery stores is in line with the rest of California and farm raised food can be dirt cheap. Good public schools are readily available. Healthcare costs are the same as anywhere else in the USA. What other essentially things besides housing are inflated in SV? Yes, you can go out and buy $20 bean sprout sandwiches, but that isn't exactly a necessity.
• turc1656 9y ago
  I'm going to come right out and say it and fully expect to be downvoted to death - these people are the problem. Not Facebook (who they don't actually work for) and not their actual employer. They make a combined 75-80k a year. The median household income in CA is 61k. The median for the Silicon Valley area is 94k. They need to get up and move to give their children and themselves a better lifestyle. They have the means to do it based on the state's median household income. They're just being assholes. They need to make the commute to work and live in a place that's much more affordable. It's that simple. I work in NYC and make substantially more than their combined incomes and yet I don't live in Manhattan or any NYC borough. Why? Because it's hideously expensive in Manhattan and the nearby areas. I drag my ass all the way from central NJ and it takes around 2 hours each way. I'm not an outlier either. They have multiple bus lines to service all the other central NJ commuters. These people need to come to grips that they can't afford to live in that ridiculously overpriced area that happens to be located within a convenient proximity to their jobs. Also, their entirely mentality is completely fucked. They seemed surprised that they weren't allowed to bring their kids to work when other, actual Facebook employees did. It's like they don't realize they don't actually work for Facebook, but rather just work in a Facebook building. Also, there's this entitlement-driven, handout-seeking garbage: “Our motivation is not to bash either company. It’s for our families. Why do we have to live like this, when the company we work for has the resources to make it better?” So...just because your company has enough money to give you a raise, it should do so? Their employer should just ignore market forces and the fair price for this work? Speaking of which, they receive above the fair market rate already which makes this comment even more astounding. They want their employer to also ignore shareholders/owners interests and just give them more money? And this money wouldn't even be done to retain talent, reward extraordinary performance, or any of the other standard reasons for which this is usually justifiable? Wow. The company I work for makes a lot of money and has fantastic margins. But if I ever was in a performance review and said something like, "hey, the company makes a lot of money and I feel like I should get a larger piece" - and didn't follow it up with a damn good reason to justify that comment and prove my increased claimed value to the company, they'd laugh in my face, and rightfully so. These people need to get a clue.
  • Aloha 9y ago
• hw 9y ago
  As many have pointed out, the main issue here is the Bay Area's cost of living - especially housing. What they're earning is higher than a lot of people in the food service industry, but still isn't enough to afford a decent house or apartment here in the bay area. It's not like Facebook can start paying them 30$ per hour or issue them stock.. some types of jobs just don't scale in terms of salary and it's just unfortunate that homes in the bay area are overpriced. Something just needs to be done regarding affordable housing here. Otherwise people not doing tech will just slowly get priced out from neighborhoods and will have to deal with living 2 hours away in cheaper areas
• noobermin 9y ago
  Someone else was downvoted for saying so, but Zuckerberg is running for president, which is exactly why he need not look at his own employees. Votes in California are almost a sure bet for D nominee, if he becomes one. It is voters in the swing states that politicians actually have to care about. It is them who have to be understood and pandered to because they have political power.
• austincheney 9y ago
  They could move to Texas. The price for that garage is probably more than the total cost of a 3000sqft house in north Fort Worth. The Toyota headquarters just moved from CA to TX and those guys are buying large houses in expensive areas of town in cash. I have known many people who have left CA for exactly this reason. I am sure CA is great when you are young and single, but once reality kicks in CA becomes very expensive.
  • manarth 9y ago
    The family of five have lived in this cramped space next to Victor’s parents’ house for three years. It sounds like the garage belongs to his parents. Which implies they don't own it (so no equity to free up in order to buy a place in Texas), and they may well pay a very low (or no) rent.
    • nylonstrung 9y ago
      Didn't notice that- if that's the case this story is pretty different than what I'd initially thought. 80K/year with no or a trivial amount of rent is a pretty good setup. There are tens of millions of people in the US who have it worse.
    • nylonstrung 9y ago
      Didn't notice that- if that's the case this story is pretty different than what I'd initially thought. 80K/year with no or a trivial amount of rent is a pretty good setup. There are tens of millions of people in the US who have it worse.
• rhaps0dy 9y ago
  >Nicole watches large amounts of leftover food go into the compost – food she’s not allowed to take home Why is she not allowed to take it home? It would be free for whoever her employer is, it would help her and her family. Also I really dislike wasting food.
  • JumpCrisscross 9y ago
    > Why is she not allowed to take it home? Liability. If her kids get sick she could sue. On one hand, I feel like this should be something a waiver solves. On the other hand, that opens the door for handing rotting food to employees
  • perfectstorm 9y ago
    One of the reasons for disallowing employees from taking home food is that they will lose their motivation to sell food if they get to keep the unsold food after business hours. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the deli employees hide expensive food from customers and take it home after work because it's "unsold". My cousin worked at Walmart during Black Friday sales and he has told me that his coworkers hide popular sale items in the back-shelf for themselves to buy it when they are off the clock.
    • angersock 9y ago
      That's the dumbest goddamn thing I've ever heard, least of all because a TV on sale on Black Friday is pretty far from a nice sandwich. This sort of selfish reasoning--"but but but what about the poors that might somehow abuse the system"--is cancerous, and you sir or madam are a shitty person for suggesting it.
      • sushid 9y ago
        Have you ever worked in food services or retail? If not, you don't know what you're talking about, because this kind of thing happens all the time because people abuse the system. The parent commenter is not even the one making up the reason. She/he is simply explaining the reason why such a policy commonly exists. FWIW, most places also allow the workers to eat the food before/during/after they work there.
• BrandonMarc 9y ago
  In the end, the article reads as an advertisement for the union they're joining. That's probably the general purpose of the article anyway. That said, it does drive home the overall point that "inequality" is a very complicated issue, and for all the good PR that Facebook and Zuckerberg have, they're just as guilty, inasmuch as there is any real guilt to assign. Facebook certainly has the money, and if they do indeed care about wealth inequality, they would do well to start at their own doorstep. So this worker is a contractor. So what? Very convenient; result still stands.
• jimrandomh 9y ago
  This is a problem with zoning in the area. Paying these workers more money would enable them to move out of a garage, but the amount of housing would stay the same, causing prices to rise until someone else is forced into a garage. Unfortunately, local governments in the south Bay area are controlled by people who want to maximize the price of their houses, injury to the poor and middle class be damned.
  • xxSparkleSxx 9y ago
    Yea, but they use reusable shopping bags and drive a Tesla. So obvs. they care about people and the environment.
  • ThrustVectoring 9y ago
    We really need some regional or state-driven action to drive down housing prices in critical areas. It'd be pretty straightforward - make a "Zoning Authority" tax and levy it on counties, cities, and neighborhoods that do not meet a development target. Want to be an obstructionist NIMBY? I'm fine with that if we're charging you $10k/yr for the privilege.
    • greglindahl 9y ago
      There is a regional authority which tries to force communities to match new office space with new housing in the same city. And there's state action on the way to force local areas to approve dense developments near transit hubs like Caltrain. Obviously this isn't doing enough today, but there is action happening.
      • ThrustVectoring 9y ago
        Which politicians are behind this, and where can I learn more? I wish to write them a letter stating my approval and donate to their political efforts.
• 8ytecoder 9y ago
  Bay Area has a unique challenge in this regard. All jobs (pretty much) pay more than what would have one qualify for benefits but not enough to actually pay for even the basics - healthcare, housing and food. The only solution for those who are not already locked into a rent controlled place and can't afford the sky high rent is to move out. Politicians, NIMBYs everybody blocks or opposes every proposed solution for one reason or the other. It's a stalemate. It needs a big big political push out of this. Only someone who has a lot of political capital can get it done - not just money. My personal preference is to merge the housing, zoning and public transportation authorities of all cities and municipalities in the bay area into Metro wide organizations that plan for the whole area instead of just a city/town.But this is the antithesis of local governance and a really hard pill to swallow. Until then cities like SF and Oakland will bear the brunt of this crisis while cities like Palo Alto try to ban even two story constructions.
  • brianmartinek 9y ago
    Agree with this view. Only the state can force that type of cooperation. MN did a variation of this in the early 70's to stop Twin Cities municipalities from competing against each other with tax breaks in order to attract companies. The result has been the only metro region that works together for the benefit of the region, not individual towns. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/the-miracle-of-minneapolis/384975/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/the-mir... "No other large American city has adopted a plan like Minneapolis’s to sprinkle business taxes across a region in order to keep the poorest areas from falling too far behind." "In the 1960s, local districts and towns in the Twin Cities region offered competing tax breaks to lure in new businesses, diminishing their revenues and depleting their social services in an effort to steal jobs from elsewhere within the area. In 1971, the region came up with an ingenious plan that would help halt this race to the bottom, and also address widening inequality. The Minnesota state legislature passed a law requiring all of the region’s local governments—in Minneapolis and St. Paul and throughout their ring of suburbs—to contribute almost half of the growth in their commercial tax revenues to a regional pool, from which the money would be distributed to tax-poor areas. Today, business taxes are used to enrich some of the region’s poorest communities. Never before had such a plan—known as “fiscal equalization”—been tried at the metropolitan level. “In a typical U.S. metro, the disparities between the poor and rich areas are dramatic, because well-off suburbs don’t share the wealth they build,” says Bruce Katz, the director of the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution. But for generations now, the Twin Cities’ downtown area, inner-ring neighborhoods, and tony suburbs have shared in the metro’s commercial success. By spreading the wealth to its poorest neighborhoods, the metro area provides more-equal services in low-income places, and keeps quality of life high just about everywhere."
• IanDrake 9y ago
  If you're going to be featured in an article highlighting your financial difficulty, move the $450 Dyson fan, 65" DLP TV, and overhead projector out of the frame. It begins to erode their footing and make you question their priorities. I have friends that make much less than these folks. Some can barely make ends meet and sometimes I will help them with their personal finances. Which is when I usually discover why they can't make ends meet. $150/m cable bill, $100/m mobile bill, a car they can't afford, and constant meals out. They're usually living larger than me on 1/4 the income. It's sad really, and I'd argue that it's probably not their fault. The level of entitlement we feel is out of control at all income levels.
  • openforce 9y ago
    Question - Why is this down voted? Isn't living within your means a basic idea in major parts of the world?
    • linkregister 9y ago
      This is a great question. Those electronics are actually rational purchases, considering their situation. The total value of the entertainment devices is around $2500. Spread out over 3 years (the length of time they've lived there), this equates to about $70/mo. These devices offer a lower-cost option than taking the family out to eat twice per month, cable television, or for each of the adults to go out to a tavern once per month. In other words, $70/mo wouldn't bring great opportunity to them but allows a low-cost way to blow off steam. Gardening, cooking, or athletics would be nice recreational options at similar costs, but they don't have a yard, nor a kitchen, nor do they likely have the time for scheduled athletics if they work varied shifts. Hence, the electronics are by far the most rational choices for entertainment.
      • IanDrake 9y ago
        I can't agree with you sorry. No yard? Try a park in town. You can have hours of fun with a $20 soccer ball or basketball or wiffleball or cornhole or horse shoes. Need entertainment? Read a book from the library. The great thing is you might actually learn something. You're wrong about the value of $70 a month for someone who takes payday loans. If they banked the $840 per year they could save hundreds in payday loan interest on top of that. Then after a few years of savings one of them could take night classes and become a welder, a nurse, or learn some other trade that would boost their income. That is the American dream. Let's stop pretending their jobs should pay more and start looking at reality. The reality is there are plenty of opportunities out there. Stop dreaming that your current skillset is worth more and start learning one that actually is.
• throw2016 9y ago
  Amazon, Wallmart, McDonalds are notorious for pushing the cost of employees onto welfare and the rest of the population. Facebook doesn't seem as bad but clearly there are lingering issues around the widening wage gap, part time work, contracting and access to basic facilities like healthcare that reflect our societal values and need to be addressed as a whole. Discrimination in access to facilities and making some employees feel they are some kind of lesser human beings is backward and regressive behavior. Google does this and so does facebook and no civilized society can accept this kind of behavior. I don't know how decision makers in SV companies come to agree to dehumanize some in this manner. What kind of utopian future or 'better world' can these companies usher if they can't even get basics like human dignity right.
• alphagrowth 9y ago
  The lense you view this article through defines the value structure of how you see the world. There is no real issue here other than pride. They have food, shelter, clothing and the best schools in the country for their children but they live in a garage. The fact that this article exists, implies that the CEO of Facebook is responsible for his employees and contrator's pride. As well as the housing crisis of the Bay Area. If he can solve the Bay Area housing crisis I would vote for him for president.
• imlina 9y ago
  They own a dyson fan and a projector in the picture, and possibly more expensive gadgets off-screen.
• imlina 9y ago
  They own a dyson fan and a projector in the picture, and possibly more expensive gadgets off-screen. It's just sad that when people are not willing to work hard enough through school and end up in shitty jobs that pay less -- then complaining about the undesirable outcome. Suck it up and take an online coding class or something. Time to build some cafeteria robots so they will at least complain on someone else's turf.
  • literallycancer 9y ago
    The vast majority of people isn't able to learn to code (or not well enough anyway).
  • no_one_ever 9y ago
    School is an expensive endeavor, you'd have to shell out thousands of dollars or go into debt for years just to get a respectable degree. Without the degree, most employers wouldn't give these people the time of the day.
    • imlina 9y ago
      zuckerberg never got (finished) his harvard degree. Plenty of success people never went to college, richard branson, henry ford, rockefeller, murdoch, etc.
• igorgue 9y ago
  People here in the comments are so insensitive. I got from the article that Mark Zuckerberg is traveling the US to find people struggling, while a person like that serves him food every day. He's a hypocrite, no need to look for a different meaning in the article.
• akras14 9y ago
  Upvoted, it's easy to blame others for not taking care of the people, while walking by and not noticing thousands of homeless people on your way to a 6+ figure job.
• mattsfrey 9y ago
  The argument here should be don't have a kid when you work at chipotle, let alone three. Why is this ludicrously irresponsible behavior not called out? Why do we feel sorry for people who engage in such monstrously stupid and selfish behavior?
  • canadian_voter 9y ago
    Quite right! There should be laws against the poor reproducing. Perhaps a tax on children? Or some sort of permit system? Maybe a one child policy, exceptions only for the rich? Or just take away the children of the poor if they're irresponsible enough to have them and not be able to afford them. Give them to rich families so they can be raised properly. I wonder if there are any examples in history that we could learn from? Surely other enlightened countries have tried something similar?
    • thomyorkie 9y ago
      This doesn't address parent's comment at all. You act as if there's no difference between calling people out for irresponsible behavior and Orwellian policies to control that behavior.
• 659087 9y ago
  > Now she works at cafeterias with names like “Epic” and “Living the Dream” It's like they went out of their way to come up with the most cringeworthy, Silicon Valley stereotype confirming names possible for their cafeterias.
• cutler 9y ago
  I'm not saying Zuckerberg couldn't do more to include his cafeteria workers but let's face it, even doubling the pay rates of the workers at the bottom of the pile won't solve their problems because they lie elsewhere - with the free-for-all property and rental markets which have been tearing communities apart across the globe for decades. Nowhere is the brutal reality of capitalism and its failings more evident than in the property market. Property and finance are founded on the principle of getting something for nothing but someone has to pay - you, who have only your labour to sell.
  • pm90 9y ago
    Brutal, but honest. Finance and property are where concentrated wealth really show their ugly side. Without regulation, or with the wrong regulation, this cannot spell good news for average joe worker.
• perfectstorm 9y ago
  I grew up in India and both my parents worked for a Central government company. Their company has quarters (apartment complexes) which were heavily subsidized. The employee could own one individual apartment or pay subsidized monthly rent. The company (central govt. in this case) offer loans for their employees at a lower than market rate to own this apartment. I like that approach. Since both my parents were working they were able to afford a house outside of the area but a lot of their coworkers owned an apartment. Those apartment complexes were categorized differently for different income people. So a lower income worker is not forced to live on an apartment that they can't afford. I wonder why Facebook or Google can't take a similar approach. I understand that in this particular case, the employee is a contractor who happens to work at Facebook. Heck, if I happened to work for such a company I know I would live there.
  • derekdahmer 9y ago
    Facebook actually is trying to [build their own housing](https://sf.curbed.com/2016/7/27/12299438/facebook-housing-development-techeis https://sf.curbed.com/2016/7/27/12299438/facebook-housing-de...) now. Ultimately though its a failure of Menlo Park that it hasn't allowed enough housing units to support the number of office units its allowed to be built.
    • perfectstorm 9y ago
      i did not know that. I wish more and more companies did this.
• beatpanda 9y ago
  Tech workers from lots of different companies are organizing to get better working conditions for cafeteria workers and other service workers like them. See: http://brokeassstuart.com/blog/2017/06/27/the-tech-workers-helping-to-unionize-big-tech/ http://brokeassstuart.com/blog/2017/06/27/the-tech-workers-h...