8 ms·
San Francisco: Where a six-figure salary is 'low income'
- mylons 8y agobbc is re-posting lol (to the downvoter, see the above post pointing to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17405375 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17405375 quoting the exact same salary as the bbc)
- Puer 8y agoPrior discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17405375 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17405375
- Xcelerate 8y ago> For example, a fair market rent for a two-bedroom apartment in the San Francisco area is considered to be $3,121 I think they're off by a couple thousand dollars...
- anoncoward111 8y agoWow yeah thats not even close. Numbeo says $3500
- freyir 8y ago$3500 is median asking price for a 1BR now.
- abritinthebay 8y agoIn SF yes, not the Bay as a whole (which is the cited area)
- 0xB31B1B 8y agoNo, citywide this is a good number. Richmond district or south of Cesar Chavez things are a lot cheaper
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- umeshunni 8y ago"San Francisco area" from the BBC's perspective could include the larger Bay area
- BadassFractal 8y agoIn downtown it's rare to find something under 4500 for an older beat up 2 bed.
- sithadmin 8y agoShort-term rentals on the border of southern Redwood City/Atherton & Menlo Park are going for $4-6k/mo for 1 bedrooms. Edit: Removed a cynical remark.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- scurvy 8y agoKind of off topic, but does anyone know why the real estate around Twin Peaks is so much cheaper than surrounding areas? I know there's a bit of break-in crime at Twin Peaks, but the surrounding areas should be better, yeah? Is there that much of a weather penalty?
- ng12 8y agoMaybe because it's less accessible? The hills make it a pain unless you own a car.
- yks 8y agoweather is fine if you don't mind the permanent wind
- joshlittle 8y agoMy Midtown Terrace house is over 750’ above sea level; though only a 15 min walk to Cole and a 20 min walk to Castro or Upper Haight. Still yet, prospective renters shudder when I say the words “easiest transit is the 36 Bus from Forest Hill Station.” Property Crime is only a problem on Christmas Tree Point and down on the East side terraced streets - Burnett/Corbett. The worst thing I’ve encountered personally in MT would be the coyotes that roam the night in the woods that appear occasionally on Marview or Farview. One wouldn’t think ~$4K a month for a 4 Bed 3 Bath fully detached single family house, split up amongst roommates, would have any hangups for people looking to rent in SF - though it’s been tough finding people who’re “ok” with the location. It’s for sure high up - I’ll give in to that. I indeed use the excess garage space to charge and house my Bolt EV for most trips outside of SF; though most of SF is ~$12 for uberX. I say, people can enjoy their overpriced $4000 (barely) one bedroom apartment in a “walkable” hood, next to a Philz and their favorite brunch place. I’ll join on foot after hiking on Mount Sutro. I’ll even pick up the tab - and indeed I work part time as a QA Engineer making a bit less than six figures annually. (Midtown Terrace is a illogical land use nightmare... a subdivision of fully detached single family homes on Twin Peaks.)
- SCAQTony 8y agoIf it only took 1/2-hour to travel from Stockton; Fairfield; Davis; or Santa Rosa, CA; San Francisco would not have a housing crisis for people would have more housing options.
- sithadmin 8y agoStockton and Santa Rosa could be doable in ~30mins given _significant_ investment in rail services, but Fairfield or Davis are really pushing the boundary of what seems reasonable. You're talking about covering 70-85 miles to Civic Center for these latter two cities, which would require high speed rail in an environment that probably couldn't sustain it profitably for a decade or more.
- plusbryan 8y agoSonoma County and the greater Sonoma County are also saddled with an unbearable housing shortage caused by the 2017 fires - we wouldn't be of any help even with a better rail system. Rents are up 50%, construction bids on labor alone are up 30%... it may not last forever, but it will certainly have an impact for years to come.
- akhilcacharya 8y agoWhat about high speed bus rapid transit? The cost of new lanes/separate lanes can’t be more than the equivalent high speed rail, right?
- sithadmin 8y agoSure. If you can set aside lanes for busses to do ~120+ MPH from Davis to SF, then by all means, go for it.
- SCAQTony 8y agoThe Bay Area and the surrounding tech hubs are very important to California as is So Cal with it's entertainment and media delivery. If California wants to grow the state and the country as well with good ideas and affordable housing, A new type of transportation infrastructure has to be thought out or invented.
- sithadmin 8y agoTo an outsider that has spent nearly 80% of his time in SF on business travel for the last couple years: the cost of living in SF is unjustifiable. I was offered a position with one of my clients in SF for roughly double my current income in Houston, TX. After running the numbers with an attempt to maintain similar standards of living and leisure, it was simply impossible to make the math work out in my favor without significant sacrifices on either count. In Houston, I live quite comfortably in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods with money to blow on a luxury car, 2+ extravagant international vacations a year, and decent amount of savings and investments. But in SF, I'd be uncomfortably close (relative to my Texan standards, anyway) to the 'low income' line. So I might as well keep on racking up the frequent flier miles, eh? Something's gotta give. NIMBYism when it comes to affordable housing, the income disparity between 'techies' and everyone else in SF, and lack of sufficient investment in effective mass transit are all clearly driving the city into the ground. My teams in SF are constantly bleeding our best talent to places like Denver, Austin, Seattle, etc. because the youngest and brightest employees are realizing that SF is an unsustainable drain on their finances. It's not going to stop me from doing business there, but it's certainly going to mean that my firm just continues to feed the vicious cycle of wage inflation by attracting talent with higher and higher base salaries.
- alex_young 8y agoYou don't mention your income, but presuming you're in tech, you may well find that the bay area offers not quite the discretionary percentage, but far more in left over after rent etc. in total. There is a reason people move here.
- sithadmin 8y agoI live here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_University_Place,_Texas#Demographics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_University_Place,_Texas#D...) and fit into the described demographics. SF in no way made sense at 2x my current income.
- alex_young 8y ago
- rahimnathwani 8y agoThe title is misleading. The figure refers to: - household income (i.e. the sum of income of all members of the household, not just that of a single individual, which is implied by the singular term 'salary') - a family of four (two adults and two children) So if you're a single, twenty-something software engineer earning six figures, and have no kids, you're probably not eligible for this.
- vorpalhex 8y agoIf you're making 110k anywhere else in the US while single and without kids, you're buying houses and cars when you're not traveling. Not renting a one bedroom and eating $14 avocado toast with your roommates.
- rahimnathwani 8y ago"Not renting a one bedroom and eating $14 avocado toast with your roommates." $110k before tax is $77k after tax. That's enough to cover: Avocado toast for every meal: 3653$14 = $15k/year Rent without roommates: 12*$3.5k = $42k/year Misc other expenses: $20k/year
- flyingcoder 8y agoHey, us Davis students are having our own housing shortage, please don’t include us
- ajeet_dhaliwal 8y agoIt’s also technically wrong because the range for a six figure salary is $100,000 - $999,999 and only the lower range is being considered low, not all six figure salaries.
- scurvy 8y agoSocketsite pre-emptively debunks the article[0] 0: http://www.socketsite.com/archives/2018/06/a-six-figure-salary-is-not-low-income-in-san-francisco.html http://www.socketsite.com/archives/2018/06/a-six-figure-sala...
- sjroot 8y agoThe title is misleading. The “six figure salary” actually refers to FAMILIES OF FOUR where their household income is ~100k.
- sithadmin 8y agoSo what? It's still outrageous.
- BadassFractal 8y agoIt is, but it's funny how quickly you get desensitized to it. A house in the most affordable cities in the US is the 150k range, in the Bay it's in the 1.5M range. Maybe 1.2M? 10x the difference for the same thing. Pretty mind-boggling.
- dawhizkid 8y agoIf you're single, have no kids, and "ok" with roommates and you're part of the 70% of renters who live in a rent-controlled unit the combination of making a Bay Area tech salary + having rent control is hard to beat. I have a friend at Google who pays $900/mo for a large room in a very central spot in Lower Haight.
- mbreese 8y agoAnd once you're married, have kids, and need more space, the math gets harder to make work.
- allthenews 8y agoIsn't that what suburbs are for?
- sxg 8y agoTraffic and long commute times are another big problem with SF after housing prices.
- akhilcacharya 8y agoGoogle, Amazon, and Facebook all have offices in New York, where an entire state of suburbs is a PATH train or Suburban shuttle away. If not, they also all have offices in Seattle, where the suburbs are even closer and all have access via company buses.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- briandear 8y agoHave you priced houses in the Bay Area suburbs? $2 million is practically the price of admission for a 3 bedroom.
- anothergoogler 8y agoAfter 6-10 hours at a dinky desk in an open office, you can bet I'm not okay with roommates!
- librish 8y agoThe data all these articles are based on simply defining 'low income' as the bottom 20% of income earners. It has no ties to cost of living. Unless you're the sole earner for a big family with bad benefits, it is not hard at all to live anywhere in the Bay Area at $117K a year. Yes, it might be prudent to make some basic sanity checks on your spending, especially when it comes to housing (IE don't rent a 1BR in the most desirable part of one of the most competitive cities in the world unless you're making bank). I would argue that the data in this article should actually be used to realize what a good financial decision the Bay Area is for many people. 80% of people are making more than $117K. As someone in tech you should not have a problem climbing well above that.
- sithadmin 8y ago>Unless you're the sole earner for a big family with bad benefits, it is not hard at all to live anywhere in the Bay Area at $117K a year. It isn't hard per se, but it isn't good either, compared to what the same salary would buy in terms of quality of life nearly anywhere else in the country. And let's get real: "Bay Area" is overbroad. You can't compare life in SF proper to living somewhere like Redwood City or Milpitas. They are completely different experiences with shamefully small variations in cost.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago> compared to what the same salary would buy in terms of quality of life nearly anywhere else in the country That same person probably wouldn't be worth $117k outside the Bay Area. Density, network and agglomeration effects are real.
- sithadmin 8y agoYeah, but there's wiggle room there. $117k/yr in SF is equivalent to roughly $88k/yr in Houston, and it's arguable that $88k in Houston will buy you a far nicer quality of life than you could get for $117k in SF.
- Zaheer 8y ago
- dawhizkid 8y agoI just came back from Las Vegas this weekend and chatted with my Uber driver on the way to dinner. She was a cook at the Bellagio buffet, union member (most service workers on the strip are unionized), and could very easily afford a nice home with a pool. I actually had no idea Vegas workers were mostly unionized but apparently you can make $25-$30/hr + tips and live a pretty good life as a service worker.
- tjr225 8y agoAnd yet there she was making piece-meal as an uber driver for some reason.
- dawhizkid 8y agoGooglers have side hustles too. Anecdotally the per mile rates were much higher in Vegas than SF. Likely Uber algos know people are less price sensitive if they're in Vegas.
- abritinthebay 8y agoI know a guy with a Tesla that drives for Uber. Some people just like driving & side hustles
- overeater 8y agoMany waitresses and bartenders I know make $800-1000 in cash tips on a busy weekend, and don't report their tips. They're basically making the equivalent of a six figure salary that is fully taxed. They can do side hustles during less busy hours (like mornings-afternoons for a bartender).
- bradleyjg 8y agoRisks to the Bay Area’s continuation as an engine of growth are risks to the entire country’s economy. Local parochial interests ought not to be allowed to do that. If we can stretch the Commerce Clause to banning growing and consuming corn or pot that never leaves one person’s plot of land, much less a state, I don’t see why it can’t cover abrogating NIMBY regulations.
- sithadmin 8y agoThe Commerce Clause is traditionally a cudgel for activist judges, and the current court is activist in a way that doesn't really jive with what you're suggesting, nor any sort of collectivist-oriented jurisprudence. You're not wrong (in spirit at least), but it's just not going to happen.
- martin1975 8y agoSan Diego has more space than the bay area however good RE is super expensive here too.. One way to avert high cost is to live on a boat. Moorage fees are fairly low (relative to rent) and a boat beats most vans, cars or even RVs.. I've heard co's like Netflix pay 250k or higher, and even at that rate you'd need a spouse/2nd income to be able to afford a home + family.
- midnightclubbed 8y agoDepends what you'd classify as good real estate. Sure La Jolla and Coronado are pricey and if you want acrerage you have to move way inland (and deal with the heat), but a half hour commute and $250k a year salary will get you a beautiful home in a great neighborhood. There is no way you would need a second income for you and your family to live very well on $250k in San Diego. That said a boat does get you pretty great sea views! I have a friend who slept on his boat near work in Irvine to avoid having to brave the commute back to San Diego during the week. Was cheaper (and nicer) than buying a place up in Orange County.
- JumpCrisscross 8y agoThe Bay Area roughly divides into two populations. One understands rental economics, is technologically literate, and refuses to vote. The other either doesn't understand rental economics (or understands it in a cynical, self-serving way), couldn't give two shits about technological literacy, and religiously attends community events. The cost the latter extract from the former expresses itself in inflated rents. In the long run, it's probably self-defeating. But in the long run we're all dead. The lack of any semblance of civic culture amongst technologists is starting to show its wounds, and I suspect this will have to get worse before it gets better.
- acchow 8y agoSF is also a city of immigrants. Especially those that moved here from all around the world for a great job in tech. As resident aliens, they cannot vote.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago> SF is also a city of immigrants Yet 34% of eligible voters turned out for June's primaries [1]. (A figure that is elevated relative surrounding counties.) [1] http://abc7news.com/politics/june-primary-voter-turnout-updated/3579455/ http://abc7news.com/politics/june-primary-voter-turnout-upda...
- throwawaymath 8y agoCan you clarify what you mean by "lack of civic culture?" I don't mean to argue, I just don't follow what you mean to say here. Do you just mean that they don't vote, or something more?
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago> Can you clarify what you mean by "lack of civic culture?" In New York City, there is a general expectation that once you make money or ensconce yourself in the community, you start giving a shit about it. You volunteer. You donate to local charities. You stay informed about community issues, voice up for yourself and those around you, and vote. That sense of civic culture and underlying duty is far more suppressed in the Bay Area.
- ggm 8y agoI had a related but tangential problem: I think the company was willing to offer the bucks to make it economically worthwhile: I had major performance anxiety about the value proposition to deliver to meet that scale of pay. Maybe its just me, but I had a hard time even imagining selling my work for the kinds of sums necessary to maintain an inner-city lifestyle in S.F.
- yhavr 8y agoI think SF is perfect for a techie work-n-travel. Go work at a googloapplebook, live in a trailer, save 90% salary. Move to a cheap place, buy a house with cash (in your twenties), the rest spend on a year-long journey around the world. Sell it to the masses, and the housing problem is solved :-)
- cimmanom 8y agoI don't understand how business owners are able to find employees in SF for actual low-income jobs like retail and fast food. How are these employees paying rent, and how far are they commuting every day?
- gremlinsinc 8y agoI also wonder this ... is McDonalds in SV a 6 figure job?