5 ms·
The real crime here is making six figures and not being able to afford to buy a 1-bedroom apartment. Capitalism.
by reactordev 5y ago
The real crime here is making six figures and not being able to afford to buy a 1-bedroom apartment. Capitalism.
- vehemenz 5y agoAnyone making six figures can live like a king almost anywhere in the US. Capitalism.
- beaconstudios 5y agoJust not in the places where you can actually make six figures!
- giraffe_lady 5y agoIt may not have been the case even five years ago and you definitely won't make the same six figures, but that simple threshold is probably in reach in any mid-size american city for a software dev more than a year or two into their career.
- tzs 5y agoI'm a bit confused by housing in San Francisco. The median household income in San Francisco is around $120k, which suggests that making six figures is quite sufficient for living in San Francisco. But the impression I often get on HN is that you've got people making well above that finding themselves barely able to afford a place to live in SF. I'm clearly missing something, but what?
- beaconstudios 5y agoI think everybody is just stuck renting and can't get on the property ladder.
- usrn 5y agoHalf goes to taxes and half of what's left over goes to rent. After that you have to save up for a pretty large downpayment.
- pandaman 5y agoSomebody could have bought a house in 90s for 200K, retired and live in the same house, which has appreciated to 2M now, drawing on 60K retirement. Somebody making 180K cannot afford the 2M house even though these two individuals have a median 120K income and the latter makes much more than the former.
- supertofu 5y agoI make six figures and can afford only a modest 1-bedroom in a rural area well outside of an east coast university town. I will probably not be able to afford a house without parental help.
- vehemenz 5y agoMy back-of-the-napkin math suggests you are in a high COL area. It's not an indictment of capitalism if you choose to live in a desirable area, have a generous salary, and just can't make it work. That or you are mishandling your finances, but I don't know your situation. For reference, I am debt-free homeowner in a midwest university town and make much less than you.
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago> It's not an indictment of capitalism if you choose to live in a desirable area, have a generous salary, and just can't make it work. It's an indictment of any system that people making twice the median household income cannot afford to buy housing within a reasonable distance of wherever their labor generates that income. It's a terrible situation - communities in which at least half of the necessary jobs do not pay enough for the people who do those jobs to live in the community - and it isn't good for anyone in or around those communities, and probably not for the nation as a whole. The fact that, yes, yes of course there are other communities where the economics are different doesn't in any way mitigate the fucked-up ness of the situation the GP is describing.
- beamatronic 5y ago>> Midwest
- vehemenz 5y agoIs it a failure of capitalism if semi-rich people can't afford to live among rich people on the coasts?
- 5y ago
- Dma54rhs 5y agoYou can save and live like a king all around the world, Silicon Valley programmers are the infamous %1 in the eyes of world.
- db48x 5y agoIt’s not capitalism; it’s excessive government regulation preventing new housing from being built. (Also the ocean too)
- supernovae 5y agoIt’s capitalism. We have plenty of housing but a capitalist society protects hoarding housing more than equalizing housing. You end up with more airbnb, “investment” rentals or abandoned properties stuck in legal limbo than inventory for first time home buyers. you can’t build to infinity when everything is built out…
- db48x 5y agoWell, you’re not completely wrong there. In this case however, San Francisco is full to the gills with 100–year–old two–story houses, which the city government will not allow anyone to knock down and replace with four–story houses.
- jeromegv 5y agoSome people might say it’s capitalism that allowed rich homeowners to take over government to create themselves laws to protect their real estate investment. Laws of the rich to make themselves richer.
- db48x 5y agoThat cannot be capitalism’s fault, because the city government is elected. Every adult gets one vote, no matter how much money they have. Every person has as much right as every other to try to convince the elected members of that government to take the correct course of action. If your city government is unfairly favoring one segment of the city’s population over another then you should elect a better one. Not all cities are as badly run as San Francisco. It can be done.
- usrn 5y agoAlso extremely high immigration. We're in the high part of our immigration cycle which means depressed wages and expensive housing.
- MomoXenosaga 5y agoSo how the hell does this work in SF? Where do your cleaners, barristas, teachers and other assorted pauper servants live? Do they put them in caves under the ground in California or something?
- linguae 5y agoThey tend to either live with multiple roommates, commute from faraway places (like Stockton, Los Banos, and Salinas), or live in their vehicles. I remember reading an article (https://www.kqed.org/news/10467044/long-commute-to-silicon-valley-increasingly-the-norm-for-many https://www.kqed.org/news/10467044/long-commute-to-silicon-v...) about a Stanford cafeteria worker who commuted from Stockton on public transportation.
- gabereiser 5y agoIsn't this exactly what I was referring to? Not being able to afford even a 1-bedroom apartment in the city of which they work?
- YATA1 5y agoThe real crime here is making six figures and not being able to afford to buy a 1-bedroom apartment. Leftism.