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The Valley is also an expensive place to live. I was at a conference in San Jose; and the organizers donated a portion of their income to a local Charity. The
by reboog711 13y ago
The Valley is also an expensive place to live. I was at a conference in San Jose; and the organizers donated a portion of their income to a local Charity.
The charity organizer spoke a bit during one of the keynotes and said that any income under $70K was considered below poverty level due to the cost of living.
With that said, a 6 figure salary is not hurting, but not rolling in it.
- dopamean 13y agoI kind of think the high cost of living thing is not that relevant here. The cost of living is high because the people who live there make a lot of money. If they made more money the Valley wouldn't be more affordable for them. It would just be more expensive.
- talmand 13y agoThere are many other factors that influence cost of living in a given area, not just income. Plus, in some cases increases in income lags behind increases in cost of living.
- slantedview 13y agoNot everyone in the bay area makes a lot of money. There are a lot of blue collar/service workers who don't even know what hackernews is who would kill to make that 70k a year.
- dopamean 13y agoCorrect but they have nothing to do with the conversation we're having.
- aetherson 13y ago$69,000/year is not "below poverty level" in the Bay Area. I mean, maybe some random charity has a very idiosyncratic view of what they personally view as "poverty," but it's not below the poverty line in any official sense, and, practically speaking, a $69,000/year wage makes you much richer in terms of purchasing power in the Bay Area than $11,000/year (ie, below the actual poverty line) in rural Alabama.