You can pay $3000 for rent on $100k salary, it's not ideal but it won't automatically put you in extreme hardship either, you just have to be frugal somewhere e

You can pay $3000 for rent on $100k salary, it's not ideal but it won't automatically put you in extreme hardship either, you just have to be frugal somewhere else. Granted $100k is still a high salary, but there are a lot of people making that in SF. Still not enough to fill up the town probably, but then you have rent controlled apartments diminishing the supply, and also poorer people packing 2,3,4,5 salaries into 1,2,3 bedrooms. With lack of new construction and a lot of good jobs it's easy to see how the situation has gotten to the current point. That's not to say people are living well there—you take a significant lifestyle hit to live in SF compared to the mid-tier American cities even with a 50% pay raise, but it's seen as a desirable place to be so prices just keep getting jacked up.