It's awful in the sense that if you want a market-rate one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco you end up spending 60-90% of your post-tax monthly income on rent

It's awful in the sense that if you want a market-rate one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco you end up spending 60-90% of your post-tax monthly income on rent. So you compromise -- you split a bedroom with a roommate, or you convert your living area into a bedroom, or you live in a pre-1969 rent-controlled unit and have the people who used to live in those apartments throwing rocks at you on your way to work. Or you live somewhere in north/east bay and deal with a two hour driving commute.