Skip to main content

A six-figure salary is considered 'low income' in San Francisco, and the threshold is rising


#BayArea #MarinCounty #SanFrancisco #SanMateo #HighcostofLiving #LowIncome

The Bay Area is so expensive, earning $117,400 a year qualifies you as "low income" in some counties.

Every year the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development releases "income limits," the minimum income level required to qualify for some affordable housing programs.

To be considered "low income" in San Francisco, San Mateo, and Marin counties, a family of four must earn $117,400 a year. "Very low income" is considered $73,300.


The Bay Area figures are the highest in the country and continue to increase year over year. Income limits in some Bay Area cities increased by 10 percent just in the last year. 

Most residents will roll their eyes at such figures — they're used to seeing the cost of rent and homeownership increase with the years. In May, the median home price in the Bay Area hit a record high at $935,000.

The high cost of living likely accounts for what some perceive to be a "Bay Area exodus." It's hard to quantify such a trend with limited census data, but multiple reports imply Bay Area residents are at least thinking about leaving. Real estate site Redfin determined the Bay Area as the top region for "outward migration" in the nation by analyzing where people were searching for homes.

"Jobs and housing are really the primary criteria driving people's decisions," Hans Johnson, a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, told The Chronicle in March. "It's kind of a balancing act between the two. If jobs predominate, people are moving in. If housing predominates, you have less people moving in."

Here's the list of counties and the annual salaries that qualify as low income for a four-person family:

Alameda County: $89,600

Contra Costa County: $89,600

Marin County: $117,400

Napa County: $73,450

San Francisco County: $117,400

San Mateo County: $117,400

Santa Clara County: $94,450

Solano County: $66,950

Sonoma County: $78,550






By Michelle Robertson, SFGATE Updated 10:53 am PDT, Tuesday, June 26, 2018

Michelle Robertson is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at mrobertson@sfchronicle.com or find her on Twitter at @mrobertsonsf.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

9 things about MLK's speech and the March on Washington

 #MLK  #MartinLutherKingJr  #MarchonWashington #IHaveaDream "I have a dream this afternoon that my four little children will not come up in the same young days that I came up within, but they will be judged on the basis of the content of their character, not the color of their skin." The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke these words in 1963, but this was not the speech that would go down as one of the most important addresses in US history. King spoke these words in Detroit, two months before he addressed a crowd of nearly 250,000 with his resounding "I Have a Dream" speech at the March on Washington for Freedom and Jobs on August 28, 1963. Several of King's staff members actually tried to discourage him from using the same "I have a dream" refrain again. As we all know, that didn't happen. But how this pivotal speech was crafted is just one of several interesting facts about what is one of the most important moments in the 2...

The Price of Perfection

#Perfection #CopingStrategies #Mindfulness #AllorNothingThinking #Catastrophizing, Broadly speaking, perfectionism is a personality style where people set exceptionally high standards for themselves in order to achieve perfection. However, the motive behind perfectionism is not the achievement of perfection, but rather, the avoidance of failure. More simply speaking, perfectionism is really a type of anxiety. Anxiety is adaptive and evolutionarily speaking, protects us from danger. In cavemen days, anxiety helped our ancestors flee from predators. However, in modern days, rarely do we need to flee from predators. Consequently, maladaptive anxiety is increasingly common and acts as a faulty alarm system- alerting us to danger as if there were a predator chasing us when actually we are not in real danger. In regards to perfectionism, those with this type of anxiety are so afraid to fail, they go to great lengths to avoid the possibility of failure. Underneath, an alarm system is g...

Want U 2 Know You're Beautiful

Forget About What you've been told. Want U 2 Know You're Beautiful.   A future classic by Laroye and Lee Wilson.  Summer vibes, melodies, deep chords & bass lines are featured throughout, with an inspirational message letting you know that you are "BEAUTIFUL."  On remix duties,  Casamena gives us the AfroTech mix  Released July 30, 2021 Extended Mix and Deep Dream Mix produced by Thomas Arroyo (Laroye) Vocals written and performed by Lee Wilson Casamena Club mix by Carlos Mena Mastering by Cody "Coflo" Ferreira for MindBodyAudio.com A&R: Coflo Executive Producer: Carlos Mena Coflo@ocharecords.com license  all rights reserved #AfricanAmericantherapist #Asian,#BlackMaleTherapist #LGBTAffirmingTherapy #LatinX,#MentalHealth #NativeAmerican #POC #Psychotherapy #T5LT #Therapy #Triple5LightTherapy #White

The Chilled Cow: LoFi Beats ,Study, Chill, or Nap

#ChilledCow #HipHop #LoFi #Chill #Nap #Chill Welcome to the sleepy LoFi hip hop radio. This playlist contains the smoothest LoFi hip hop beats, perfect to help you Study, or chill 😴