My mother raised four kids alone working retail jobs, and never took a penny from the government.

I have a hard time feeling empathy for these stories.

To work at these places, they have to live in the area. The overpriced housing market in these little microcosms makes that impossible and inflates the costs of everything. I can't imagine paying that much for housing, but a renter of mine came to me from Ca once and let it slip that she was on a very strict housing budget of 2k and was hoping to find something decent... They were overjoyed to find prices in other areas were not the same as Ca. Even eggs were over 6 bucks a dozen at the same time I was paying .89/doz at Aldi's. It was funny watching them learn all the differences. They just don't know they could afford to live so much better somewhere else.

Everyday also.

workers in retail and other lower-wage workers in these large, expensive cities.

... from the working class to middle class.

I have relatives living in San Francisco. Teachers and service workers have an especially difficult time. My nephew lives in a tiny apartment in a not-so-great neighborhood and pays rent that would buy a huge house in much of the U.S.A.. But San Francisco is where his work is and it's a city he loves.

Recently I was poking through some old family photos and went on a search for my great great grandfather's San Francisco house. Amazingly the house is still standing and is now one of those proud "Painted Ladies." It sold for $1.8 million in 2016 and I'm sure it looks better now than it ever has, and it's also well beyond the financial reach of anyone in our family today. (My grandma and her sister ended up in Los Angeles, crazy about the Hollywood movie industry. My grandpa, leaving the Army Air Force after World War II, landed as an engineer in the aerospace industry.)

My great grandfather's house, in another San Francisco neighborhood, has been subdivided into very expensive apartments.

Things become unaffordable in cities when they become the targets of investors who don't actually live in the city. We've got people from all over the world buying real estate in San Francisco because they believe it's a safer investment than real estate or other financial instruments in their own part of the world, usually parts of the world they are exploiting by mistreating workers, polluting the landscape, or by blatant government corruption.

If we could tax the uber-wealthy out of existence we could own our own communities.

I don't know who could do that.

San Francisco is expensive but it isn't that expensive.

beyond insane.

after paying for rent?

With state and national income tax he's probably taking homes less than 100 K. In Orlando where I am from you could live like a king if you were netting 100k, SF. LA, and NY not so much.


On edit my math was off:

https://smartasset.com/taxes/california-tax-calculator#CJfyKdQWNx

He's doing better than I thought.

But he could easily pay rent or buy a house further away.

And if traffic in SF is anything like traffic in L A a twenty mile commute can take over an hour.

If you are making that much. Everyone had to deal with it.

People in la everyday use shitty public transportation to and from work and they make far less.

I don't have a car so I take Metro. I don't mind it but the lines don't run as frequently in the Valley. Some run every fifty minutes. When I was kid in NY I just walked to the bus stop and waited. You can't do that in L A unless you are waiting for a Rapid downtown.

Our rent is $1,325.00 a month. Comps in newer buildings are over $2,000.00

But walkability is great. I can walk to malls, a theater, and Costco.

And many people move to the valley or elsewhere to buy a house.

Rents are too high but it's not those making over 100k and especially not those making a million who are being hurt the most.

My daughter's daycare in NYC is $2600/mo

Last edited Tue Apr 25, 2017, 03:24 AM - Edit history (1)

If the minimum house price is a million bucks, he will need to save about 400-500K to make the Mortgage affordable while having the risk of being shitcanned at any time. I.e. - will always be renting by earning that little.

Dollars to doughnuts they are carrying credit card and/or other debt.

I keep reading these stories of the people who could not afford to retire in Ca. ( Or Seattle, NYC, etc)
and had to move, there is a whole society of RV retirees who still have to look for work,
and it was reported many of them do have retirement income of $2500.00 , average, a month.
turns out, they also have thousands in back bills and other debts.

I know SF is insane living, which is why we moved here when we retired, and can live ok on a much smaller income. But if we had had debt, no way, even here, could we afford it.

before I take someone seriously about their being poor on 160 K income, I want to see the entire budget.

Let's face it, many people live up to their income spending every penny and then effectivly
living "paycheck to paycheck" even with large incomes.

I notice something. We live in a unpretentious rent controlled apartment building. I see a lot of BMWs and Mercedes in the parking lost. I guess folks know they can never afford a nice home so they buy a nice car.

I like the Cheesecake Factory on Colorado Street.

By paying for private schools multiple expensive cars vacations and other things.

They try to live like people who make multimillion dollars a year or more.

But the fact is one can live a very nice life on expensive areas on 100k a year or even less.

I have no sympathy for these people.

After rent/mortgage he is still clearing at least 80k . If you can't make 80k work for the rest of your expenses you are living way above your means.

The golden rule is supposed to be 1/3 of your income in housing is it not and he is way way under that.

He needs 1 million for a house - can't afford that until he gets a $450K down payment - hard to do on that wage.

I closed a 1.2MM jumbo with 10% down not long ago. 160k could get him into a 900k loan but it's going to be tight on money for a while.

Last edited Tue Apr 25, 2017, 03:30 AM - Edit history (1)

While making 160k and having two kids.

On top of that his job security as a software engineer is very low. One downturn in the tech sector and he could be out on his ass with a fat mortgage. If he doesn't replace his wage in 3 months, he could be BK. 550k is his max he can afford.

4
beds
3
baths
1,463
sq ft
1,875
sq ft lot
89 Naples St San Francisco, CA 94112

$649,000

5
beds
4
baths
4,185
sq ft
0.23
acres lot
2605 Greenlawn Dr Wylie, TX 75098

And no one is checking into who is funding and who owns these developers who are springing up all over America with cheap building materials and astronomical housing and rental prices.

He only had 124,000 a year after rent is paid? The horror!!!!!

is that net or gross? Even if its gross taxes owed would be 18,713.75 plus 28% of the excess over $91,900. so $160,000 minus $18,717.75 equals 141,282.25. 68,100x.28= 49,032. so 141,282.25-49,032= 92250.25 take home pay. 92250-32000 for rent and ya got 60,250 left over. That's 5g a month for expenses after rent, that does not sound like scraping by and is way more that quite a few people raising kid make the entire year. Yeah, no sympathy from me buddy. None whatsoever.

12g in ca income tax you would owe, that's 48k left over, or 4k a month. Of course we didn't do any deductions at all so that would be a worst case scenario, for some people perhaps, for most it would be heaven.

Paying $225.00 per month for a 1 br on 6th and Clement...

Walking distance to Churchills and the Abbey Tavern and Petrini's market.

Shudder to think what the rent would be today...

...A nice one, at that....A friend paid $90 s month for a somewhat "earthier" one in The Mssion district. -- Now you can imagine how old I am!

like the poor are supposed to do.

Health insurance premiums, and retirement savings too.

I would hope that he's paid off his student loans by now.

Hell... 250k evaporates fast there when you have a four person family. SF has a serious housing issue and it's become the worlds largest gated community. They definitely won't be able to purchase a home with 160k income. A 1.3MM home will eat up 7k in expenses alone.

3
beds
1
bath
1,465
sq ft
2,495
sq ft lot
1055 Ingerson Ave San Francisco, CA 94124

You're making the OP's point.

Google maps says it is 21 minutes to 55 minutes depending on route you take...

half my co-workers drive 45-60min in to work every day...


$450,000

3
beds
3
baths
2,384
sq ft
5,877
sq ft lot
3601 Coolidge Ave Oakland, CA 94602


Twitter HQ, 1355 Market St #900, San Francisco, CA 94103


3601 Coolidge Ave, Oakland, CA 94602



Leave now
OPTIONS
21 min
14.0 miles
via I-80 E and I-580 E
Fastest route, the usual traffic

30 min
16.8 miles
via I-80 E and I-880 S

55 min
7:18 AM—8:13 AM
Metro railPittsburg/Bay Point - SFIA/MillbraeRichmond - Daly City/Millbrae BusNL

The complaining couple making a million should be embarrassed.

Once you factor in fuel, bridge tolls, gas, parking costs, vehicle depreciation - not to mention wear and tear on the person - commuting adds up. Even if you're lucky enough to live near a transit line. That's why Mr. Retrograde and I decided to buy a small house in Palo Alto all those years ago rather than a more sizeable and somewhat cheaper one in San Jose: the jobs were up here, and we could get buy without having to buy a 2nd vehicle, which evened out the costs.

There are a lot of places in the country with bright, creative people that can support the work a lot of these so-called* hitech companies do a lot more cheaply. But the companies want the cachet of Silicon Valley (to the extent that they've extended it way beyond its original scope) and end up fighting over the most limited resources we have, i.e., space.


*I say so-called because I'm old-school: if you're not talking directly to the silicon you're just an application. We still have a few of the companies that put the silicon in the valley's name - IBM, Intel, Apple to some extent - but most of the old chip, disk drive, and other hardware people who created the first boom back in the 1960s are long gone.

One whole toilet is just fine. We get by on two whole toilets but we've also survived with just one toilet for months at a time while remodeling the main bathroom.

It was oodles of fun to shower in the basement and use the toilet two floors up (main family bathroom is on first/main floor.) We survived.

If we got rid of the second bathroom (really just a toilet and sink) upstairs I think we'd survive too. I have two teenaged boys. DH and I both work. Sometimes we are all home together on the weekends.

I'm not sure why one toilet would be a hardship for four people.

You might not want to try it sometime. And I bet you are thankful for that extra toilet whenever those teenaged boys spend too much time studying themselves in the bathroom.

You maybe could get $100,000 for it in my area. It depends on how good the interior is. The exterior is so-so.

If it's owned by a couple who are both working typical sixty hour weeks and dealing with child care, they're not going to be able to fix it up themselves. Contractors in San Francisco are not cheap.

At the same time, whoever buys a house like this will be displacing lower income San Francisco residents from the city forever.

Conform other, less expensive metro areas in America to be more like Silicon Valley, NY, or LA. Not only would this be more cost effective, but it may help turn some red states blue.

I guess one is not able to express discontent with the rising cost of housing if they went to college and was able to find a job afterwards. He could be living beyond his means (but that's a problem that plagues people regardless of income). He could also have to deal w/ state and local taxes, rather high child care costs (daycare isn't cheap), student loans and debt, a higher cost of living, medical expenses etc. etc.

does.

he can't afford to live like people who make multimillion dollars a year. but he can still live comfortably unlike most of the people who make far less .

struggling to survive here on a QUARTER of what he's hauling it -- I have zero sympathy. And yes, I am openly hostile to those here in the Tech industry because it is THEIR presence and the presence of their industry that is causing these outrageous housing costs. And SF Dems are doing NOTHING to solve the problem -- they are too busy sucking Ron Conway's dick and pocketing developers' campaign contributions. SF and the people who make this City run are FAR worse off from Tech.

Your local perspective is especially valuable.

It's the tone deaf "woe is me" attitude common to these poor-little-rich-guy stories.

So the poor victim can't make ends meet because his rental costs too much? Then he can do what the rest of America does when they can't afford to live where they want: he can move someplace else.

But he wants his kids to go to the great school! Well tough shit, so do I. So does everyone.

As for student loans, well, too bad for him. When I complain about my suffocating debt, I'm told that I should have chosen a better major. The same applies to Mr. Twitter.

Daycare might not be cheap, but is it a factor here? Are both he and his wife employed? Her salary isn't mentioned, so if she's not employed, then the family can do what other single-income families do and take care of the kids themselves.

In fact, the article says nothing at all about student loans, daycare or medical expenses, so we shouldn't assume that he's paying these at any exorbitant rate.


No, people of low income are endlessly scolded to "live within their means." Well, that applies to Mr Twitter as well. If he can't afford his lifestyle on his six-figure pittance of a salary, then he should change his lifestyle.

Before I was assaulted and a lot of health problems escalated, at one point my man and I together brought in $85k in Arkansas. The one bedroom apartment for $350 we had starting out certainly wasn't where we wanted to live anymore. Even with only one furkid, we got a three bedroom house for $800 a month. Just one of the expenses that seemed necessary when we had the money to pay it.

I didn't feel "rich", but comfortable. We certainly had everything we needed, even with the "needs" being three bedrooms for two people and a cat, etc. We were helping my father who was dying from HIV, as well as friends with kids, paying our taxes without complaint, we donated to the Shriners Hospitals and to liberal candidates, etc. We were probably doing better, cost-of-living wise, than this developer in Silicon Valley. Arkansas real estate is cheap even in metropolitan areas compared to other states.

Now, I'm surviving on less than a quarter of that, and I am definitely able to see where I could have still had everything I had, did everything we did to help people, etc, and still saved a lot more just because we didn't think about ways to get what we wanted more cheaply. But I also remember how very easy it was to think of, for example, such a residence as a necessity instead of as the luxury so much space was for our household.

I'm not condemning them because I don't live there -- the closest was my year in NY 15 years ago, where our two bedroom apartment was more expensive than the house in Arkansas a decade later. Groceries, utilities, and gas/transportation costs are all probably inflated about as much as housing is. But I do know how easy it is for money in hand to be spent, if it's there.

we have decided to give you the Product Development Position here at Twetter. We actually have two of the same jobs available; one here at SF headquarters the other at our Boise Idaho Tech Center. Both pay the same, but remember a dollar in Idaho buys only sixty cents in SF. But Boise can't compare in fun and nightlife. You decide Smith, we aren't holding a gun to your head.

I guarantee that a family of four lives within a half a mile of him and is scraping by on a quarter of what Mr. Anonymous feels is poorly suited to his amazing worth.

I live in an expensive city in the PNW. It's not SF, but housing prices are outrageous and rents are terrible. DH and I make more than the anonymous whiner at Twitter. Seems likely that Mr. Whiner needs to learn how to live within his means.

Yeah, it's expensive to live where I live but there is no way I'm whining about the COL on my salary. Sheesh.

then he wouldn't have to live so close. This is a possibility with a lot of tech jobs.

After filing taxes as married with 2 children, he probably nets $120K a year, or $10K a month. He says the $3000 rent is his biggest expense, so that knocks it down to $7K per month. How much do they eat out? A family can blow a grand a month, or more, on eating out. Does he have a car payment? Does he have TWO car payments? Does he have credit card debt? Are his kids in private schools? Do they take nice vacations every year?

Is he saving for his kids' college educations? Is he maxing out his 401K? Is he contributing to an IRA for his wife? Are they saving towards a down payment on a house? The article says he's in his 40s, so I'm guessing he's been in the workforce for around 20 years. How much has he saved already?

You can have everything you want, but you can't necessarily have it all at once. If you want to be a home owner, you have to make that a priority. The couple that is pulling in a million a year that say they can't afford to buy are full of shit. What they're saying is that they can't afford to buy the kind of dwelling they want. Well, maybe it's time to adjust what they want. Even if half their income was going to taxes, they still probably have $40 to $50K A MONTH for their living expenses. $10K a month buys about $1.5 Million worth of mortgage. Are there nice homes in San Francisco for $1.8 Million? Yes there are.

160k in a city like SF is decisively middle class and there is a lot of hostility toward this guy in this thread. No wonder Democrats get a bad rap for their attitudes against those with slightly more income than them.

and make very little. people do things to get by. i could easily live well on how much he makes .

but these people think they deserve more than someone who makes much less.

The dude is upper middle class. Are they the enemy now?

i'll recognize a difference between those of us who work for a living and people who are rich enough to no longer need to work for a living well before retirement age, or who are rich enough in retirement to move mountains rather than just having a quiet retirement.

for political purposes, let's not put ourselves at odds between those who scrape by and those who can afford a nice car and more exotic vacations in the measly two weeks a year we're allowed to take off.

anyone who has to work for a living is largely in the same boat as anyone else who has to work for a living.

the uppermost 1% would love nothing more than to have the people in the 20th percentile complaining about the people in the 40th percentile, and the people in the 40th percentile complaining about people in the 60th.


remember the real problem is the gargantuan difference between the 99% and the top 1%. please let's not mistake someone who works every day for $160,000 a year in an area that has a 62% higher cost of living with a 1%-er who makes millions, has millions, and sees work as an optional game to play, toying with the lives of other people.

Our enemies are the uber-wealthy. Our opposition is the legions of ignorant ass-kissing racist homophobic drones who consistently vote against their own best interests.

You know, people who voted for Trump.