Tuesday, September 06, 2022

Money

The average cost of a one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco is now about $3,300 a month. A full-time medical assistant earns about $3,500 before taxes a month. A high school teacher makes about $4,750, firefighters in the same range.

You get the picture. Currently, the best estimates are that a single renter in the city needs to be earning about $93,000 a year gross income to live “comfortably” in the city

Lower-wage workers and those just starting out in their careers have to share housing, move in with their parents, or get multiple jobs or all of the above just to get by.

Meanwhile, most Millennials and Get Z kids have college loan debts from getting their undergraduate degrees and also face continuing educational costs as they earn their postgraduate degrees. Biden’s college loan relief program will help a bit but much more in the way of public policies are needed for them to get by.

Some say, “Why can’t they just live somewhere else?” 

That presumes they need us as much as we need them. I challenge that assumption. For many of them this is and always has been home.

A city needs teachers, firefighters, artists, police, EMTs, journalists and historians. It needs young people just starting out. It needs a population that can dream of a better life in the future.

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