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A tale of two Americas; San Francisco techie bemoans having to scrape by on a six figure income in a city where many college grads are homeless

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Techies in California’s Bay Area say inspite of receiving some of the country’s best salaries,  the high cost of living has them feeling financially strained
One Twitter employee complained that it is ‘pretty bad’  getting by on a six-figure salary in San Francisco 
The software engineer was ridiculed online after complaining about his struggles living on an income of $160,000,   says “I didn’t become a software engineer to be trying to make ends meet”
Another Bay Area techie on $700,000 wrote that he accepted a 50% pay cut to relocate to San Diego, sacrificing his habits of “spending $8 on a bagel and coffee or $12 on freshly pressed juice”
Less endowed fellow San Franciscans not impressed, as one sarcastically twits – “Scraping by in the Bay Area on a six-figure salary sure must be difficult!!” 
San Francisco has more homeless people per square mile than any American city, behind New York – HUD
 twitter-headquarters-in-san-francisco
Twitter corporate offices

An emerging fact of Americas silicon valley is complaints from well-compensated tech workers who say that they are struggling to get by. The cost of housing is a common complaint among Bay Area techies. Engineers can expect, according to one analysis, to pay between 40% and 50% of their salary renting an apartment near work.
Given that big tech companies pay some of the country’s best salaries, still the growing concern among the workers is that the high cost of living in the Bay Area has them feeling financially strained. But how is this going down with the other 99% of Bay Area residents who do even qualify for home purchase?
A Twitter software engineer in San Francisco was ridiculed online after complaining about his struggles of living on what he deemed a “pretty bad” income of $160,000.
“I didn’t become a software engineer to be trying to make ends meet,” the beleaguered techie told the UK paper, The Guardian .
The anonymous 40-something Twitter staffer detailed his pain of paying $3,000 in rent, though it was  “ultra cheap,” he said for a two-bedroom Bay Area house with his wife and two children. He blamed millennials and their “hip coffee shops” for pricing him out of the market for a bigger house somewhere else.

people-cycle-and-stroll-through-facebooks-main-campus-in-menlo-park-california

The ‘tough life of the techie’ strolling and biking through Facebook plaza in San Francisco

a-man-walks-by-a-homeless-woman-sleeping-on-the-sidewalk-san-franciscos-tenderloin-districtHomeless woman sleeps on the streets of San Francisco

Fellow San Franciscans were not exactly moved.
“Scraping by in the Bay Area on a six-figure salary sure must be difficult!!” San Francisco Chronicle reporter Lizzie Johnson tweeted in response to the story.
A University of San Francisco PhD student quipped, “Because the real story about the Bay Area housing crisis are the tech workers ‘scraping by’ on $160k per year.”
The unnamed cheap tweeter wasn’t the only one in Silicon Valley who went public with six-figure sorrow.

techies-complain1

This San Franciscan was not impressed with the moans of a six figure earning city mate
One tech worker, who went only by Michael and said he was paid $700,000 last year, told The Guardian he lost out on a $1.4 million house in the San Francisco suburb of Los Gatos, because someone beat him to it with $1.7 million.
He said he accepted a 50% pay cut to relocate to San Diego, sacrificing his habits of “spending $8 on a bagel and coffee or $12 on freshly pressed juice.”
An anonymous woman, who said only that she works for “a major telecoms corporation,” acknowledged that she and her partner make more than $1 million together.techies-complain2

So sad, this poor guy had to sacrifice his habits of “spending $8 on a bagel and coffee or $12 on freshly pressed juice”

But upon surveying the Silicon Valley landscape, she observed, “This is part of where the American dream is not working out here.”
The woman said she beat cancer several years ago, and would be “deeply screwed” if she lost her job and if Obamacare disappeared.
San Francisco is by many measures the most expensive American city to live in, with the median one-bedroom apartment going for $3,500 a month, according to 2016 data from the real estate website Zumper.

techies-complain3I don’t care if the regular folks don’t have bread, as long as I can have my croissant

But those prices hit many people much harder than those in the tech world.
A study from the real estate site Redfin, for instance, found that there are exactly zero homes in San Francisco County that are affordable for a teacher with the average salary of $59,700 .
According to Department of Housing and Urban Development data, San Francisco also has more homeless people per square mile than any American city behind New York, where $3,000 a month isn’t getting any families a two-bedroom house.

 

 

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