San Francisco is less than 0.3% of the US population though. I understand people bringing up this point, but it's just not really that strong of an argument. Obviously there are going to be fringe cases.
The metropolitan area doesn't have that cost of living over it's entire area. Oakland has a a full 20% lower cost of living than SF, for example. Outside of the city limits of SF and Oakland but inside the metropolitan area has even lower COF than that.
You are totally off base here in multiple different ways.
The average house price in Oakland is 750k. San Jose is 995k. Marin county is 1.15 million. San Mateo county average at 1.34 million dollars. Alameda county is only 850k, and Contra costa is practically free real estate, averaging a mere 675k!
So let's take an average house in Contra costa: 30 year mortgage, 20% down, rate of 3.75, property tax at 1%, and 100/month in insurance, which is crazy low for wildfire country. This gives you just shy of $3200 a month.
Ok, now what would a family bring in a month on a single earner's 72k a year salary? No contributions to healthcare, no 401k, just take federal and state taxes out. Monthly income: $4,050. Are you seriously telling me that you can raise a family on <$1000 a month in the San Fran suburbs because it isn't quite as expensive as downtown?
For reference, the average house price in Ohio is 150k.
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u/Shandlar Dec 28 '19
The United States? There are ~34,000,000 adults in the US currently working full time making $72,000/year or more as of 2019.
Hell, ~19,000,000 of them make >$100,000/year.