Bay Area’s haves and have-nots
Even as Bay Area tech professionals take home the highest disposable incomes in the country, local service workers have sunk to the bottom with little or no cash left over after living expenses, a new report found.
The region is the worst in the nation for service employees and security workers, according to a new analysis by real estate website Rent Cafe. And child care, maintenance and food service workers have so little money left after paying living expenses that many are forced into debt or sacrifice health care and other needs.
The report paints a stark picture of the divide between the Bay Area’s haves and havenots and the pressure high housing costs place on the working poor.
“There’s no doubt the economy is strong,” said Michael Altfest, director of community engagement for the Alameda County Community Food Bank. “But what we see here is the low-income community is not sharing in it.”
The report found that in the San Jose metro area, management workers averaged $87,400 in annual disposable income, the highest figure in the country, while service workers fell $10,000 short of meeting basic needs, the worst in the country. The report considered how much money workers had left over after paying for food, shelter, transportation, health insurance and other basic living expenses.
San Francisco and East Bay rank in the top four regions for disposable income for tech and related professions. The cities also ranked among the bottom three for workers in blue collar industries.
“Either these people are hugely in debt or they have to make some huge, huge sacrifices,” said Balazs Szekely, researcher at Rent Cafe.
In the San Francisco and Oakland metro area, 15 of 21 job categories studied were either among the top or bottom 10 in the country for disposable income. San Jose had 14 of 21 job categories at the extremes, Szekely said.
The report found the San Jose metro area was tops in the country in five professional categories: managers, legal workers, business and finance, computer and mathematical fields, and engineers and architects. The average annual disposable income for lawyers was $77,800, for business and financial professionals it was $39,800, and for computer and tech professionals, $62,400.
At the other end of the spectrum, workers in building and grounds maintenance, and personal services fared the worst in the country. The typical maintenance worker in San Jose earned $7,500 less than needed to meet basic needs, while service workers, including child care and personal trainers, came in $10,000 short annually.
In San Francisco and the East Bay, disposable income for police, firefighters and security workers ranked last in the country, with $1,800 left over annually after living expenses. Workers in transportation, food service, maintenance and personal care all fell short of being able to afford basic needs.
The Rent Cafe report analyzed data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, federal and state tax rates and cost of living rates calculated by MIT.
Leaders in the nonprofit sector confirm it’s tough and getting tougher for working families.
A report released this week by the National Low Income Housing Coalition found the Bay Area is the most expensive region in the country for renters, with workers needing to make between $45 and $60 an hour to afford apartments.
The high cost of living, driven largely by soaring housing costs, forces lower wage workers to make difficult choices — between medical visits and rent or food, said Marie Bernard, executive director of Sunnyvale Community Services.
About three in four clients at Sunnyvale Community Services are working families, she said. Most of the others are seniors on fixed incomes who are isolated from families.
Often, Bernard said, parents will have three or four jobs and still spend the majority of their income on rent. Families can need four minimum wage jobs to pay for housing, she said.
“It’s important to dispel the myth that folks who need help aren’t working,” Bernard said. “They are trying everything they can to make money.”
Clients of the Alameda County Community Food Bank often sacrifice the quantity and quality of food to make ends meet, Altfest said. The food bank estimates that it serves 1 in 5 Alameda County residents.
The agency has extended hours and distribution because more families are unable to pick up groceries during working hours, he said. “It’s a struggle across the board."