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Will violence be unavoidable in a city where $117000 is low income?
Although it’s hard to even fathom, a family making $117000 is low income in the San Francisco Bay Area. To explain, a Bay Area household must earn over $117000 a year for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to consider it “middle class.”
In addition, HUD labels $73,000 as “very low income [1]” in three California counties. Those counties are Marin, San Francisco, and San Mateo, SF Gate reports.
On the other hand, the median household income in the United States in 2017 was $61,400 per year, the Census Bureau estimates. As a result, the average American middle-class family will be far under the low-income figure in San Francisco.
Furthermore, if $117000 annually is low income in San Francisco, then $61400 a year would be extreme poverty there. Consequently, the average American cannot afford to live in San Francisco.
$117000 Is Low Income: The Average American Cannot Afford To Live In San Francisco
In fact, the average home in “The City by the Bay” costs $1.382 million, as Zillow reports. Conversely, the median home price nationwide is $222,000.
Moreover, it now costs $3,261 per month to rent a one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco, RentCafe calculates. Additionally, a two-bedroom apartment costs $4,377 in San Francisco.
Under these circumstances, the average American family would wind up homeless in San Francisco. Likewise, CNBC claims that 7,500 people were living on San Francisco’s streets during 2017.
Tech Billionaire San Francisco Is A Train Wreck
Astonishingly, San Francisco’s cost of living disgusts even tech billionaires. Particularly, software billionaire Marc Benioff [2] describes San Francisco as a train wreck.
“San Francisco is kind of a train wreck, we have a real inequality problem,” Benioff tells CNBC. “It’s because of the tech sector.”
Benioff [3] can afford to live in San Francisco because he is worth $6.4 billion. Notably, Benioff is CEO of the business software giant Salesforce [4].
Benioff is one of 74 billionaires [5] that call the Bay Area home, WealthX estimates. On the whole, the Bay Area boasts the third largest concentration of billionaires on Earth. However, Benioff still maintains that San Francisco leads America in homelessness.
San Francisco: It’s A Canary In A Coal Mine Since $117000 Is Low Income There
Specifically, HUD calculated that the number of homeless people in California grew by 13.7% in 2017. Moreover, HUD estimates there were 134,000 homeless people in California in 2017.
“In some ways, San Francisco is the canary in the coal mine,” Benioff warns. “We have to look at San Francisco and say here’s the best technology example in the world and yet the worst homelessness.”
To expand upon Benioff’s statement, miners took canaries into coal mines before modern instruments existed. Canaries can “detect” poison gas by dying before miners. So, the miners could escape before a deadly gas build up.
San Francisco-Level Income Inequality All Over America
Ultimately, Benioff believes that the train wreck in San Francisco could occur nationwide. In particular, Benioff is afraid of San Francisco-level income inequality [6] all over America.
Therefore, $117,000 could become low income in your town and nobody but millionaires could afford a home. Under such circumstances, violent revolution or civil unrest is the inevitable result.
In fact, historians blame the French Revolution [7] on income inequality. Income inequality in France in 1789 became so bad that working people could no longer afford food.
Tellingly, some Silicon Valley billionaires [8] are stockpiling ammunition and guns and building private fortresses, The Business Insider reports. Significantly, the billionaire doomsday preppers fear mob violence.
In the final analysis, all preppers must watch San Francisco closely because violence is unavoidable in a city where $117000 is low income. All Americans should also prepare for the spread of San Francisco-level income inequality.
You may also enjoy reading an additional Off The Grid News article: Democrats Plan Hyperinflation That Will Destroy The U.S. Economy [9]
What are your thoughts on the financial situation in San Francisco? Let us know in the comments below.