It should shock no one that young people are leaving the Bay Area

Residents in their 20s and 30s are high-tailing it out of the Bay Area in droves, disproportionately aging our local communities. The SF Chronicle clarifies that (acc to CA's HCD) $96,000/year is considered “low income” for one-person households in the SCC, thanks in part to unreachable housing costs. Is it a surprise, then, that young folks who haven't nabbed high-paying tech jobs aren't sticking around?

The California Department of Housing and Community Development released its 2023 income levels, which it calculates annually based on federal guidelines and uses to set eligibility caps for affordable housing programs, on June 6.

The category limits— ranked as extremely low, very low, low, median and moderate — are based on the estimated median income in metro areas, which is determined using census data and inflation data from the Consumer Price Index. The San Francisco metro area, for example, includes San Francisco, San Mateo and Marin counties.

While the income limit calculations are based on metro areas, they apply to housing programs at the county and local levels.

The Bay Area counties of San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara and Marin have had the highest median incomes in California for the last seven years. For the last three years, including 2023, Santa Clara County’s median has been the state’s highest.

This year, Santa Clara County’s median income for a four-person household is $181,300. A four-person household there making $137,100 or less is considered low income.

For a single person in Santa Clara County, the low-income maximum is $96,000 — lower than San Francisco, San Mateo and Marin counties. The state makes adjustments to its calculations where housing costs are high relative to income.

This article originally appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle. Read the whole thing here.

Read about the Bay Area’s diminishing child population here.

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