Breitbart: Several Silicon Valley employees, including a software engineer for Twitter who made a $160,000 salary, were mocked online after complaining about their living standards in an article forThe Guardian.
In the article, entitled “Scraping by on six figures? Tech workers feel poor in Silicon Valley’s wealth bubble,” the employee complained that his six-figure salary was “pretty bad” for the area.
“I didn’t become a software engineer to be trying to make ends meet,” proclaimed the employee. “Families are priced out of the market.”
“The biggest cost is his $3,000 rent – which he said was ‘ultra cheap’ for the area – for a two-bedroom house in San Francisco, where he lives with his wife and two kids,” reported The Guardian sympathetically. “He’d like a slightly bigger property, but finds himself competing with groups of twentysomethings happy to share accommodation while paying up to $2,000 for a single room.”
“The prohibitive costs have displaced teachers, city workers, firefighters and other members of the middle class, not to mention low-income residents,” they continued. “Now techies, many of whom are among the highest 1% of earners, are complaining that they, too, are being priced out.”
The Guardian also covered other Silicon Valley employees in the piece who were earning “between $100,000 and $700,000 a year” but still allegedly had trouble “making ends meet.”
Aw.
IT people have always had an inflated opinion of their value. Can you say H1B Visa?
You have my deepest sympathies. Earning $1,200 per month, I know what it’s like to struggle. Hang tough!
Well, I guess $160K doesn’t go as far as it used to. To be fair all of San Fran is in an uproar over housing prices be it ownership or rental. The influx of people over the last 20 or 25 years has jacked already high prices through the ceiling. Having said that I wonder how many of these Techies actually cook meals at home, bring their lunch and limit dining out to once per week or traded the expensive specialty Starbuck coffee for a cup of coffee with milk and sugar. How many pay for unlimited ultra hi-speed net access and drive an expensive Prius. I’m sure if they really tried they could live a pretty comfortable life if they weren’t such spoiled whiners.
Poor babies. Wah, wah, wah.
Scraping by on 6 figure salaries?….tighten up those belts my poor downtrodden little snowflakes!…one can’t possibly fathom the potential worst of times that await you….I just hope that it doesn’t come to, god forbid, dinner out reduced to 3 times a week and no more bulk orders of Aquafina bottled water…sorry being negative Ned but you really must be prepared for the worst.
“The biggest cost is his $3,000 rent…”.
With a gross monthly income of $13,333 ($160k / 12 months),
he must have some pretty queer “smaller” costs to eat up the remaining $10,333 every month.
I ain’t no IT guy, but I can math real good.
So basically you are paying the same proportional amount in rent as someone in Boise, ID. Welcome to reality.
I’d be more sympathetic if he hit on the fact he is paying 13.3% to the state and whatever else his local municipality is charging.
No sympathy for anyone who makes wrong decisions then whines for sympathy. No one in their right mind would want to see San Francisco from anything under 30,000 feet.
It is my understanding that many IT people have left California in the last decade and have moved to places in Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska and do their jobs over the Internet. The article stated they moved precisely because of the high rents (not able to buy property) AND the high state income tax. On a family vacation in 2002 through Montana, we were amazed at the wonderful scenery and excellent prices but could not believe all the empty properties. Perhaps since then, people from California have moved to take advantage of the prices and scenery. Just my humble opinion…
If you can’t make ends meet on a 100,000 to 700,000 dollar salary, then you’re doing something wrong.
@Czar – probably his student loans…
They also need evaluate the expense side to see where there are potential savings.
To reflect their status, they drive a $300,0000 car. It does not take a lot of intelligence to do a balance sheet to see where the money goes.
@ Burner
Debt in Rupees shouldn’t be *that* bad….
It’s $ 2500 a month in the Lower Keys…for a crappy 2 BR Apt…..and I
ain’t be making no $160k a year..Supply and demand..look at North
Dakota’s Oil Boom…Rents are just as high….
when I was a child- my parents house payment was $120.00 a month for a two bedroom house. Now that I have been retired for the past many years I have had to go back to work part time to make ends meet. I feel no pain or sorrow for doing this- its the way it is. and I am not complaining or whining. I feel good working and keeping in shape. You have to do what you have to do to live. Kids now a days are cry babies and want everything for free.