We all know that the cost of living in the San Francisco Bay Area is insane. According to a report by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the median price for a single-family home in the Bay Area is $935,000. The median. Because of this high cost of living, a family earning $117,000 is considered low-income. Bruh.
In 2016 the average household income for the United States of America was $60,000. Entire-ass families were living on almost less than half of the Bay Area’s “low income.” Propelled by Silicon Valley’s tech industry, lots of millionaires are all up and through the Bay Area.
Here’s the thing, though: Me and you, your mama and your cousin, too, know that huge swaths of the population in that area aren’t making no damn $117,000—hell, not even $100,000. So where the fuck do they live? How do they live? It is dumbfounding and damn near incomprehensible to think of a six-figure income not being enough to truly sustain life. Because I’m struggling to comprehend this, here is a list of 10 things I think that are easier to comprehend than a family making that much money being on struggle status in America:
1. Chinese arithmetic done with an abacus underwater in Lake Minnetonka while Prince looks on from a motorcycle
2. Whatever the fuck was happening in A Beautiful Mind with the numbers, but mostly letters and symbols, on chalkboards that your boy John Nash was thinking
3. How Jennifer Lopez has had a successful singing career
4. Trump being elected by people he couldn’t care less about
5. Young Thug’s lyrics on “Lifestyle”
6. The Matrix Reloaded
7a. Balenciaga Triple S Trainers being a thing
7b. Yeezy 500s being a thing
8. Chitlins
9. People who are still waiting for a Jay Electronica album
10. Bow Wow’s confidence in the face of reality