Here's a fun exercise in government math: the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development classifies an income of $109,000 as "low income" for a single person in San Francisco. If you're pulling in a perfectly respectable $65,000 to $80,000 a year — a salary that would make you comfortable in most American cities — you exist in a bizarre policy no-man's-land. You earn too much for most subsidized programs but too little to actually live here without stress.

Welcome to the city that compassion built.

The numbers are staggering. A one-bedroom apartment in a decent neighborhood starts around $3,500 a month. As one local pointed out, utilities alone — electric, gas, water, trash, internet — can easily run over $400 monthly for a two-bedroom. Transportation? A Muni pass is $86 a person, and if you're foolish enough to own a car, monthly parking runs $350 to $500. One SF resident helpfully summed up the survival strategy: "Get a roommate, take Muni, and cook at home." Aspirational stuff.

Another local was more blunt about the support landscape: "You're not likely to qualify for official city resources in that income range, but if you're willing to stand in line for things like free produce, no one's going to turn you away. No one's going to hold your hand either."

So what created this affordability hellscape? Decades of restrictive zoning, a Byzantine permitting process that makes building new housing a Herculean feat, and a city government that spends $14 billion a year while somehow failing to make life workable for the middle class. San Francisco has poured billions into homelessness programs and subsidized housing for the very poorest, which is fine — but there's virtually nothing for the person making a normal professional salary who just wants a studio apartment and a functioning commute.

This is what happens when government focuses on expanding its own role rather than removing the barriers — zoning restrictions, permit bottlenecks, tax burdens — that make everything expensive in the first place. The city doesn't need more programs. It needs fewer obstacles. Build more housing, streamline approvals, and stop taxing working people into oblivion.

Until then, that $75K salary will keep feeling like minimum wage with better LinkedIn branding.