We’ve all heard the old rule of thumb that you shouldn’t spend more than 30 percent of your income on rent. In San Francisco, that rule no longer seems to apply – even for highly paid, senior-level tech workers.
According to a study by the rental app RadPad, mid- to senior-level engineers at ‘unicorn’ companies in San Francisco – including Square, Uber or Stripe – need to spend anywhere from 42 to 54 percent of their salaries on rent in order to live within a half-mile radius of the office.
The study – which also included large, public tech companies like Google and Salesforce (NYSE: CRM) – cited Airbnb as among the worst in this regard, with an engineer spending 54 percent of his or her $120,000 salary to live in a one-bedroom near the office. The salary information was provided by Anthology, a recruiting firm.
Of course, many employees don’t live so close to work (or even aspire to), and may live with roommates or partners. But the study highlights how the Bay Area cost of living is an increasingly outsized factor in the lives of tech companies and their employees.