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4K/month is 45% of 107k/year gross salary, that’s not affordable. Not enough left over to save for the children’s future and for retirement. But she’s not the only income so their household income is probably fine, just lower than what she could be making in another kind of job.

She should have married her partner to be on their insurance, that’s what I did.

In CA I don’t think you even have to legally marry your partner to get on their insurance, domestic partners are fine.

> The salary difference (ignoring 9 vs 12 month) seems to be around 50k which is over 4k/month...which should be enough to cover average housing all else being equal. And that assumes no rent for the German counterpart :P

Except that everything else is more expensive here because of these costs. Any service you can imagine, jack the prices up 50%+.

That's why you don't live in Berkeley, you come from Antioch or Tracy or Stockton.

For a family of 4 in San Francisco (which has lower cost of living than Berkeley) the poverty line was $117K in 2019.

I found this claim dubious so I Googled: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44725026

You can't just change words like that. It's dishonest. Poverty != "low income".

> In San Francisco, high rents have driven the government's "low income" threshold of $117,400 (£87,970) almost as high as the median income for a family of four in the area - $118,400 (£88,630).

You know something has gone haywire when "low income" and "median" incomes are basically the same amount.

That article literally refers to it as poverty line as well a bit further down. "Poverty line" isn't a thing, thing. It'll always require some math to localize.

No, it literally does not.

Lower down it discusses the nationally averaged poverty line. At no point does it make any claims to a number for a SF specific localized poverty line. As you say, local values are going to be different, but the national number is far below the "low income" threshold set earlier in the article.