Silicon Valley's inequality intensifies even as job market booms

[Newsjock]

Source: Oakland Tribune

Santa Clara County's job boom and economic recovery has widened the income gap, helping create a Silicon Valley of haves and have-nots, according to a report released Tuesday.

... Yet the same Silicon Valley that has produced dazzling breakthroughs in technology and the way people live, work and entertain themselves now must cope with stagnant wages and skyrocketing residential costs that challenge middle- and low-income workers, the Silicon Valley Index shows.

... "Rising tides do not lift all boats," said Emmett Carson, president of Silicon Valley Community Foundation, a philanthropic organization that co-authored the report. "Income inequality continues here. Inequality won't get solved just because you have a robust economy. Deliberate policy actions are needed."

Housing is one of the big problems that challenge low- and middle-income workers. Median household income, adjusted for inflation, is rising by about 2.8 percent a year in Silicon Valley, according to the most recent figures compiled by the report. But during 2013, apartment rents in Silicon Valley rose 4.4 percent to an average of $2,127 a month.

Read more: http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_25060057/silicon-valley-job-market-booms-but-wage-equality

[LibDemAlways]

1. The cost of housing in that area has been a problem for years.

My husband had a job offer up there close to two decades ago and had to turn it down because even though the salary wasn't bad, we would not have been able to afford housing. We drove through many neighborhoods where there were multiple cars in the driveways of modest homes and more out on the street, suggesting that having multiple roommates was common. Based on what we would have been able to get for our house at the time, our housing payment for a comparable place would have more than doubled.

I agree with the president of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation. More needs to be done.