Facebook employees living in a garage hope Mark Zuckerberg will 'learn whats happening' in his own

[mfcorey1]

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/facebook-employees-living-in-a-garage-hope-mark-zuckerberg-will-learn-what’s-happening-in-his-own-city/ar-AAoUBQX?li=BBnb7Kz


At the beginning of the year, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg set a goal to visit every state in the U.S. so he could learn more about the millions of people who use the social network every day. But two of his employees tell The Guardian that they wonder when the billionaire is going to get to know his own community.

The employees, a married couple named Nicole and Victor, are both contract workers in the cafeteria at Facebook's Menlo Park, Calif. headquarters. And they wish they, and the problems closer to home, could also get a share of Zuckerberg's attention.

The couple says they can barely make ends meet. Together with their three children, Nicole and Victor share a two-car garage adjacent to Victor's parents' home. They borrow money from friends and family to stay afloat and occasionally resort to payday loans.

Although they earn too much to qualify for state benefits, they don't earn enough to afford Facebook's health care plan.

Both parents earn well above the $15 minimum wage Facebook established for all of its contractors back in 2015, The Guardian reports. Victor earns $17.85 an hour and Nicole $19.85.

efore taking jobs at Facebook, both Nicole and Victor earned $12 an hour as managers at Chipotle. But thanks to the rapidly increasing cost of living in the Bay Area, even the higher wages aren't enough.

Nicole and Victor's struggles are compounded by the fact that San Francisco has gotten so expensive even tech workers making six-figures struggle to make ends meet — or refuse to move there at all.

[Igel]

1. So many people want to live there. In a small area.

And so many companies want to be sited there.

So many people want to have a trendy lifestyle.

The first pushes up prices. The second pushes up population concentration and average wages, making for more money chasing the same goods. The third pushes up expenses.

The companies could relocate, removing population and price pressure, but that third bit, people wanting to live in a trendy area ... Companies are afraid of losing high-paid, highly productive social climbers.

[dsc]

2. They are hardly the only employer who employees can't afford San Francisco

http://www.sfusd.edu/en/assets/sfusd-staff/contract%20and%20salary%20schedules/Teachers%20TK-12%20Salary%20Schedule.pdf

Nicole makes 39700 a year assuming 2000 hours a year. From the above teaching salary schedule a beginning teacher makes 47k if they have a bachelors degree. Victor earns 35700 with the same assumption, their total of 75400 is close to the top of the scale for a bachelors plus 60. San Francisco is basically priced out of many middle class people's income.

[Initech]

3. The effects of trickle-down economics at work.