Op-Ed | When $100K Makes You ‘Low-Income,’ We Have a Housing Cost Problem

In the latest example of how skewed California’s housing market has become, new data shows that in four Bay Area counties—San Mateo, San Francisco, Marin, and Santa Clara—earning $100,000 a year now qualifies you as “low-income” for affordable housing eligibility.

That’s not a typo. Six figures, once the hallmark of upper-middle-class security, now places residents in the same category as those struggling to make ends meet.

This isn’t just a statistical quirk—it’s a flashing red warning sign about the state of housing in California. In fact, while not as extreme in places like Davis – $100,000 and you’re pretty much living paycheck to paycheck if you have any housing costs at all.

The crisis is no longer limited to those living in poverty. It has swallowed the working class, the middle class, and now, even those with jobs that traditionally signified stability: teachers, nurses, nonprofit workers, public servants.

The numbers speak volumes, and they reveal a sobering truth: We are not going to solve California’s housing crisis simply by boosting incomes. We have to bring the cost of housing down.

That is the part too often missed in the increasingly polarized housing debates that dominate state and local politics. There are those who argue the housing crisis is not a supply problem. They point to luxury developments that sit partially vacant, or to the displacement caused by gentrification, and claim that simply building more units isn’t the answer. And they’re right—partly.

No one is seriously claiming that supply alone will solve the problem. But this latest income eligibility report, drawn from state and federal benchmarks and reported by The Mercury News, shows why supply still matters: because without it, housing prices rise faster than any wage gains can keep up with. You cannot raise incomes fast enough or high enough to chase prices that keep sprinting upward.

We’re seeing the result of decades of structural underbuilding—especially of “missing middle” housing like duplexes, triplexes, and townhomes, which offer affordable options for families without requiring the massive subsidies of public housing. Add to that California’s slow permitting processes, restrictive zoning laws, and resistance to density even in transit-rich urban centers, and the math becomes simple. Demand keeps growing. Supply does not. Prices explode. And suddenly, a six-figure salary isn’t enough to stay rooted in your own community.

There’s a larger policy failure here, and it’s a failure of vision. Much of the debate around housing affordability has focused on how to help people afford housing. But there’s been far too little focus on how to make housing itself more affordable. That’s not just a semantic distinction—it’s a policy fork in the road.

If the primary approach is to keep expanding eligibility for subsidies—moving the definition of “low-income” further and further up the scale to match runaway housing costs—then we’re chasing the problem without addressing its root. It becomes an arms race between public assistance and private market inflation. Eventually, the public bill becomes unsustainable, and you still haven’t solved the underlying cost crisis.

On the other hand, if we take seriously the idea that housing should be affordable by design—not just affordable through subsidies—then we are forced to confront the drivers of price: land scarcity, restrictive zoning, financing barriers for smaller projects, and yes, insufficient housing supply.

I want to be clear that we absolutely need more public and subsidized affordable housing. But we also need reforms that allow for smaller, less expensive housing to be built quickly and efficiently.

We need to legalize apartments in neighborhoods that have banned them. We need to streamline approvals for infill housing and cut the red tape that lets anti-housing activists block desperately needed development for years.

We need to shift the default from “no” to “yes” when it comes to housing—while still maintaining community input and environmental protections.

There is also a cultural piece to this. For too long, California’s housing conversation has centered on defending the status quo. Even now, there are those who respond to the idea of fourplexes in single-family neighborhoods as if someone proposed building oil rigs in their backyards. But the price of that resistance is increasingly clear: a society where even the well-paid can’t afford to live.

When $100,000 no longer buys you stability, let alone homeownership, we have entered a new era of economic insecurity. It’s a world where our housing system punishes success and turns ambition into anxiety. It undermines the idea of the American Dream—not through laziness or personal failure, but through structural dysfunction.

Some opponents of increased housing supply argue that demand will always outstrip supply in desirable regions, and that building more will just fuel gentrification. But that view ignores the fact that lack of supply is what gives landlords and speculators the power to price people out. The more scarcity you have, the more power is concentrated in the hands of those who already own property. If you really want to fight displacement, make sure people have somewhere else to go nearby when rents rise.

The solution is not to pit market-rate housing against affordable housing. We need both. The alternative is to continue expanding eligibility for affordable housing to the point where it includes almost everyone—because almost no one can afford what the market demands.

It is time for bold action. California must double down on producing not just more housing, but more affordable housing of all types. We must embrace zoning reform, invest in social housing, and expand protections for tenants and first-time homebuyers. We need a full-spectrum strategy that addresses the cost of land, the cost of labor, and the policies that make building slow, risky, and expensive.

Because if we don’t change course, we’ll be left with a future where $100,000 a year gets you in line for a subsidized apartment—and even then, you’ll be waiting for years.

The housing crisis is not just an affordability issue. It is a cost crisis. Until we confront that fact head-on, we will keep mistaking symptoms for solutions.

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