While talking on the phone with my mom about the cost of
living in San Francisco, she mentioned that her cousin's son was making 70K a
year and finding it hard to put aside some money. This blew my mind, because I was calculating
a comfortable living while earning 40K a year in San Francisco. I could not understand how my mom though that
a single and childless twenty something year old was just breaking even at the
end of the month. Then I remembered how
growing up I was always told that we were poor when my dad was making well over
100 grand a year (putting
him in the top 5% of income earners in the US) and suddenly it all made
sense. My parents were stuck in the
upper class echo chamber.
By only associating with people who are in the same
socioeconomic class, my parents have made themselves blind to the possibility
of life outside of their own income bracket. I have personally witnessed this blindness at
dinners with family and family friends.
Just imagine, a group of senior engineers or managers reassuring
themselves over $200+ bottles of wine that living off less than 100K a year in
Silicon Valley is next to impossible.
Actually, San Jose's mayor Chuck Reed said relatively the same thing in
2009 claiming that “a
family earning $250,000 a year can’t buy a home in Silicon Valley.” At the
time, people slammed him for being out of touch, but little did the critics
know that he was very much in touch with my parents and their friends, also
known as the constituency that got him elected.
The upper class echo chamber inevitably filters down to the
children. I remember back in high school
my friends and I were looking at college majors and the corresponding starting
salaries, panicking at how we could possibly live off 50 grand a year once we
got out of college. I would have been
indefinitely stuck in the echo chamber had I not joined Cindy Chavez's campaign
for mayor my sophomore year and started interacting with different
socioeconomic classes. Especially, while
working with union members, I quickly realized my position of privilege which
put my feet on the ground and a few years later while in college, my anthropology
studies would firmly secure them to there.
Later that day, after my mom's call I shared what my mom
said at the bar, my perplexed friend and I did a quick thought exercise on how
much we would have left each month after taking out essentials if we were
making 70K a year.
Hypothetical essential costs:
- Taxes - Roughly $21,000 a year
- Rent - $1200 month for a studio (information provided by my mom on how much the guy was paying)
- Car lease - $250 a month for a Camry LE (quoted from Lease Trader)
- Car Insurance - $150 a month (my friend's current young driver rate)
- Gas - $260 a month (roughly $65 a tank, 1 tank per week)
- Utilities + Internet + TV - $300 a month (Boston quote because the guy lives in the east coast from White Fence)
- Wireless bill - 80 (Top of the line unlimited data plan from Sprint)
Subtract all these monthly costs from his after tax income
of $4083 per month and he is left with $1,843 for food and anything else that
he wants. $1,843 a month is more than my
current TOTAL monthly expenditure per month. He must be eating steak dinners
everyday and buying shots of Patron at the bar if he was just breaking even
every month. There is of course a lot of
possible cutting back on this budget as well.
WHAT’s the point of
this whole story?
This little anecdote highlights the danger of being unaware
of your own bias. It shows how easily it
is to become disconnected from the reality on the ground just by surrounding yourself with similar people. To me it is a reminder to keep stepping out of my usual environments and meeting
people who are different as well as once in a while to take a step back and take a real critical look at myself.
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