A San Francisco Twitter employee barely lives on $ 160,000 a year.

Most IT people make good money. This cannot be said about absolutely all "techies", but in most cases it is. Large and not so much companies are willing to pay thousands of dollars a month for a good professional - a programmer, an electronics engineer, and an information security specialist. American companies pay well for their employees, for example, those located in Silicon Valley or other regions with the maximum concentration of startups per square meter.

But the staff are still not too happy. The fact is that such places are characterized by high prices for everything: housing, food, training. And a person with a salary that can be considered very good by the standards of any country in the same Silicon Valley, in San Francisco, feels not very secure. For example, one of the programmers of the Twitter company states that it is difficult for him to live on $ 160,000 per year. Money is not enough for anything.

This programmer says that most of the money "eats" housing. For a small two-bedroom house in San Francisco, he pays about $ 3000 per month. And this is not so much, because in some cases people pay $ 2,000 for a separate room in a small apartment. Families, he said, are harder than people who are not burdened by marriage and children. Family people have to pay for the insurance of children, the price of which is extremely high in Silicon Valley. But most of the money takes rent.
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In San Francisco, the cost of real estate and its rental - one of the highest in the world. This happened because of the rapid development of Silicon Valley, with the increase in wages of employees of local companies. There are many properties here, but not enough to satisfy the needs of all visitors. Therefore, landlords raise housing prices almost every month. And if earlier, people with not too high incomes complained about high prices, now problems start even for those who receive high wages.

That programmer from Twitter, which was discussed above, in 2014, even had to lend money. This happened after the company changed the payment scheme, and the salary entered the card later than usual. He does not disclose his name, as he fears that the voiced data violates the non-disclosure of corporate information, signed at the very beginning of employment.

Problems similar to those voiced by an employee of Twitter are fully applicable to representatives of other companies. For example, complaints about high rent with a request to compensate part of the cost of renting apartments and houses are regularly received by Facebook management from their own employees. Last year, the company's programmers even held a special meeting with Mark Zuckerberg on this topic.

The fact is that the rent takes from 40% to 50% of the income of residents of the region, which many consider too large a sum. Regularly it becomes known about various curious cases related to the lack of desire among those who “have come in the large” to spend a substantial part of their salary for renting housing. For example, one of the Apple employees lives in the garage. Another representative of the IT sector says that he lives with 12 other programmers in a two-bedroom apartment. They found this accommodation through Airbnb. “It costs about $ 1,100 for a bunk bed and five people who live in the same room. One guy settled in the pantry, paying $ 1,400 for "private room". "



Another woman who works in the telecommunications sector complains that, together with her boyfriend, she earns about $ 1 million a year, but she still cannot afford a house. She says that Silicon Valley is not the place where the American dream works. Now the woman is afraid that the insurance program introduced by Barack Obama will be canceled, and she will lose her job.

It is not easy to buy real estate here, even to the person who has money. So, an employee of another technology company from Silicon Valley last year tried to find a home. He earns about $ 700,000 a year. Once he was lucky, he came across an advertisement for selling a house for $ 1.4 million. But this man did not have time to do it - the house was sold just a day for the price of $ 1.7 million. He has enough life, but this life cannot be called luxurious or too much really comfortable. By the way, there are high prices not only for real estate. For example, the cost of coffee with a bun is $ 8, and the price of a glass of fresh juice is $ 12. Now the person in question is going to leave Silicon Valley, despite the loss of high wages.

Companies that work in the region, inevitably have to pay huge salaries to their employees to keep them afloat. A Canadian engineer who came to the region at the invitation of an employer immediately began to receive $ 200,000. He seemed absurd about this amount, he did not understand why he was going to pay so much. But after arriving in San Francisco, he understood everything. The cost of rent, child insurance and other things in the region is very high. Now the engineer is planning to leave here.

In general, not so many employees of Silicon Valley companies are happy and satisfied with the current state of affairs. Despite wages, the quality of life in the region, according to these people, is lower than in many other places. But if technicians simply complain about high prices, then local residents who are not busy in the high-tech sector have to do very badly. Many are unable to pay for insurance, the price of which is prohibitive, food and other vital things. Therefore, there are a lot of poor people who just despaired. And this is another problem that is typical for the region. So far the well-being of the Valley is like a bubble. If it bursts (well, for example, a crisis similar to the dot-com crisis in the 90s will follow), then it will be bad for everyone - both programmers and ordinary people who live in Silicon Valley.