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a crazy little chart about the Bay Area

Recently on sage-members folks have been having a discussion about just how expensive it is to work in the Bay Area. I think Dustin Puryear started the thread as he’s thinking of moving from Louisiana. Anyway, someone posted the following link:

Bill Manning’s Blog >> A crazy little chart about the Bay Area

The numbers in there seem astonishing. When I told my girlfriend, who’s lived in the Bay Area (working for Sun), she wondered how it compares with Toronto. So, after some research at the Toronto Urban Affairs Library, I give you numbers for Toronto. (Here’s a PDF illustrating this in a similar manner to Bill’s original post.)

First, some metadata about wages:

Gross Minimum Wage $7.45 per hour
Federal Income Tax $1.19 per hour
Ontario Income Tax $0.45 per hour
EI Deduction $0.15 per hour
CPP Deduction $0.13 per hour
Net Minimum Wage $5.54 per hour

Now for some rental rates from CMHC‘s research report:

Private Apartment Average Rental Rates for 2004

York Region$851.00$212.7538.43

Zone Avg. Rent/Month Avg.Rent/Week Hours Needed @ Minimum Wage
Toronto (Old City) $950.00 $237.50 42.91
Etobicoke (South) $841.00 $210.25 37.98
York $811.00 $202.75 36.63
East York $844.00 $211.00 38.12
Scarborough $831.00 $207.75 37.53
North York $865.00 $216.25 39.07
Mississauga City $890.00 $222.50 40.20
Brampton City $887.00 $221.75 40.06
Oakville $918.00 $229.50 41.46

So, assuming you were to spend your after-tax income on nothing but accommodations, you could work a regular week in Toronto and be able to rent an apartment. This is about 1/4 the effort it would require in the Bay Area. Pretty shocking!

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