Key jobs that don't pay enough to live in Sonoma County

Local rent increases are outpacing salary growth. Click through our gallery to find out what jobs no longer pay enough to afford a two-bedroom apartment.|

How much should you make to afford rent in Sonoma County? $97,929 it seems.

A new report by SmartAsset (https://smartasset.com/mortgage/the-income-needed-to-pay-rent-in-the-largest-cities) looked at the rental housing market in major cities in the United States and calculated what annual salary someone has to make in order to afford a two-bedroom apartment. For San Francisco, where two-bedrooms go for $5,043 per month, that figure was $216,219. Considering that San Francisco'ss median household income is only $78,378, that excludes most everyone from MUNI drivers to teachers to firefighters.

In Sonoma County, the picture is just as bleak. Median renter wages saw a decline of six percent from 2000 to 2015, when adjusted for inflation, according to the California Housing Partnership. In the same period, the county's median rent increased 16 percent.

On Craigslist, Sonoma County two-bedrooms currently go for around $2,285 a month. For rent to occupy only 28% of someone's income, a household would need to rake in around $97,929 annually - assuming two breadwinners, that's $48,964 per person.

Latest Census reports have Sonoma County's median household income at $64,240. That means that bank tellers, coaches, school counselors, and healthcare workers, who earn on average below $48,600, could find these fees extremely burdensome.

Click through our gallery to find out what other jobs no longer earn enough to live in Sonoma County.

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