In these parts of California, earning less than $100,000 makes you ‘low income’
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As the cost of living rises, driven by a housing affordability crisis, the very definition of being “low income” is changing.
In Orange, Santa Barbara and San Diego counties, the threshold for a low-income single-person household will soon surpass $100,000 if current trends continue, according to data published by the California Department of Housing and Community Development in April.
They would join three Bay Area counties that already hit that bureaucratic threshold.
California defines income levels by how they compare with the area’s median income. But in areas with unusually low or high housing costs, those definitions are often tweaked to reflect the reality on the ground for residents. Therefore, someone earning $100,000 could be above the area’s median income line but be considered low-income because of the high cost of housing. A number of government programs use these income designations to determine who qualifies for benefits such as housing assistance.
All of those counties have plenty of residents who make far less than $100,000 a year, so the “low income” designation is decidedly relative.
‘Sad for young people’
Sam Perez, a retiree living in Santa Ana, was reading a book at the MainPlace Mall when she learned about the data and said she wasn’t surprised.
Perez, 59, said she feels lucky that she owns her home. Her monthly payment on the four-bedroom house is roughly equivalent to the rent for a two-bedroom apartment in the area, she said.
“It’s just sad for young people,” said Perez, who worked as a purchasing supervisor for the city of Santa Ana. “For couples — both working — you can either buy a house or have a family. You can’t have both.”
Both of Perez’s sisters, who grew up with her in Santa Ana, have moved out of California to Nevada and Kansas, respectively, seeking areas with lower costs of living.
“When I started, people said, ‘Go to school, get your degree, study hard, get a good job and you’ll be able to make it. That is not the case anymore and it hasn’t been for a while,” she said.
“Hard work, work ethic, it doesn’t seem to pay off these days to have a comfortable life, to have a decent standard of living,” Perez added.
Areas of affluence
The three Southern California counties share one thing in common: soaring home values, even by California’s lofty standards.
In Santa Barbara County, the low-income threshold increased 48% from 2020 to 2025, ending up at $98,850.
Orange County saw a more modest 32% five-year increase to $94,750.
San Diego County was not far behind, with a 43% hike in the low-income threshold to $92,700.
If current growth rates continue, each of these counties would see their thresholds for what qualifies as low-income for a single person cross the six-figure mark before the next assessment.
Marin, San Mateo, San Francisco and Santa Clara counties all crossed the six-figure threshold in 2025, as first reported by SFGate.
Between 2020 and 2025, the threshold to be considered low-income rose 40% across Southern California’s ten counties, reflecting the rising cost of living across the region.
At the same time, median incomes — representing the middle, not the average — across the region rose 35%.
In Santa Barbara County, the median income for a single-occupant household was $15,500 below the low-income threshold in 2025, the biggest such deficit in Southern California. In Los Angeles County, the difference was $10,250, the second-biggest gap.
In these counties, more than half of households would qualify as low-income, a trend that persisted regardless of household size. In many additional areas across the state — Monterey, Placer, Orange, San Diego and Santa Cruz counties — median income levels were similar to or below the low-income threshold in 2025, meaning 50% or more of residents qualify as low-income.
In 2000, before the state housing crisis was in the forefront of people’s minds, low-income households were far less common. A Times review of U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development data showed that no cities and counties in California had 50% or more of their families qualify as low-income households.
Orange, Santa Barbara and San Diego counties have Southern California’s priciest real estate, according to data from the California Assn. of Realtors. In each county, the median single-family home sale price in March 2025 was over $1 million. In Orange and Santa Barbara counties, the median sale price approached $1.5 million, the data showed.
A threat to California’s future?
Casey Gype, a single mother living in Orange County, said she’s not surprised by the news at all.
The 39-year-old social worker said she pays $2,500 a month for her two-bedroom apartment in the city of Orange, where she and her 15-year-old son live.
“I would have to be rich in order to provide a nice place on our own,” she said.
Gype said she knows a handful of young people who comfortably own or rent houses or apartments while making less than $100,000 annually, but they are all in dual-income households.
“It’s hard being a single mom. You kind of have to rely on other people a lot, people who aren’t struggling, which isn’t really fair,” she added. “If I didn’t have the people in my life that I have now, I don’t know how I would do it.”
Lawmakers are aware of the issue.
L.A.’s housing authority last year purchased a 335-unit luxury apartment building in Woodland Hills and is turning it into mixed-income, affordable housing.
“California’s cost-of-living is the single biggest threat to our future,” Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas said in an April statement announcing four new select committees on cost of living. “Middle-class families earning $125,000 a year are struggling to afford rent, child care, and groceries. That’s not sustainable.”
The committees target four areas: child care, food insecurity, housing affordability and transportation costs.
“Housing costs are strangling the promise of the California Dream for many families now and, if we don’t act, will be even worse for the generations that follow,” Assemblymember Anamarie Ávila Farías (D-Martinez), co-chair of the Select Committee on Housing Finance and Affordability, said in a statement. “Building new housing that enhances our communities and gives working families a bit of economic breathing room is my top priority.”
Despite proposed legislation to help make California a more affordable place to live, however, voters in the state are growing increasingly pessimistic about their financial future, according to a new poll from the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, co-sponsored by The Times. Nearly half of California voters feel worse off than they were last year, and 54% felt less hopeful about their economic well-being.
When asked to name the most important issues for state leaders to be addressing this year, the cost of living, housing affordability and homelessness topped the list — far above concerns about crime and public safety, taxes and immigration, the poll found.
California’s legislative leaders are working on their promises to address affordability, but voters are growing more concerned about their financial future.
Jett Murdock, 26, shares a two-bedroom apartment with three other men in Huntington Beach. The split bedrooms help to keep costs down, with each roommate paying about $725 a month in rent, but Murdoch said he feels the squeeze of rising living costs.
The computer science student at Orange Coast College works at a catering company to support himself through school.
After graduation, Murdock doesn’t plan to stay in Orange County for long, as he said he’s seen how difficult it is to live comfortably on a single salary.
“I’d much prefer to move out of state,” the Idaho native said. “Just so that dollar goes a lot further. I’d much rather live somewhere else with lower living expenses.”
Times staff writer Sandra McDonald contributed to this report.
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