"Silicon Valley is entering a fifth year of unfettered growth. The median household income is $90,000, according to the Census Bureau. The average single-family home sells for about $1 million. The airport is adding an $82 million private jet center.
But the river of money flowing through this 1,800-square-mile peninsula, stretching from south of San Francisco to San Jose, also has driven housing costs to double in the past five years while wages for low- and middle-skilled workers are stagnant. Nurses, preschool teachers, security guards and landscapers commute, sometimes for hours, from less-expensive inland suburbs.
Now the widening income gap between the wealthy and those left behind is sparking debate, anger and sporadic protests.
"F--- the 1%" and other rants were spray-painted last month on walls, garages and a car in the Silicon Valley town of Atherton, home to many top tech CEOs that Forbes magazine last year called the nation's most expensive community. In Cupertino, security guards rallied outside Apple's shareholder meeting on Feb. 28 demanding better wages. "What's the matter with Silicon Valley? Prosperity for some, poverty for many. That's what," read their banner."
"Buditom, also 44, said the reality of working for some of the nation's richest companies has sapped his belief in the American dream. For the past four years, he has been living in his sister's apartment, commuting an hour in stop-and-go traffic for a $13-an-hour security job.
"I'm so passed over by the American dream, I don't even want to dream it anymore," said Buditom, who emigrated from Indonesia 30 years ago. "It's impossible to get ahead. I'm just trying to survive.""
"From the White House to the Vatican to the world's business elite, the growing gap between the very wealthy and everyone else is seizing agendas. Three decades ago, Americans' income tended to grow at roughly similar rates, no matter how much they made. But since about 1980, income has grown most for the top earners. For the poorest 20 percent of families, it has dropped.
A study last month by the Brookings Institution found that among the nation's 50 largest cities, San Francisco experienced the largest increase in income inequality between 2007 and 2012. The richest 5 percent of households earned $28,000 more, while the poorest 20 percent of households saw income drop $4,000. To the south, Silicon Valley's success has made it a less hospitable place for many, said Russell Hancock, president of Joint Venture Silicon Valley, an organization focused on the local economy and quality of life."
"Once a peaceful paradise of apricot, peach and prune orchards, the region is among the most expensive places to live in the U.S. Those earning $50,000 a year in Dallas would need to make $77,000 a year in the Silicon Valley to maintain the same quality of life, according to the Council for Community and Economic Research; $63,000 if they moved from Chicago or Seattle.
Housing costs are largely to blame. An $800-a-month, two-bedroom apartment near AT&T's Dallas headquarters would cost about $1,700 near Google's Mountain View headquarters. Dental visits, hamburgers, washing machine repairs, movie tickets — all are above national averages.
Five years ago, Sacred Heart was providing food and clothing for about 35,000 people a year. This year it expects to serve more than twice that. On one brisk morning recently, families, working couples, disabled people and elderly lined up out the door for free bags of food, just miles from the bustling tech campuses."
"While some are struggling to survive, others are fighting back.
Twice in December and again in January, activists in San Francisco, where recent tax incentives have lured Twitter, Yelp, Spotify and other firms, swarmed privately run shuttle buses that ferry workers for Google, Facebook and other tech companies from the city to work. Tires were slashed, rocks hurled. Signs taped to the buses read: "Gentrification & Eviction Technologies: Integrated Displacement and Cultural Erasure" and "F--- Off Google."
Last month, as protesters beat drums outside, former Daily Show member and comedian John Oliver mocked the tech elite during an annual awards ceremony in San Francisco that honors startups and Internet innovations. "You are no longer the underdogs," he told the audience. "You're pissing off an entire city, not just with what you do at work, but how you get to work. It's not easy to do that."
The crowd roared with laughter, and he went on.
"I heard the latest design for your buses is to use tinted windows but reverse, with the tint on the inside, the reason being, 'Look, I don't mind if the peasants see me, but I would rather not see them, hmm?'"
Fewer laughs followed that one."
"Activist Sara Shortt of the Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco said the protests weren't intended to target the workers themselves.
"We're going after the bus as a symbol, a very palpable symbol, of the dramatically growing income divide in our city," she said. "Frankly those gleaming white buses with their tinted windows are a slap in the face to the rest of us who are waiting for the public bus or riding our bicycles down the bike lanes competing with these mammoth vehicles."
"A few prominent figures in the tech elite have fanned flames on the issue of income disparity. Greg Gropman, CEO of the tech startup AngelHack, ridiculed San Francisco in a now-deleted Facebook post in December: "Why the heart of our city has to be overrun by crazy, homeless, drug dealers, dropouts, and trash I have no clue."
A month later, in an open letter to The Wall Street Journal, venture capitalist Tom Perkins likened what he called "the war on the one percent, namely the 'rich'" with fascist Nazi Germany: "Kristallnacht was unthinkable in 1930; is its descendent 'progressive' radicalism unthinkable now?""
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