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	<title>Steve Wozniak &#8211; CalWatchdog.com</title>
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		<title>Silicon Valley&#8217;s vanishing middle class</title>
		<link>https://calwatchdog.com/2015/02/24/silicon-valleys-vanishing-middle-class/</link>
					<comments>https://calwatchdog.com/2015/02/24/silicon-valleys-vanishing-middle-class/#comments</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[John Seiler]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Tue, 24 Feb 2015 22:58:34 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Blog]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[California economy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Silicon Valley]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Steve Jobs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[LAFCO]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Steve Wozniak]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[California Coastal Commission]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John Seiler]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[middle class]]></category>
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					<description><![CDATA[When you read the biographies of Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and other early Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, one thing to note is their middle-class origins. Jobs&#8217; father, Paul, was a mechanic]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-74237" src="http://calwatchdog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Steve-Jobs-home-300x130.jpg" alt="Steve Jobs home" width="300" height="130" srcset="https://calwatchdog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Steve-Jobs-home-300x130.jpg 300w, https://calwatchdog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Steve-Jobs-home.jpg 790w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />When you read the biographies of Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and other early Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, one thing to note is their middle-class origins. Jobs&#8217; father, Paul, was a mechanic and carpenter. Wozniak&#8217;s father was an engineer. They went to the local public schools, back in the Golden Age of California education, the 1960s and 1970s.</p>
<p>Jobs&#8217; modest family home, where he and Woz started Apple in the garage, now is a kind of shrine to techies and in 2013 was <a href="http://mashable.com/2013/10/29/steve-jobs-apple-garage-landmark/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">designated </a>a historical site by the Los Altos Historical Commission. (Picture above.)</p>
<p>California, especially Silicon Valley, has become so expensive the middle class is being squeezed out. KQED <a href="http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/02/22/working-class-struggles-in-silicon-valley/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>The nonprofit Joint Venture Silicon Valley has tracked local economic trends for the last 20 years. This year’s <a href="http://www.jointventure.org/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=157&amp;Itemid=182%20" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Silicon Valley Index</a> reported the income gap is wider than ever, and wider in Silicon Valley than elsewhere in the San Francisco Bay Area or California.</em></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>Joint Venture divides the workforce into three different “tiers.” For high-skilled, high-wage jobs, Tier 1 in Silicon Valley, the median wage is $119,000 a year. For low-skilled, low-wage jobs, or Tier 3, the median is $27,000.</em></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>“Thirty percent of our population is living below the self-sufficiency standard,” says Joint Venture Vice President Rachel Massaro. “That means they can’t survive without public or informal private assistance.”</em></p>
<p>The main problem is that state policies severely restrict building adequate new housing. It&#8217;s simple supply and demand: Demand rises faster than supply, so prices go up.</p>
<p>In particular, the <a href="http://www.coastal.ca.gov/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">California Coastal Commission</a> now limits construction in coastal areas, which has a ripple effect inland for at least 50 miles, raising the price of everything.</p>
<p>Then there are the <a href="http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/why-california-home-prices-are-so-high" target="_blank" rel="noopener">LAFCOs</a>: local area formation commissions, that also limit construction.</p>
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