New Study Says Making Ends Meet Now Even Harder in San Diego

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published February 29, 2008 at 2:59 PM PST

This story was published more than 16 years ago.

A new analysis of the rising cost of living in San Diego shows a two parent working family with two children needs an income of $71,000 a year, just to make ends meet.

(Photo: New Art Pavilion designed by L.A. architect Frederick Fischer for the $5 million expansion of the Oceanside Museum of Art. Alison St John/KPBS. )

A new analysis of the rising cost of living in San Diego shows a two parent working family with two children needs an income of $71,000 a year, just to make ends meet.

Donald Cohen is with the Center on Policy Initiatives , a think tank that studies issues affecting working families . He says if both parents work, they have to each earn at least 17 dollars an hour to pay for basic rent, food, transpiration, health and childcare.

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San Diego's reputation as a high-cost low wage city continues to be absolutely accurate, and as we look ahead, $200,000 jobs that are going to get created in the next twenty to thirty years here, many of not most don't earn these kind of wages.

The study uses data collected by the California Budget Project. It shows low end jobs and high end jobs growing, but the number of middle income jobs declining.

Alison St John

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Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.