Why San Francisco Is Subsidizing Childcare Even for Households Earning 400 Million Won

Attention is focusing on a policy in San Francisco, U.S., which provides childcare subsidies of up to 50 percent for households with an annual income of about 400 million won or less.

This is because surging housing costs driven by the AI boom have made it difficult even for high-income dual-income households to cover living expenses.

According to The New York Times on the 21st (local time), San Francisco covers 50 percent of childcare costs for four-person households with an annual income of $325,000, or about 430 million won, and provides full coverage for households with an annual income of about 310 million won or less.

The eligibility threshold of $325,000 is more than 3.5 times the median household income in the U.S.

As hiring by major AI companies has recently increased and demand for office rentals has clustered, residential rent in San Francisco has jumped 26 percent in a single year.

The median monthly rent for a two-bedroom apartment has exceeded approximately 6.2 million won, and the median price for a single-family home has surpassed 2.6 billion won.

With supply falling short of skyrocketing demand, the city's rental housing occupancy rate has risen above 96 percent.

As the housing cost burden has grown to the point where San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie declared a "rental emergency," The New York Times reported that even high-income households are choosing to rely on childcare subsidies or downsize their living spaces.

In fact, Emma Hair, who works as a legislative aide at City Hall, and her husband, who works at an AI robotics startup, have a combined annual salary of about 400 million won in Korean won, yet they receive a 50 percent subsidy for childcare costs.

Additionally, Bianca Finley and Chris Truitt, a couple working in the wine industry, stated, "We earn about 200 million won a year, but it is difficult to pay off credit card debt, so we moved from a two-bedroom rental home with a monthly rent of 5.3 million won to a studio apartment with a monthly rent of 3.05 million won."

The city has allocated a budget of over 300 billion won annually from surplus commercial gross receipts taxes to maintain the childcare subsidy program.

(Reported by Lee Hyeon-yeong | Video edited by Hong Jin-young | Design by Yook Do-hyun | Produced by SBS Digital News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.