By Peter Lawrence Kane
The Census just released some fun factoids about young adults in San Francisco, giving us some fresh insight into that coveted millennials demographic (the info focuses on the 18–34 set).
You might think San Francisco, the Land of Fruits and Nuts, is just one big demographic outlier across the board, and the numbers bear that out in many ways. (For example, only 37 percent drive to work here, and barely 1 percent are veterans.) Proportionally speaking, we have more 18–34 year-compared to both the rest of California and the U.S. average, and we always have, so there’s lots to analyze. Here are four key bits.
First, we like the single life. Some 78 percent of S.F. residents under 35 have never been married, an increase of 15 percentage points since 1980. And a whopping 57 percent have Bachelor’s degrees or higher (compared to only 22 percent statewide).
Second, SF is currently whiter than the rest of California (45 percent versus 33 percent) but more diverse than the SF of 1980. Curiously, the number of foreign-born residents in that age bracket has actually fallen considerably since 2000.
Third, we’re affluent. For 2009–13 median earnings, we’re much, much higher than the state or the nation (roughly $60,000/year versus $35,000) after being almost the same as other cities in 1980. More significantly, our wages and salaries are still increasing even as the rest of America’s are stagnating. (Go us — or at least some of us!)
And lastly, while adult children moving back home has been the post-recession theme in the rest of America, fewer of us live with our parents than before, too (17 percent, versus 20 percent in 1980.) Meanwhile, although it feels like everyone is shacking up five to a flat, the percentage of people living alone is actually the exact same it was a quarter-century ago: 12 percent.
You can actually play around with every county in America, but because we’re a consolidated city-county, the numbers are clearer for SF than, say, Alameda. And you probably have at least a little work to do this afternoon.
[Via the US Census, photo by Beverly Goodwin/Flickr]
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