Most of the Bay's 25 most populous cities lost "low-income" residents on net

Net migration of "low-income" residents from 2014-25 as a percentage of city population

Movers are defined as "low-income" residents moving to/from the 25 most populous Bay Area cities. We proxy for “low income” if the person meets two of three criteria: is highly unlikely to be a homeowner based on what we observe in the credit data; has a credit score under 620; and has a credit limit of less than $5,000 alongside credit utilization over 50%. Many of these localities lost as many or more higher-income residents, so the share of low-income residents in a city may have increased even if the number decreased.
Chart: California Policy LabSource: California Policy Lab analysis of UC Consumer Credit Panel (UC-CCP) dataGet the data Download image