It’s atrocious what some of these people are asked to do and the wages they’re expected to perform at.
But beyond that, even wages aren’t even the entire picture. I live in Chicago. I managed a fleet of workers who not only had to content with a company that paid laughable wages, workers were on their own for parking, vehicle maintenance, equipment and materials, ancillary costs of maintaining their tools.
End of the day the $25 we paid to our licensed and insured electrician translated to $12/hr coming home.
I fought for a year to get those fellas better pay. Our managing company was hearing none of it. The guy who ran the entire operation took home six figures. I know this because I saw the books.
The kind that go into his bank account? Is there another kind I'm unaware of presently-I'm unsure how to answer your question here?
Compared to costs
We know mainly why costs are too high in the Bay Area, and it's mostly housing. Which is a solvable problem, if only the market was able to expand housing supply.
If only.. there was more land. Building houses is not the bottleneck. Land is. You'd have to create a 'second floor' of land to mitigate the problem.
Or -- stay with me on this -- allow a 'second floor' on top of the current single-floor buildings.
Seriously, NIMBY zoning that doesn't allow for higher-density 5-6-floor townhouse-style development is the issue.