SAN FRANCISCO — John Marman and Natsumi Makiyama work in health professions that would put them squarely in the upper middle class almost anywhere else in the United States.

He is a therapist, and she is a pediatric nurse. But they live with their two children in one of the priciest swaths of the country, San Francisco.

They feel squeezed — and perhaps surprisingly, City Hall agrees.

San Francisco now offers free childcare to families of four earning up to $235,000 a year, including Marman and Makiyama. The city pays half the cost of childcare for families making up to $325,000 a year, an eye-popping level that is more than 3.5 times the country’s median household income.

Raising a family in San Francisco, the city with the fewest children per capita in the United States, has never been easy or cheap. But the affordability crisis has soared to new levels this year as the artificial intelligence boom has driven up prices for everything. That has made life even more challenging for young families not working in the tech industry, and city leaders are desperately trying to ensure that those families don’t flee.

The childcare help is one way to offset the city’s spiking housing costs, which have shot up 26% in the past year, prompting Mayor Daniel Lurie to recently declare a “rent emergency.”

Rents are higher in San Francisco than in any other large city in the country, according to Apartment List. The median rent for a two-bedroom apartment is now $4,640, the site said. The median cost of a single-family home in the city tops $2 million, a figure that these days would most likely buy a small, basic house in need of work.

On the housing front, Marman and Makiyama are comparatively lucky. Three years ago, as San Francisco was still recovering from the pandemic and the AI boom had not yet exploded, the couple bought a 1,200-square-foot home on the western edge of the city for $1.3 million.

Marman, 36, brings in about $135,000 as a therapist for the city, and Makiyama, 39, is working part time so she can stay home with their toddler son some days. Together, they make just under $235,000, qualifying for free preschool for their 4-year-old daughter.

Although they earn good salaries and own their own home, making ends meet just feels harder and harder.

Each month, they pay $6,400 for their home mortgage and $2,200 for two car payments, car insurance and gas, since they are unable to reach their jobs without their vehicles. Cell service and home Wi-Fi is another $300 per month. They put a little each month toward life insurance, their children’s college accounts and retirement.

They spend more than $150 each week on groceries and have become coupon clippers who try to make cartons of milk last longer than they used to and who visit different grocery stores on different days scouting for deals.

“I don’t want to say we’re rationing, but we’re definitely thinking about not using too much,” Marman said. “Every grain of rice is eaten, and we make sure there is no food waste. I’m the designated garbage disposal for the kids’ leftovers.”

They are saving less than they would like and will probably stop traveling for a while after annual trips to Japan to visit Makiyama’s extended family grew too expensive.

“At the end of most months, we’re struggling to find extra cash to enjoy a day out with the kids,” Marman said. “We’re very lucky to receive the benefit for school, but life is just still very tough.”

Without the school help, Marman said, they would probably have to leave San Francisco, the city where his family has lived for five generations.

Asked what he thought a family of four new to San Francisco — with no government help, no rent control, no trust funds, no foothold of any sort — would need to earn annually to lead a good, middle-class life, Marman paused.

“I think close to half a mill is the reality, which is absolutely ridiculous,” he said, noting the rest of the country would probably consider a $500,000 income for a middle-class lifestyle some kind of bad joke. “I think they would laugh at us, and honestly I think that’s fair.”

Even Lurie, the mayor who has fashioned himself San Francisco’s No. 1 hype man, did not dispute the number.

“Yes, it is an incredibly, extraordinarily expensive city to live in and to work in and to thrive,” he said in an interview in his City Hall office. “That’s why 50% off at $325,000 is so essential.”

Lurie, an heir to the Levi Strauss fortune whose mother is a billionaire and whose children attend elite private schools, might seem like an unlikely champion for family affordability. But, he said, any successful city needs middle-class families and the jobs they tend to fill — including nurses, therapists, police officers, firefighters, teachers and bus drivers.

“We don’t want them leaving for the suburbs or for other states,” the mayor said. “We want them here in San Francisco, and that’s what it takes, so that’s what we’re doing.”

The high salaries paid by technology companies, particularly in the booming AI sector, have driven up housing and other costs in San Francisco, making it less affordable for everyone who doesn’t work in the industry.

The childcare program is funded mostly by unused money from a commercial gross receipts tax passed by voters in 2018 to fund childcare.

More than 9,300 children are enrolled at more than 550 private sites, including preschool centers and in-home daycares, and their families are saving up to $36,000 per child.

Families apply online and provide income information, and the city pays the childcare center directly. The money cannot be used for private nannies or babysitters. The city spends $238 million annually to fund the program — including paying families’ subsidies, training and paying childcare workers and improving facilities.

San Francisco is so pricey, even some people working in the booming AI industry get City Hall help. Emma Hare, a legislative aide at City Hall, and her husband, who works at an AI startup related to robotics, bring in just over $300,000 per year and qualify for 50% off their son’s childcare.

Hare’s policy brain thinks about whether a city’s role is to “help the median resident or have a really strong social safety net” for poor people, she said.

Her mom brain thinks about the opportunities her son will have growing up in San Francisco — the parks, the museums, the culture, the beauty — and has decided the daily stress is worth it.

Marman has landed on that answer, too. And for now, he isn’t going anywhere.

“We love this city. We believe in this city,” he said. “This is home.”

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Heather Knight
c. 2026 The New York Times Company