NY Times: California Today: ‘Sticker Shock’ in Los Angeles Housing

What does it take to be middle class in Los Angeles? That was the question Ross DeVol started out asking himself when he began calculating how much a resident would need to make to spend 30 percent of earned after-tax income on rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Los Angeles County. The answer: a whopping $145,000. “It really challenges what we think of what we speak of the middle income family,” said Mr. DeVol, a researcher with the Milken Institute, a Santa Monica-based think tank. “It significantly changes the requirements for living a middle-class life here.”