What values do you see reflected in your choices?
Where did you allocate three credits?
What was the hardest category to budget?
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Experience the Real Cost of Living in the Bay Area
The Gap Many Families Can’t Close
High costs and stagnant wages leave tens of thousands of Bay Area families earning too much to qualify for public support, yet too little to afford essentials. The following experience transforms those numbers into real-world decisions, showing how quickly monthly budgets break under Bay Area prices.
What Does Poverty in the Bay Area Look Like?
Try Our “Real Life, Real Choices, Real Impact” Digital Experience
Step into the daily decisions thousands of Bay Area families face. This interactive experience shows how housing, food, childcare, and transportation choices add up—and why so many neighbors fall short even while working hard. Explore the real tradeoffs behind poverty and discover how community support can create lasting stability.
You’ll have to make tough choices. Can you make it through?
The Scenario
You are a family of four: yourself, your partner, and your two children, ages 3 and 10. You live in San Francisco.
You and your partner both earn San Francisco’s minimum wage of $19.18/hour
Your family’s combined annual income is $75,000
You will make the best decision you can with the information you have. Study your choices and invest your credits depending on what is most important to your family.
The Rules
You will have a Credit Bank that represents your monthly budget.
Each month you will need to:
- Decide how to spend it and what your priorities are.
- Make a choice in each category, spending the desired number of credits indicating your spending choices.
After you submit, you cannot go back and change your choices.
Reflection
Recap
These are the choices you made:
Housing
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Food
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Healthcare
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Childcare
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Transportation
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Technology
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Take a moment to reflect. You may move on shortly.
5
When Life Hits…
Your childcare provider unexpectedly quits. You must stay home from work until you find a replacement.
You will lose at least one week’s wages.
-2 Credits
Your credits have been reduced from 15 credits to 13 credits.
Reflection
What category did you choose to make sacrifices in your budget?
Do you know where you can go for short-term assistance?
What other impacts may need to be considered due to this challenge?
Recap
These are your choices up to this point:
Housing
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Food
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Healthcare
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Childcare
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Transportation
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Technology
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Take a moment to reflect. You may move on shortly.
5
When Life Hits…Again
Your landlord notifies you that starting next month, your rent will increase by 15%.
You cannot find affordable housing alternatives at such short notice.
-2 Credits
Your credits have been reduced from 13 credits to 11 credits.
Reflection
Where did you remove 2 credits from your budget?
Did your priorities change in what you valued?
If you had the chance to change your original choice, would you?
Recap
These are your choices up to this point:
Housing
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Food
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Healthcare
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Childcare
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Transportation
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Technology
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Take a moment to reflect. You may move on shortly.
5
Life Hits…Again
Your child fell during school recess and now needs medical attention.
Regardless of your health insurance, there are still out of pocket medical costs that need to be paid.
-2 Credits
Your credits have been reduced from 11 credits to 9 credits.
Reflection
Where did you remove 2 credits from your budget?
Did your priorities change in what you valued?
If you had the chance to change your original choice, would you?
Recap
These are your choices up to this point:
Housing
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Food
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Healthcare
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Childcare
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Transportation
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Technology
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Take a moment to reflect. You may move on shortly.
5
This is Who We Help
Throughout this experience, you’ve had to make difficult decisions that no one should have to face. You held onto your {basic needs category} standard of living for {number of rounds} before you budged. Longer than the other categories. You started with {comfortable choice 1} but had to settle for {limited choice 1}. You also went from {comfortable choice 2} to {limited choice 2}.
For many of our neighbors, these tradeoffs aren’t just hypothetical—they are daily realities. Families are forced to decide between groceries or rent, child care or transportation, healthcare or keeping the lights on. The stress of these decisions can be overwhelming and, too often, the options never feel like enough. This is the reality United Way Bay Area works to change. Through our programs like SparkPoint™, 211, Emergency Food and Shelter Program (EFSP), and Housing Justice, we help families move from surviving to thriving—so they no longer have to choose between their basic needs.
No one should have to live this way
Convenient
Limited
Difficult
Housing
Food
Healthcare
Childcare
Transportation
Technology
But There is Hope
You visited a SparkPoint Center and applied for CalFresh. You can add $250 to your monthly income to cover food. You also received $500 in rent relief.
From Difficult to Possible
Convenient
Limited
Difficult
Housing
Food
Healthcare
Childcare
Transportation
Technology
Be Part of the Solution
People experience situations like these are who we, at United Way Bay Area, strive to help!
You’ve just seen how hard it can be for Bay Area families to get by. United Way Bay Area is fighting to change that—every day, with your support.
Go 100% of the way, sign up for our updates to learn more, share your story, or get involved in our movement to fight poverty.
Financial Choices Were Made…
You have already made budgetary decisions. The money was spent.
As happens in life, past financial decisions often cannot be undone. Instead, we must make do with those decisions and adapt accordingly. It’s part of the challenge of living in the Bay Area.
Completing the experience will allow you to remake previous choices.
Recap
This is where you left off:
Housing
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Food
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Healthcare
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Childcare
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Transportation
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Technology
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Where Will You Spend Your Budget?
Remember, once you allocate your budget and move on, there is no turning back.
Your Credit Bank
You have 15 credits left.
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
Your Credit Bank
You have 2 credits left.
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
Category
Difficult
Limited
Convenient
Over Budget!You are two credits over budget
Housing
Studio Apartment. 1 Bathroom. Street Parking Only
$
2 Bedroom Apartment. 1 Bathroom. 1 Covered Parking Space
$
$
3 Bedroom House. 1.5 Bathrooms. 2 Car Garage
$
$
$
Food
One Meal a Day
$
Two Meals a Day
$
$
Three Meals a Day
$
$
$
Healthcare
No health insurance, you pay for all health-related costs.
$
Health insurance for you through your employer but no health insurance for your family members.
$
$
Health insurance for your and your family through your employer.
$
$
$
Childcare
You reuly on family and friends for childcare.
$
Childcare for two days a week.
$
$
Childcare for five days a week.
$
$
$
Transporation
Walk and/or bike everywhere.
$
Take public transportation.
$
$
Own your own car.
$
$
$
Technology
Cell Phone. No Internet Access. No Computer
$
Cell Phone. Internet Access. No Computer
$
$
Cell Phone. Internet Access. One Computer
$
$
$
Please be sure to allocate all of your budget! You are a minimum wage family with just enough to make it each month.
Progress
10%
This timer is for test purposes only: timerhere