On its face, the county's poverty rate makes it sound as if San Diego is doing much better than the rest of the nation. But because the local cost of living is so much higher than the national average, the percentage of comparatively poor people is likely to be much higher than the official poverty rate suggests.
“What the federal government considers poverty would be extreme poverty in San Diego,” said Kelly Cunningham, economist for the San Diego Institute for Policy Research. “For a family of four with an income of $20,000 in San Diego, it would be hard to find enough food to exist, much less find adequate housing.”
