In growth of wealth gap, we're No. 1

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In a city where a two-bedroom condo in the Mission was on the rental market a few weeks ago for $10,500 a month and alleys all over downtown are dotted with makeshift homeless encampments, it may be obvious.

But San Francisco's stark income inequality has moved out of conventional wisdom territory and into the land of statistical fact.

The Brookings Institution, a policy research center in Washington, D.C., just published a study showing the gap between San Francisco's wealthy residents and its poor ones is growing faster than in any other city in the nation.

We're No. 1! Sigh.

Households at the 20th percentile in the city bring in $21,313 annually. Households at the 95th percentile bring in $353,576 - or 16.6 times more than those at the 20th percentile mark. (The figures are from 2012 census data, meaning San Francisco's ratio is probably even higher now that the tech boom is in full throttle.)

That 16.6 figure is the second biggest in the country, trailing Atlanta, where the rich make 18.8 times more than the poor. Atlanta's ratio is only bigger because that city's poor are even worse off than ours, bringing in just $14,850 a year. The national average, by the way, is a ratio of 9.1.

Where San Francisco comes out on top - or bottom depending on your perspective - is when you compare income disparity in 2012 versus 2007, before the recession. San Francisco's households at the 20th percentile saw their salaries drop $4,309 in those five years, whereas those at the 95th percentile saw theirs rise $27,815 during that time span. Dollars were adjusted for inflation.

(Note to fellow English majors: We're almost done with the math segment of this column. Hang in there.)

The 2012 ratio between what the rich and poor earn (16.6) versus the same ratio from 2007 (12.7) is where San Francisco is tops. No other city saw the gap grow that much.

While the study presented incomes for just those two levels, we asked its author for more. Households at the 50th percentile in San Francisco earn $73,012 each year, and those at the 80th percentile make $160,753. Every level we looked at has lost ground since 2007 except, you guessed it, those at the 95th percentile mark.

So why should anybody care beyond getting alternately annoyed by people wearing Google Glass devices or sleeping in your apartment building's doorway? (Today's Rorschach test: which behavior is more aggravating?)

Alan Berube, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and author of the study, said economic diversity is important in a city. But rather than worrying about narrowing the gap between the rich and poor, the important thing is ensuring the poor can climb into the middle class and keep living in the city while they do it, he said.

"These workers are part of the fabric of a city economy," he said. "It's labor that businesses need in retail and hospitality. The city economy doesn't work as well when they have to live an hour and a half away and commute to their jobs."

But another concern, he said, is whether San Francisco will keep being the progressive city it claims to be.

"I think making room for lower-income people in your city is part of what it means to be progressive," he said.

Some San Franciscans scoffed when Mayor Ed Lee told the New York Times in a recent article called "The Mayor of Resentment City" that city officials hadn't paid enough attention to the middle class - and defined that segment as those making "maybe $80,000 to $150,000."

Crazy as it may seem, that income is square in the middle to upper-middle class - and doesn't go very far when shopping for an apartment or house in San Francisco.

Try making it here on $13,000. That's what Kurt Corwin must do after a series of health problems meant he had to quit his work as a waiter and live on Social Security checks.

The fourth-generation San Franciscan - a 65-year-old Santa Claus lookalike - moved into a public housing high-rise at 1880 Pine St. in June. He pays a third of his income to the Housing Authority in rent and wanted to show me the elevator there that's been inoperable for six weeks.

There's a second, smaller elevator that usually works, but Corwin can barely squeeze his scooter into it. The elevators at public housing high-rises all over the city are constantly breaking down, stranding elderly and disabled tenants. This in a city with a budget of almost $8 billion a year.

The Housing Authority says that new federal money means the elevators will be fully functional within 18 months - and that the big elevator at 1880 Pine should be working again this week.

Asked what he thought of the Brookings study, Corwin said, "That doesn't surprise me at all. Let's face it - there are people who can afford to live where they want to, and everybody else takes what's left over.

"It is what it is, and I think it's going to continue trending that way," he continued. "Look at all the high-rises they're building downtown."

Something tells us those will come with fully functional elevators.

Quote of the week

"The 4-foot railing on the Golden Gate Bridge is the equivalent of a loaded gun in the middle of a mental ward." Kevin Hines, who survived a jump from the Golden Gate Bridge, on the importance of installing a suicide barrier there