Who can afford to live here? Not restaurant workers Teachers and First responders don't fair well either



Click through to see how Tacoma and Seattle's markets compare. less Here's what affordability looks like for the area's first responders, teachers, doctors and restaurant workers. Trulia used the median wage data for each occupation, and for two-income households in the same occupation. Here's what affordability looks like for the area's first responders, teachers, doctors and restaurant workers. Trulia used the median wage data for each occupation, and for two-income households in the same ... more Photo: JOSHUA TRUJILLO, SEATTLEPI.COM Photo: JOSHUA TRUJILLO, SEATTLEPI.COM Image 1 of / 14 Caption Close Who can afford to live here? Not restaurant workers 1 / 14 Back to Gallery

You may not need a new report to tell you that Seattle is increasingly unaffordable, but new numbers from Trulia show that the city is varying shades of unaffordable depending on what you do.

Trulia's latest affordability report argues that median home prices don't tell the whole story – which is true, considering that the national median list price for an American house clocks in at $254,900, according to the report. In a Seattleite's dream, maybe.

In order to better shed light on how unaffordable housing has become across the country today, Trulia compared the incomes of teachers, first responders, restaurant workers and doctors across nearly 100 major U.S. metros to see where people are struggling to afford a home in the communities they serve.

Though Seattle didn't rank in the top ten unaffordability for any of the occupations (that almost always went to California and its various, high-priced markets), that doesn't mean we're not making it hard for people to live where they work: Just 20 percent of listings were affordable for teachers living on their own in the Seattle area, and just 1.32 percent for restaurant workers.

Doctors were the highest wage earners of any group examined, could afford 85 percent of the market in Seattle.

"Affordability" in the report is defined strictly; it's measured only as spending 31 percent or less of one's monthly income on housing. There are many folks in Seattle, at least, who are using far more of their paycheck to live in the city. But, as Trulia notes, median home prices don't tell the full story.

Click through the slideshow above to see how Seattle and Tacoma's markets compare for each category of worker (using the latest median wage data). Then read the full report and see how our metros compare nationally.