According to the US government's definition[0, 1], affordable housing is less than 30% of income. Which type of income it is is up for debate but it seems the general consensus is gross income, though I can't find an authoritative source on that. If it is gross income, then it stands to reason that 77% of net income may actually be fairly close to 40% gross income. And, while 33% above the affordability limit (30% of gross income), it's not terribly outside "a little higher than sustainable levels" -- though that's a very subjective phrase.

[0] https://www.huduser.gov/portal/pdredge/pdr-edge-featd-articl...

[1] https://www.hud.gov/program_offices/comm_planning/affordable...

I’m not sure what sort of accounting tricks you are doing.

40% of gross income becomes 77% of net income given 48% of deductions. 48% of deductions for a grad student making $25k a year would also be insane.

Yeah, for a take home income of 2,200 per month in santa cruz, your before tax income would be about 2,666. 1,700 of that is 77% pretax and 64% after tax.

As a PhD candidate in my last years I was paid 2500 gross per month (for 9 months of the year), take-home was 2250 or so.

70% of net is 1575. 1575 is 63% of my gross pay.

Remember, these workers are paid so little they are in the bottom tax brackets at 10-12%.