When I lived in the bay area, lots of my friends lived in shared accommodation because they actually liked living with other people. Saving money was a side effect. They usually bought a place when they got married or not long after. That's not poverty.

This is common when you're a kid out of college, but a few years go by and living with other people sucks.

Maybe I am just a frugal person, but to me, if you told me I could get a post-tax extra 10k a year switching from a 1bed apartment to a roommate situation I would always take it as long as I could find reasonable people to live with. I was pretty far from poverty when I made that decision in the SF bay area. And again, I just said they could afford a 1bed apartment, not that this was the max they could afford. You're not being charitable with interpreting my reply.

> living with roommates to save 10K a year does sound like one step above poverty.

Sounds like every college student and recent grad I've ever known.