In much of the country, a six-figure salary is a benchmark for success. That sixth digit tends to symbolize professional achievement and a degree of financial security.

But in Orange County, individuals earning up to $104,200 now qualify as “low income.”

California’s Department of Housing and Community Development released its official state income limits for 2026 on May 29. These thresholds determine who is eligible for income-restricted apartments and other housing assistance programs.

Under the new limits, one-person households in Orange County earning $104,200 per year or less qualify for low-income housing. Last year, the cut-off was $94,750.

“It just feels so crazy to me,” said Megan Junanto, a 23-year-old actuary living in Irvine. She recently received a raise putting her above the low-income threshold. But last year, she would have qualified.

“I felt like one of the most well off compared to people in my age group, and I am near low income, and last year I was low income,” Junanto said.

Housing policy experts say the ever-rising goalposts for financial stability make it hard for Orange County to retain teachers, nurses and other middle-income workers, who are needed to make a local economy function.

Despite earning relatively high incomes, some young residents feel they need to give up on the idea of buying a home in Orange County.

Junanto is able to rent an apartment with her boyfriend. But she said homeownership feels out of reach. Her immigrant parents bought a house in Garden Grove in the early 2000s on her father’s wages alone, she said. Now, the same home would cost at least $1 million.

“Those jokes about how you should have bought a house as a fetus, that definitely resonates,” Junanto said. “How hard do we have to work in order to attain that?”

High-income workers still far from achieving homeownership

According to a recent report from the California Association of Realtors, only about 16% of Orange County households earn the minimum annual income of $350,400 needed to afford the region’s median home price of $1,442,930.

Advocates for increased housing production blame local elected leaders for failing to address the region’s affordability crisis.

“By choosing to not allow new housing development, we effectively force people into being poor,” said Elizabeth Hansburg, director of People for Housing OC.

UC Irvine conducted a survey in 2024 that found 51% of residents have considered leaving Orange County. They cited the cost of housing cited as their most common concern.

Hansburg said if cities don’t update zoning and permitting rules to let developers build more apartments, townhomes and condos, workers earning around $100,000 per year will choose to look for cheaper housing elsewhere.

“They're the most likely to move out of Orange County, because those are the people whose quality of life will be most improved by lower housing costs,” Hansburg said.

What about workers earning even less?

According to a recent report from the California Housing Partnership, Orange County renters need to earn about $56 per hour, or about $116,000 on a full-time salary, in order to afford the region’s average monthly asking rent of $2,913.

Many low-income workers earn nowhere near that amount. Full-time minimum wage workers earn about a third of the county’s new $104,200 low-income limit.

Cesar Covarrubias is executive director of The Kennedy Commission, a nonprofit focused on affordable housing in the region. He said many workers typically can’t pay for rent on their own.

“People have to double up, overcrowd, have two or three families live together,” Covarrubias said.

“That burden is heavier on the low-income families,” Covarrubias said. “The higher-income families, yes, a lot of their money is going towards housing. But their income is still helping them move on and be able to survive.”

College graduates move back home 

Some young professionals are continuing to live in their childhood homes.

Joe Silva, a 26-year-old client billing analyst at an investment management company, lives with his mother and two younger brothers in a one-bedroom apartment in Santa Ana.

Silva said despite earning around $85,000 per year, his income isn’t enough to move the family into a larger two-bedroom unit.

“They want you making around two-and-a-half times whatever the rent is,” said Silva, a Claremont McKenna College graduate. “You have to make close to $110,000 to get a place.”

Silva said he worked hard in college and has progressed in his career. But he still feels behind on keeping up with Orange County housing costs.

“If you ask anyone my age, I don't think most people are even looking at owning a home at this point,” Silva said. “That's how bad it's gotten.”

Digging deeper into the data

In Orange County, workers can qualify as “low-income” while still earning more than most other workers in the county. Because of a quirk in the way the thresholds are calculated, the low-income limit is higher than the county’s median income of $97,000 for individuals.

That’s because officials weigh income data against local housing costs. When housing costs are exceptionally high, officials increase the income limits to give more people access to assistance.

“Even if you have an income that seems high by national standards, you're very likely to find housing extremely unaffordable” in Orange County, said Nicholas Marantz, an associate professor of urban planning and public policy at UC Irvine.

Marantz said the rules behind the government calculations account for this imbalance between wages and housing costs, which “results in these situations that seem, to many people, somewhat absurd.”

How OC stacks up to other counties

The state’s income limits vary depending on household size and location. A family of four is low income in Orange County if it earns $148,850 per year or less. In neighboring Los Angeles County, the cut-offs are lower: $93,300 for individuals and $133,250 for families of four.

Individuals earning six-figure salaries also qualify as low income in Santa Barbara County, as well as in many parts in and around the San Francisco Bay Area, such as Marin County, San Mateo County, Santa Clara County, Santa Cruz County and San Francisco County.

Adam Sampsell said he earns about $108,000 as a mechanical engineer. He splits rent with a roommate in the city of Orange. He said he’s earning more than many of his peers, but still feels burdened by the region’s housing costs.

“It is quite disheartening,” Sampsell said. “Even though I have this high salary, and I'll probably continue to increase my salary as I get more experience in my job, there's a very high likelihood that without marrying somebody soon, I will never be able to afford a house.”