In Silicon Valley, just nine households hold 15% of wealth: report

(KRON) — Income inequality in the Silicon Valley has grown to a point that 15% of the affluent region’s wealth is held by just nine households. That’s according to the findings of the 2025 Silicon Valley Pain Index put out by San Jose State University.

The annual study aims to “provide an efficient, easily digestible, statistical overview of structured inequalities to inform policy and practice” in the region. The study also seeks to measure Santa Clara County’s performance as a “human rights county,” which it declared itself to be in 2018.

In addition to a disproportionate amount of the affluent, tech-centric region belonging to just a handful of households, the report also found Hispanic workers earn just .33 cents for every dollar earned by non-Hispanic white workers in San Jose, Sunnyvale and Santa Clara.

The study also found that the wealth divide in Silicon Valley has widened at twice the rate of the U.S. overall in the past decade. San Jose, according to the report, is not no. 1 most expensive large city in the U.S. to live in with monthly expenses of $3,504. The amount of money a household needs to make annually to afford a house in San Jose is $468,252.

Globally, San Jose is ranked fourth in terms of “impossibly unaffordable” cities with a cost of living that’s 81% above the national average.

At 10,394, Santa Clara County has the highest number of unhoused residents of all nine Bay Area counties. This could potentially be aggravated by the fact that some 54,582 San Jose households don’t have access to an affordable home.

With a gap of $126,800 between Silicon Valley’s highest and lowest earners, the average renter in the San Jose region needs to make $136,532 annually to keep apartment rents at 30% of the median income. The study also found that the San Jose Police Department ranked no. 1 among Bay Area law enforcement agencies for its K-9 unit’s dogs biting someone (167 bites.)

Of those bitten, a majority (115 bites) were directed at LatinX and African American residents.