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may earn an income that would be at or above the Moderate or Above -Moderate Area Median Income (AMI), but yet cannot afford to purchase or rent housing in Pleasanton. The Planning Commission and Housing Commission both commented on a statistic cited in the Housing Element Background Report, that only 8 percent of local workers reside in Pleasanton; and only 15 percent of local residents work within the city. The observation was made that providing more workforce housing opportunities could reduce commuting, with related benefits to traffic congestion and GHG emissions.2 While the first category is a critical component of Pleasanton's housing need, the Housing Element will include a range of programs and strategies aimed at increasing the supply of lower-income housing more generally; the very -low and low-income categories (though still underfunded/undersupplied), tend to be the income levels most often targeted in state and federal grant and funding programs, and through inclusionary housing. The second category then, is the suggested focus of this policy discussion, and particularly the need to provide more housing opportunities for the "workforce," referred to in the context of housing that is affordable to workers making wages that are above what is considered low- income (so as to not qualify for affordable, subsidized housing), but not enough to qualify for market -rate housing. For context regarding wages in Pleasanton, Figure 1 is based on the pre -approved data package for the Housing Element (the empirical data is from the American Community Survey (ACS), 2019 5 -year Estimates). The wages in Figure 1 can be compared to the median household income in Pleasanton of $156,400 (ACS, 2019 5 -year Estimates), and an average annual wage of $96,000 (Payscale.com). Figure 1: Wages for Jobs in Pleasanton (ACS, 2019 5 -year Estimates) 30,000 25,000 --- ---- -- -- r_ ° 20,000 as CL a 15,000 a) Y 0 10,000 8%,4,837 5,000 ----•------------ 0 — -------------------------------------- 19%,11,601 ------------------------- ---- 12%,7,331 ---------- ---- ------------- --------------- 45%,26,877 ---------- - 45%,26,877 Less than $9,999 $10,000 to $24,999 $25,000 to $49,999 $50,000 to $74,999 $75,000 or more Jobs in Pleasanton 2 Although Pleasanton has relatively large in -flows and outflows of people commuting to and from jobs, these levels are relatively comparable with many cities in our immediate region (e -'g. San Ramon, Walnut Creek). These rates are slightly better than those in Dublin (approximately 4.7% of Dublin residents work in Dublin), and somewhat worse than Livermore (20 percent of Livermore residents also work in Livermore). Housing Element Update, P21-0751 Planning Commission 3of10