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Pre-COVID you couldn't find a 1br in a safe neighborhood for less than $3-3.5k. Less than 2k gets you something in the Tenderloin, which is the opposite of safe. Add food (~$700 because high cost of living), car payments (~$450 for an econobox), car insurance (~$200 because SF has a lot of break-ins and theft), health insurance, utilities (also expensive as fuck in NorCal due to cost of living), phone/internet bills, and you can realistically hit $5k/mo in expenses.

According to this calculator [1] post-tax a $100k salary nets you $5500/mo in San Francisco. This is mostly due to high state taxes. So you are basically living paycheck to paycheck despite making 6 figures and living a pretty standard life, which is moronic no matter how much you look at it.

[1]: https://smartasset.com/taxes/paycheck-calculator#XhSaiPp5Sy