San Francisco’s Budget: Out of Sync with Reality

Part 2 of 13: The Commuter-Adjusted Population

In part one of this series, we looked at how San Francisco’s city/county budget ballooned even as the city’s resident population declined. But residents aren’t the only people the city serves—San Francisco’s government also supports a significant daytime population of workers who commute into the city.

And when we adjust for that, the budget imbalance looks even worse.

In 2019, San Francisco’s workday population would regularly swell by roughly 270,000 net daily commuters — people who worked in our offices, ate in our restaurants, and relied on our public infrastructure– to 1.15M total. Today, that number has plummeted. With the rise of hybrid and remote work, the daily commuter population has fallen to a blended average of about 150,000, and San Francisco’s workday population averages only 980k.

That’s a staggering 15% drop.

When we account for this shift and look at San Francisco’s “commuter-adjusted population,” the scale of the budget mismatch becomes even clearer. Compared to pre-pandemic norms, the San Francisco city/county budget is now approximately $3.1 billion too high—and that’s based on our own recent past, not some theoretical benchmark.

When we account for this shift and look at San Francisco’s “commuter-adjusted population,” the scale of the budget mismatch becomes even clearer.

In short: the San Francisco government is spending like it’s still serving a city that continued its pre-pandemic growth trend, when in fact, the population it supports has shrunk dramatically.

San Francisco’s budget needs to reflect the city we have today and the needs of our people for the actual future ahead of us.

Sources: US Census, CA Department of Finance, SFGov.org, Association of Bay Area Governments, San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News, San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco Standard. Full cites available on request. 

Marie Hurabiell is an eighth-generation San Franciscan and a founder and board member of a mental health technology company. She was previously a vice chair of the Presidio Trust board, ran her own law firm, and was a general counsel. She is currently the executive director of ConnectedSF.

Originally published on The Voice of San Francisco on May 6, 2025 by Marie Hurabiell