Sonoma residents spend the most on housing, Windsor has highest median income

Data from the Sonoma County city profiles shows that Sonoma City residents spend 48.5% of their income on housing, while Windsor residents had the highest median income in 2021.

The details were pulled from the city profiles by the Sonoma County Economic Development Board and ESRI Bao (ArcGIS) for current 2022 data. Windsor had the highest median income of $115,310 per year while Rohnert Park had the lowest at $81,073 per year.

“We’ll report the median income because that’s the middle value,” said Kate Fosburgh, a research fellow with the Sonoma County Economic Development Board. “Average can sometimes be skewed more by the outliers, so if there are a few people making more money, that will bring up the average more than the median will.”

The data also found that homeowners in Sonoma spend nearly 49% of earned income on housing, the highest in the county.

Windsor homeowners spent the lowest percentage of income, just over 30%, on housing.

Nina Cheek, a workforce innovation and public policy fellow with the Sonoma County Economic Development Board, said the rule of thumb is a mortgage should typically be between 28% and 32% of a homeowners earned income.

However, this rule of thumb excludes other housing expenses, such as utilities.

“(The data) is really important when we are looking at socioeconomic disparities and how we address them,” she said. “The first step is this data.”

Sara Edwards is the business reporter for The Press Democrat. You can reach her at 707-521-5487 or sara.edwards@pressdemocrat.com. Follow her on Twitter @sedwards380.