Jobseekers hunt for second (or third) jobs in a county where income and cost-of-living are divergent

San Bernardino County is the largest county in the nation with over 2.2 million residents calling it home and enjoying a cost of living that’s below other surrounding counties. However, that number has been sharply rising since COVID and hasn’t slowed down since. Inflation outpaced household income growth in 2022 and data from 2023 shows the cost of living for a single adult in San Bernardino County without children to be around $57,000 a year.

That’s well below the median household income of around $85,000 a year for the area. However, as soon as kids become part of that household, the cost of living can quickly rise to over $100,000. The county’s unemployment rate sits at 5.9% as of August 2025, which is higher than the Bureau of Labor Statistics national unemployment rate of 4.3% for the same period. Nearly 9 million people in the United States work at least two jobs as well, and that was the case for job seekers and students I talked to at a recent job fair at Copper Mountain College held earlier this month.

I also spoke with Kevin Elridge, he’s the Business Services Supervisor for San Bernardino County, and he says that a lot of job seekers are coming in already with side hustles on their mind.

Kevin: “Well, one of the things that’s happening within the young generation, like I met a few young people here today, they have this entrepreneurial mindset. I was coaching him, I said, ‘okay, well, how’s your adventure and entrepreneurship working for you?’ He said, it’s not working great. I said, ‘it’s probably because you’re not, you don’t have the means to fund that.’ So my recommendation to any young person is to get into a career, contribute where you can, do the best job that you can, but in your off time, work on your entrepreneurial interest, but also use your funds from your job to help fund it versus not having anything and you’re trying to go set up a store, it’s not going to happen.”

A few of the students I talked to that day were just looking for a job to afford the basics, like Ambrosia Jones and Clay Miller, both 19.

Ambrosia: “Yeah, I’m just exploring right now, really. I do already have a job, but I’d like to have another one because I’m trying to focus on getting my own place. So maybe another job would help with that. I need to be able to have two incomes because (landlords require) three times rent, I’m barely making like $600 where I work right now. So maybe if I get another one that’s also higher pay, I would be able to get my own place and save that way.”

Clay: “It’s really difficult this young, having no credit, just figuring it out.”

Adam Sombrano works at Copper Mountain Community College in their Career Services Department, and he talked to me about some of the struggles he sees students dealing with.

Adam: ” The job market right now, it’s hard. You hear stories of people putting in hundreds of applications and not getting a response. Nowadays, a lot of these jobs, they don’t do paper applications anymore. They want you to go online or they want you to use some sort of app or something. Some students, they want that six figure job right out of college… and it’s not always like that. You have to start somewhere. And a lot of jobs are entry level. They start anywhere from $40,000 to $50,000 to $60,000 a year. And letting them know, you’re going to have to start there first before you eventually move up into a higher-paying position.”

Copper Mountain College’s Career Services provides a lot of basics for job seekers and that’s not just education. They also provide clothing for interviews and guidance on how to even begin a job search… something that can feel daunting to people like Latiyah Holloway, who knows she wants a job but she just doesn’t have the experience for most positions.

Latiyah: “When you’re looking at different career opportunities, it’s always you need two to three years of experience. I don’t have that. And a lot of times, jobs don’t want somebody that’s just new into the field. They don’t want somebody that’s entry level. They want somebody that has experience behind them. And that’s a fear of mine because I keep getting rejections because I don’t have any experience.

I’m just hoping for stability. Financial, mental stability, all of the stabilities. I want to be able to be happy when I wake up and I go to work and I’m like, ‘oh my God, I’m so excited!’ Somewhere where I can plant my feet and I can stay there and not feel like it’s uncertain that I’m going to have the job in the next couple of months.”

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