As I remember, and I could be remembering wrong, you got caught in the Worldcom buzzsaw, which couldn't have been a picnic. I hope things are getting better for you.

I'm currently "between contracts," and since my wife can't work full time with her MS, makes us a 0.5 income family right now. I'm self-employed, and know quite well what "tight" means. On the other hand, when times are good, they're pretty good. Did all right last year, for example. If I land that DARPA contract next month, things will look better. It should be pointed out that my own personal income history has not coincided at all with the general economic cycles, so I guess there really isn't anyone else I can blame. Dang.

What I was trying to point out with my dissection of the chart is not that being a one-income family is simple (after all, the chart itself is a radical oversimplification), but that a lot of assumptions are made that need not be necessarily true. Also, I was irritated that the article did not point out the tax bite as a major problem. Now, for all I know, the original book had a whole chapter on taxes, but this article didn't bring it up, and it was the obvious tall pole in the tent from that chart.

I found a page that had a number of article links on this book.

As best as I could find, not one reference mentions the tax rates as a contributing factor. And they are.

In case someone thinks I'm just taking that simple chart's word for it, check this out.