Spoke to someone making $34 an hour with a master’s degree.
That’s $5,500 a month before anything.
After taxes, health insurance, and retirement contributions they take home $3,950.
Rent is $1,850.
That leaves $2,100 for food, gas, car insurance, student loans, phone, and every single thing that goes wrong.
A master’s degree.
$34 an hour.
And they’re one unexpected bill away from a bad month.
This is what we called making it.