[lucysmom]

When you add all of the costs associated with having a second income in a family (second car, work clothing, child care, stupid government programs that are nothing more than expensive day care, etc.), you often find that a second spouse who works for a salary of $60,000 per year is actually working for less than the minimum wage.

And yet, when I was growing up, our next door neighbor was a single mom (her husband divorced her to marry his secretary). She was able to earn enough without more than a high school education to meet all those expenses and buy a house too.

Oddly enough, tax rates are lower today then they were back then.

[Alberta's Child]

Yes, but I'll bet her standard of living was much lower then. She probably didn't have cable television, a cell phone, all sorts of home electronics, etc. Take these things out of a typical family budget today, and you'd be amazed at how far a dollar can go.