<p>I have been teaching for 30 years in NY state. I started at $8600 a year in 1978. I now earn almost $70,000. I have a masters degree and 45 hours beyond that. My husband is also a teacher who makes the same as I. This puts us in a high income range. However we have only recently been earning this much. We will have a great pension. However, now we basically live paycheck to paycheck and are 2/3 of the way of paying for 3 kids through college with no loans for us. Our middle child is at a high cost LAC that we would not be able to afford if she wasn’t in the middle (2 in college the whole way through) Lots of institutional grant money. I feel middle class, but I hate to think of how people making less than us do it. : (</p>