Too many other factors at play, namely, cost of living depending on locale. Phil and I live perfectly comfortably on around $68K. Own a nice (in my opinion) home, two vehicles (2004 and 1995).
this is quite interesting to me. not to get too specific, Memphis and i make considerably more than you do, but we live in a (nice) one-bedroom apartment and share one 10-year old car (though we can both either walk or metro to work). owning a home in and around DC is going to be a big challenge. the average one-bedroom condo in DC itself starts around $450K, and if you want a "real" home (townhouse) you're easily starting around $500K. the nicest houses (3 bedrooms, 2 baths or more) probably start around $900K. and this is just DC -- NYC, SanFran, Boston and parts of LA are even more expensive. and, now, everyone demands 20% down, so we have to save $100K to even begin to look at a house. we make plenty so actually affording a mortgage isn't a problem, but saving up for the down payment is daunting. granted, we do have "nice" things and a "nice" lifestyle and we go on "nice" vacations -- and, for now, since there's no real *need* for a home, that's fine. i'd rather build up savings, enjoy my life, and rent a low-maintenance, comfortable apartment than invest my life savings into a property that will require a large amount of upkeep. it seems a little bit strange and almost anti-American, but we've even discussed never owning a home and living in (nice) apartments our whole life, or maybe we buy something small when we retire to the desert or southern california. and all this is fine -- we're city folk, and we like to travel and eat well and walk to things. but it does kind of shock me that you can afford a lifestyle on $68K that would require at least $300K+ a year in a big city.
and on another note, and, sure, this is going to seem like upper class whining, but a very good friend of mine is a lawyer at a fairly high powered law firm. he works, very hard, and sort of immediately wound up with three kids very soon after getting married. he makes a substantial income but he and his wife moved out to a tony suburb with an excellent school system. why? private school is unaffordable to them. we're talking a big city lawyer who was himself easily put through private school by his lawyer parents -- he makes comparatively the same salary his father made at the same age in the 1980s, but the cost of living has skyrocketed, so the trappings of the upper classes doesn't buy what it used to. so what has this to do with the poverty level? what it's going to take are the upper classes (but not megarich) who make between, say, $150-$300K a year who start coming to the conclusion that what was promised to them if they played the game right -- get good grades, go to the best schools, go to the best grad schools, get the best jobs -- are no longer attainable because even these upper pieces of the pie have been put out of reach to even them by the superrich. not asking for sympathy, i doubt any of them would ever trade places with anyone, but it's harder to get by on $200K in a big city when you have kids than you might think, but politicians listen more when the rich start whining.