[resters]

My point is that this is not the case. When you take out high Federal and State taxes, high rents, tuition, etc., it's about equivalent to $80K/year income without kids. Seriously.

[IanCal]

Can you break that down? That's 420,000 pre tax and if taxes are 50% (I'd guess lower but I don't know the US system) that's more than 200k left over.

Smartasset puts the take-home at 333k, 270k more than a household bringing in 80k. https://smartasset.com/taxes/new-york-tax-calculator#gO77UAY...

How are kids adding a quarter of a million dollars per year in costs?