[rdouble]

My friend is a high school teacher and her husband is a civil engineer in Albany. They make about $150K total. ($65K+$85K) They have two kids and I'd say they are pretty middle class. They seem to have a lot more feeling of security than most of the software engineers in the area, even though the engineers have higher wages. Their house is a lot smaller than it would be if they lived somewhere like Minnesota, though.