My fiance is a middle school teacher. In their general studies class, they ran a "life" project. Each kid was paired up and given a theoretical baby and a job with an up-to-date salary. Kids chose whether to rent or buy a house with a mortgage based on Zillow prices in the area. They were then given a sheet of costs: daycare costs, groceries, 2 required cars, and religious expenses. Many of the costs were simplified--groceries for $500 a month for example, and a single mother (odd number of students) was given additional leniencies to make the math work better for her at the cost of reality.

"This is what my fiance and I make together" she says to a pair who are in the negative, just like two other couples in her five pairs.

Her takeaway is that this was a great interdisciplinary project between math, science, finances and how religion played a part--they started the project with faux wedding ceremonies (and ended it with a lesson on how divorces work with our religion). But, you know, my main takeaway from her summary of it is that wages aren't really cutting it for a lot of jobs that should be giving good wages.