Wait, how does that work? In California, the effective tax rate for an engineer is going to be in the ballpark of 40–45%. If somebody is making about double the

Wait, how does that work? In California, the effective tax rate for an engineer is going to be in the ballpark of 40–45%. If somebody is making about double then their income after taxes is about the same as your income before taxes. Even with a relatively expensive house (and high property tax), the effective rate is still not going to go far above 50%.