Things are definitely relative. You couldn't rent a 1 bedroom apartment in the Bay Area for my parent's mortgage on a three bedroom house, which my dad manages

Things are definitely relative. You couldn't rent a 1 bedroom apartment in the Bay Area for my parent's mortgage on a three bedroom house, which my dad manages to pay as career military. But there is huge resentment against teachers because of how much they make compared to the bottom half in town. My real concern isn't with the take home pay of the local college educated elite, but rather the tremendous gulf between what professionals make and what "regular people" make. By national standards the community doesn't have many truly wealthy, but the disparity is still there. For example, an acquaintance of mine who is a kindergarten teacher had to cancel a class field trip because her principal wasn't comfortable asking parents for $3/child to cover the busing cost. To me, that suggests a big problem with poverty.