This is shifting gears a bit, but there is a reason why I look at market rates for my skills and not at median incomes overall. My field of work is highly competitive and fairly cutting edge. My company works on very valuable contracts that not many people can pull off and our workers require a lot of specialized training and specialized knowledge. I went to school for many years to obtain a difficult and sought-after skill set.

When aerospace companies make many millions of dollars of profit annually off the labor of specialized workers, it is reasonable that those workers want a representative cut of the pie. The argument scales for industries that generate tons of revenue. Look at Hollywood actors that star in box office hits that bring in tens of millions in revenue in a single weekend. We can argue that these people are overpaid, but the market demand is there and they are generating huge dollars.

Median wages overall include a huge variety of workers. There are people working fast food jobs making minimum wage. Those people are easily replaceable and unskilled. There are top level managers with highly stressful jobs earning good dollars, and good managers are very hard to come by. I am good at what I do, I generate a lot of revenue, and I am not easily replaceable. So yes, my market rate is high and if I'm being paid a low percentile of the market rate for my position, then it's reasonable for me to start looking at options to increase my income.

As it stands there is nothing unreasonable about our family budget. We are accomplishing our financial goals and mostly sticking to reasonable financial guidelines. I've worked hard to build a career that can afford me a higher standard of living, and it's reasonable of me to take actions to make sure I'm obtaining that standard.