While the tax table is useful in defining tax peramteers, the human element of the story's thesis is MIA. While this reviewer cannot speak for bus drivers, as someone who taught school for decades, I could certainly summarize the typical teacher's tax situation with this bit of imergery: IF YOU WORK AND GET PAID FOR ONLY THREE WEEKS OF EACH MONTH, IMAGINE VOLUNTEERING THAT ONE REMAINING WEEK EACH MONTH AND HAVING THE GOVERNMENT GET YOUR CHECK FOR THAT WEEK. Essentially, that is the tax code for teachers and probably most city ,state ,and county employees. It is ostensibly what most people fail to understand about teachers. They believe that teachers, fire and police are paid well compared with other fields of work, yet do not know about the high rates of taxes, not to mention closed-shop union dues and the lack of accessibilty to social security retirement in many states. Thus, this article is lacking in such human examples as stated. It further does not address other expenses tied to their jobs related to workers' compensation, for example, and other mitigating circumstances that serve to explain whty the American worker feels as though they are waist-deep in financial quicksand under the constraits of the current economic quagmire they find themselves mired in.