I made less money at the end of that than i did at my prior position where i made 70K

Exactly! There is a spot in there where you lose money by jumping into the next tax bracket. It's sort of in the 'upper middle class' area. You start to really lose a lot of money. The only way to break free is to manage to make your way to being a millionaire. And we know that's not always possible.

My wife did a rush project earlier this year where she made around $10k in one week (VERY unusual). This particular company pays her through a temp agency which automatically takes taxes out. They took more than 60% in taxes. All I know is, we better get some of that back at the end of the year. She worked a ridiculous number of hours to get the job done, and that is not a typical paycheck at all.