“People who don’t have money don’t understand the stress,” said Alan Dlugash, a partner at accounting firm Marks Paneth & Shron LLP in New York who specializes in financial planning for the wealthy. “Could you imagine what it’s like to say I got three kids in private school, I have to think about pulling them out? How do you do that?”
“If you’re making $50,000 and your salary gets down to $40,000 and you have to cut, it’s very severe to you,” Dlugash said. “But it’s no less severe to these other people with these big numbers.”
A Wall Street executive who made 10 times that amount and now has declining income along with a divorce, private school tuitions and elderly parents also suffers, he said.
“These people never dreamed they’d be making $500,000 a year,” he said, “and dreamed even less that they’d be broke.”
Pretty sure Alan is the one who doesn't understand. Having to decide between private school tuition that you can no longer afford and going into debt is in every fucking way less severe than having to decide between food and health insurance for your children.