According to the table that means you make ~2k/month. If you're broke, then I hope it's not because of health costs, and I'd say otherwise you're doing something wrong (or you have too many children, but that partially overlaps ^^).
Around 2k/month before taxes, yes, but it's more like $1700-$1800/month after (and it's been well lower than that in the past), and...
Rent in Honolulu alone is over 50% of that monthly take. So I guess he made the poor choice of being alive in a money society.
...yeah, this, Rent is nearly half my income and my living space is hardly luxurious or spacious. If I could afford to I'd find a better (but slightly more expensive) place to live.
The other half tends to mainly go to food, groceries, and yes, health costs, because this is America and even crappy insurance costs thousands of dollars a year.
I'm not
totally broke, I've actually managed to save up a bit of money over the three years I've spent here by virtue of the fact that the University pays me more for working in the summer than they do the rest of the year and I haven't been spending that extra pay much, but I also just don't buy very many things (not like I'd have space to put things anywhere if I did buy them), don't own a car, don't take vacations much (I do go back to Seattle to visit family once or twice a year, but my parents will pay for that so I don't have to), and the small amount of money I
do have saved up will eventually have to go towards paying off student loans.
TL;DR: Yeah, I make a bit less than $2k/month, and it's just barely enough to get by because living is expensive.