Getting By On $100,000 a Year Getting By On$100,000 a Year Order at Amazon.com GETTING BY ON $100,000 A YEAR (And Other Sad Tales) That was a preposterously large sum when this collection of magazine pieces appeared in the late Seventies, though even then there were more than a few who failed to see the humor in it. Today, it’s become less and less funny even to the middle class, who may, in a two-income family in a high-cost locale, be bumping up into just such straitened circumstances. A.T.