@henman
Not sure if baiting or not.
$2000 a month is a perfectly reasonable amount to stay alive. In the midwest of the US where the cost of living is low. Move into a city, not even a major one like NY or LA, and the cheapest studio one room apartments will run you $1300 by itself, without utilities. Utilities and internet will run you another $200, food if frugal for 2 people will run you $100, transportation, even when using public transport which is notoriously absent in US cities will run you $50 a month per person, or if you have a car up to $100 per person. If you have car insurance and pay renter's insurance it will run you another $150 -$400 depending on your credit score. If you graduated from college and are thus burdened with a student loan, then you've got that on the monthly as well and that can range very wildly. This isn't taking into account cell phone bills, costs of living, personal entertainment (whether it be books, netflix, video games, or some sort of sport), potential medical bills, clothing, vehicle repairs, and more.
Now of course there are work arounds for all of this. Moving in with flatmates will cost you less money per rent. Public transport or walking if your job's location allows cuts down on insurance and bills. If you never graduated college or even went to college, then those bills won't gnaw at your heels. If you operate below what would be considered to be the poverty line then you can absolutely get by.
But that's not the ideal environment to raise a child. Yes hundreds of millions of people do it each year but that doesn't change that it simply starts the child off on a poor footing in life. There are plenty of studies proving this. Minor deficiencies in vitamins minerals at young age result in lower IQ. Less access to books results in the same. Lower income families and thus poorer education facilites result in a smaller percentage of children getting into college.
In short or TL;DR, yes you can get by with $2000 a month. But not in Tokyo, and you probably shouldn't burden your child with that.
That said, based on the translation of this, I think that the sum mentioned in this story is actually $220K USD a month rather than Yen as she implies that she has a good house (which that $2000 usd would not be able to sustain) and that she may be in line to become the director in the future which would put her at a SIGNIFICANT salary.
So TL;DR 2, your broad stoke sweeping statements are both incorrect, and based on an incorrect premise in the first place.
Thanks for reading my TEDx Talk.