For most families today, this question is a no-brainer. Except for professional people at the top of the pay scale, it takes at least two incomes just to survive. It also helps the normal family build savings and give their children a more than subsistence lifestyle.

What I'd like to emphasize is the fact that even single people often need more than one source of income to get ahead in life. For one thing, a single person just starting out has a harder "row to hoe" than a young married couple where both are working, but still don't have children. This changes fast when children arrive, but to begin with, the single person faces the same rent, utility, insurance expenses that the dual-working married family does. Even groceries aren't that much higher when cooking for two (they aren't cheaper, no matter what anyone says). Extra income is just as needed by most single people as it is for families.

This honestly doesn't change much as you age, married or single. For many years I worked full-time in business or for a local college. I also taught at least one class a semester at the college, and I wrote for magazines in my so-called "spare-time." During these years, my late-husband was able to start a business of his own because we had "back-up" money. After it took off (the usual time-about two years), he was able to quit his part-time job. He did still keep an agricultural harvesting business for a few weeks each summer that we'd also set up until the main business was so busy that he could not. At which point, we'd saved enough money to buy our own farm-and he still took off enough time each summer to do some of the harvest himself. For him, this was a labor of love, just like my writing ventures always have been for me.

In the end, ill health on his part and also a real slump in the industry dwindled the main business. However, we'd managed to save enough and had enough other interests so that when my husband died, I faced single life with enough money to tide me through even if I was no longer young enough to work full time either.

The part-time extra job can take many forms. Some people are good at sales. Multi-Level marketing can work for them (just don't ask me to be on your download; this is NOT my area of expertise). Others make significant money selling with eBay or Amazon. I do fair with books at Amazon although that has dwindled over the years since everyone is selling books on line these days. I did a good stint with

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