I don't know if you've ever been self-employed, but billing out 40 hours per week is
very hard. $100 / hour can afford you a middle-class lifestyle (assuming 25-30 hours per week AND fully employed, more realistically you can fill 70-80% of your time).
$100 * 26 * 40 ⇒ $104k ⇒ and then slice off the employer portion for FICA and SS and you're looking at a pretty modest figure.