The economy is only broken insofar as regular gameplay is broken. If your entire population is comprised of supergifted sims to the top of their career, money stops making sense.
If you play with low income families, you realize it's perfectly fine. Your bills stay low if you can only afford cheap furniture i.e..
Unfortunately, to do that, I have to use mods, to lock career progression or reset skills once they get too high.
Regular gameplay is not suited for aging off. I'm guessing it's more balanced on normal lifespan, but I'm not playing that.