> But I think it has mostly to do with the economy.
I don't think so. The majority of my freelance work is web development, and I bill at least double that - $100 to as much as $300/hr if I can get away with it, and only web development, because I know nothing about design and other things and will freely admit to it. I don't really do anything specialized, I just have a list of former and current clients from the past few years who are all very happy, and nothing fancy there either. New clients are often through word-of-mouth, which I've very much enjoyed as many clients referred to me by a former client that I enjoyed working with are usually a joy to work with as well. Oh, and not so much PHP, but mostly Rails, occasionally weirder stuff (Java, perl!). Note that the hourly rate is not what I usually offer to clients, I give them a project rate based on what they want. People seem to be fine enough paying five figures for a completed project, not so much billed specifically by hours (unless the situation demands such a thing).
The only thing that may make a difference here is that I live in Los Angeles, where there are lots of potential clients, the cost of living is cringe-worthy, and to ask too little is to ask for trouble as a freelancer. I very much doubt my web dev skills could pull in that kind of money in, say, somewhere in Montana. And the very extremes of my rate are extremes. $300/hr, if you want me to pull allnighters to get something done in one week. $100 for those super long projects that just drag on forever and you're not actually doing anything significant..
Anyway, if I had a useful suggestion, it would be to stop looking on sites where most of the projects are ridiculously simplistic or skills are undervalued...like craigslist. I used to eye the local jobs via rss of craigslist's software jobs and such, and ugh, it was all listings like "oh we want 10 years exp with x" and offering some ridiculous pittance at best, and "will trade (your skills) for (my...skills?)" at worst. There's some reasonable contract work to be had on like dice.com, and there is nothing quite like networking with your local community and going from there.
Be assertive about your hourly rate, but not too much. Anyone that isn't coming to the table with a good budget isn't worth working with in the long term, because they're also the same jerks that'll try to weasel their way out of paying for the extra work they want done and such. But you know your skills and your limits, and your clients need to feel that they got their money's worth out of you. Also, keep in mind that charging more than someone else might really does make people think you're worth it. I don't usually get bundled into the "my next door neighbor's kid can do this website for minimum wage" or "what a ripoff" groups, more like the "this person knows what we need and gets it done right and on time and is worth the expense" group. :p
If I lose projects to someone else over the price, so be it. I need to be desperately in need of work to be willing to work on a project while extremely underpaid, and even then I had better still be getting something else in exchange to make it worthwhile. I accept everything from cookies and sushi lunch to some serious credibility gain (i.e. volunteering for a good cause).