EDIT: I guess I should add I really did not care for the work and stopped after 2-3 years to start my own company. I do a lot of the same work today, but as the Founder, I obviously control the company and my workload.
But if the OP is really distraught about making money in tech, they will find their economics background of use.
My economics professor addressed the reason for the difference in class very simply. He noted there were over 350 applicants for the English prof position. Only 3 people applied for the economics position.
So if anything, $37k was too high for English and $85k was not nearly enough for econ.
The moment your same exact job can be replaced by a worker willing to do it for less is the moment salaries start to fall.
For the majority of professional jobs out there, there's a vast oversupply of labor, and thus the unemployment rate for professionals is much higher than the overall unemployment rate would suggest.
Software engineering is one of the few areas where there some semblance of balance between supply and demand. But, this too will eventually go away. There's nothing that's stopping the supply of Software engineers from growing. Indeed, the Stack overflow surveys suggest there's a huge wave of junior SEs joining the industry. I predict in 15 years, SEs will be in such high oversupply that they will no longer have an advantage in the market place.
Of course you likely won't have great pay from the start, but keep doing work for a few years and keep improving your skills and you should be fine.
My friends have geology and psychology degrees working in technology companies making $130 - $180k/year as non-developers.
Don't let your degree stop you from doing what you want, the resources are all there.
How did you ever make that connection? Have economists ever been paid well?