This is exactly true. The pay is this low because there is a glut of cheap cobol developers in the US due to decades of off shoring. There have been 2000+ cobol developers laid off here over the past 5 years alone (medium midwest metro).
Well, supposedly there could be one in the Midwest and one in NJ, but theoretically those who do not have a job in the Midwest would be motivated to move, since their only options are:
A) Remain jobless in Midwest.
B) Switch careers in Midwest.
C) Move to NJ for immediately available position.
The bigger question is why does a COBOL dev accept work for 60k when they could make 120k in Javascript?
Structural unemployment due to ageism?