The same thing happens with teachers, nurses, firemen, police... I think the reason they generally don't make more money is many people have a passion for doing those jobs (ask ten kids what they want to be when they grow up), but they aren't super difficult, so there's a large supply.
Teachers, nurses, firemen, and police officers would like to have a word with you.
Programming may be mathematically complex and difficult to learn, but it does not corner the market on difficulty.
Try adapting a teaching curriculum for online learning for fourth graders, working 16 shifts in an ICU during a pandemic while trying to keep people safe, planning and organizing a response to statewide wildfires, or de-escalating complex interpersonal issues dealing with crime, safety, and mental illness on the daily.
Do any of those sound easy to you?
We've been flooded with reports of how we are not adapting to the change to online learning well.
Working in the ICU during a pandemic is not a complex task; the procedures for doing so are fairly simple steps posted on charts everywhere. There are degrees of complexity to being a nurse depending on the level of certification you have. Physician's assistants have abilities fairly close to a doctor.
Planning and organizing responses to state wildfires is far outside the scope of a firefighter. There are a very small number of people that plan and organize, and a large number of people who implement.
I do not think de-escalating is well-embraced form of policing in the US. If it is, we are doing a terrible job. Police in the US kill drastically more people than other countries. It's not uncommon for European countries to go a full year without police killing a single citizen. There are, of course, more complexities to it than that, but it would be hard to reconcile a doctrine of de-escalation with the absurd number of police shootings we have.
Doing those things well is hard. The fact of the matter is that there is a distinct lack of expectation that those things will be executed well. No one is going to be punished for online schooling failing, botched responses to wildfires, or for shooting a homeless person. In the face of that, they're certainly not herculean feats of strength.
Maybe there's something different going on there since government salaries don't respond normally to market supply and demand. Perhaps a better way to track the true value of those jobs is by looking at private sector counterparts, such as security contractors or teachers at private schools.