The standard of living for Americans doesn't depend on the pay rate of software engineers. The profit margins of software companies are already astonishingly high. No tech firm is buckling under the weight of their payroll, they are making bank.

Google's 2nd quarter financials show a 64% operating profit. Arguably there isn't enough money from these companies going back to the people who actually did the work to generate that success. They could start paying everybody double and still be making more money than any other market sector could dream of.

Depressing the wages of software engineers doesn't mean increased standard of living for Americans, it can only mean increased profit margins for stockholders.