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Comment by ricardobeat | Hacker News Reader

We hear about 100k+/year salaries for software engineers here on HN every day. Why would salaries be so high (almost 3x the median income) if there is no shortage of workers?

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Alan Greenspan makes this point in his book. Educational disparity is the THE primary driver of income inequality in the US.

Too few people graduate with the skills for highly technical, quantitative, or scientific careers, and therefore the supply of those skills relative to demand drives a very high premium.

Many of these salaries are in Silicon Valley, where the cost of living is sky-high. It takes a six figure salary to live decently in these areas. I've seen a number of posts and comments to the effect of lowering their standard of living my moving to Silicon Valley - even with the higher salary.

Not sure where you get this idea that one cannot live in San Francisco/Silicon Valley without a six figure salary. Thousands of people live in San Francisco and do not work in tech and surely make much less than six figures while still live relatively well.

I live in San Francisco. 35-40% of my income goes to oil the tax wheels, another good 15 % goes to make sure I can live within the city. If you keep doing the math, you don't save much at the end. I am not saying I live paycheck to paycheck but the city is so freaking expensive that you don't save much. In fact, a friend making 30% or so less in Austin did the math and found out he could save much more than I could. On the other hand, I am not complaining, I choose to live in this great and amazing city.

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