It could be, depending on where the clients are. Maybe that's good money where he is, and the clients are local?

$8.50/hr is a nice amount of money in Hungary for example. If you don't have a finance/compsci degree is way above the average. In compsci, its an average payment for a developer with 2-3 years of experience (no need to pay further tax anyways from this).

Architects, lead devs, PMs earns around 15/hour at best paying companies. If you're a contractor, it could top up around 20 after taxation.

A young person with an average degree (economics for eg.) in an average position is not earning more than 5/hour here...