It's illuminating to look at salaries for other workers in high cost regions such as silicon valley or San Francisco.

http://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/rankings/the-100-b...

In San Francisco, the median salary of a software developer working in San Francisco is $114,400. ("average" here is median according to BLS data). It's considerably higher in San Jose apparently, at $131,270k a year.

By contrast, the median salary for a dental hygienist in San Francisco is $112,970 a year.

http://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/dental-hygienist/s...

For registered nurses in SF, it's $127,670

I'm glad that dental hygienists and registered nurses are paid well, but why would programmers, supposedly in such desperately short supply that the US president needs to do press appearances with tech CEOs to help recruit more people into the field, need to pinch themselves for earning roughly the same salary as a dental hygienist?

On the bright side, if that dental hygienist and software developer get married and have kids, and the programmer manages not to be a casualty of age discrimination, they can probably afford a house as long as they both continue to work full time. They will need to deal with the roughly $20,000K+ costs of child care, though, if they take this route.