[pc86]

> ~60% of Americans make less than that.

What does median income have to do with anything? If you're writing software for a living you're doing a job most Americans can't. A job that is objectively worth much more than ~$40k a year. That's like saying a doctor can be paid $80k because he's in a low COL area and most Americans make less so whatever.

> Comparing this to Eastern Europe is ridiculous.

You're right because a lot of Eastern European devs make more than that.

> It seems like people in the ultra-expensive big cities have a really skewed idea of what the rest of the country is like.

If the average US cost of living is a 100 the area I live is 84 (San Francisco is 273). Omaha is 88. I don't live in an "ultra-expensive big city" and I've spent more time in rural Georgia than I have in urban California so I don't think I have a skewed idea of what people live on. But I do know my worth and I do know that $40k is objectively underpaid for software development.