[throwawayjava]

It's also worth noting that "median salaries in software engineering" samples heavily from places with higher CoL, whereas healthcare numbers tend to be more representative of the national picture (because not everyone can fly to SF for healthcare, but software jobs are more concentrated in a few expensive places).

Concretely, average SE salaries in flyover states are pretty comparable to average RN salaries in flyover states.

[geebee]

I agree, that's a very good point. If one profession's median salary is higher, but employment is overwhelmingly concentrated in a high cost area, then it's possible that the profession with the lower median salary on a national basis has higher median pay on a cost of living adjusted basis.

I doubt it goes quite this far for software development and nursing, but it may be a factor.