[cm2012]

You are dead wrong if you think any skilled writer can make $30 per hour. Only copywriters and technical writers can do that, and those are not easy jobs to get. Journalism, as an example, is one of the lowest paying professions. Writing jobs on Craigslist are almost always unpaid internships.

[e12e]

I suppose I'm rather out of touch with the not-cs hourly wages in the US. According to:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2012/04/26/is-journal...

Journalists earn (for ~2000 hours/year) between 15 and 28 (without a graduate degree), while lower level CS started at around 25/hour. So I was clearly wrong, but it would also appear journalism isn't especially low paying either?

http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/mediawire/202644/gov-stat...

Seem to mostly agree.