The median software developer job is not in a high-cost area. $110k is less than what the median software developer is paid in e.g. Omaha, Nebraska, where the median house price is $275k.

In the US, software developers are highly compensated by local standards almost regardless of where they live. That was not always the case decades ago but it is today.

Any numbers to back you up? (Other than your one cherry picked city)

If you look at the top 10 states for software jobs, you will see that they fall in the higher end of the distribution for cost of living.

Even looking at your cheery picked example, we see the salary and cost of living track roughly - median dev salary is about $95k based on multiple sources and COL is about 7% lower than the national average.

Yes, devs do tend to fall on the higher side of a local median than others. Hence my point about unions not being just for more money.

Not if you divide by the hours.

110K sounds great, now divide by 80 hour weeks. Now it is nominally 50K.

The problem with looking at hourly pay is that I don't feel it applies well to the software industry. I can easily say there are some weeks where I have little to nothing to do and there are other weeks where I'm working a full day every day of the week.

There are also hourly jobs where you get paid for slow times of doing almost nothing. You would want to track hours worked (including hours that you did almost nothing but were still required to be at work or logged on) per year with pay per year.

The issue is that everyone wants something different and no one ever agrees.

It would be nice to work for a successful company, see that company earn record quarterly profits and then not have to worry about being laid off. Pay is important but, arguably, job security even more so.