You're comparing full-time software development income versus the literal median income (which also includes people working few hours). That's your first mistake in the comparison. The median full-time individual income in the US is close to $50,000 now.
Junior developers in SV are getting $110k? The BLS numbers are such that the US median for all 1.4 million software developers is going to be close to that figure for 2020.
> You cannot have these high salaries without someone else getting shafted.
Yes you can. Wealth, incomes, productivity are not static/fixed, you can expand them rather than merely redistribute a fixed pot. As a recent example, if that wasn't true, modern China (specifically its incredible gains over the last 20-30 years) would have been impossible. Their $50-$60 trillion in new household wealth would have had to come entirely from the rest of the world's pockets (which didn't actually occur). Instead, it mostly derived from epic productivity gains.
Productivity is why US software developers can earn so much. Not because they're so much more productive in lines of code versus the rest of the world. Rather, because software developers at US tech companies produce very large economic outcomes on average. That is due to the way you can scale into the huge US economy ($22 trillion), and then push out globally; it adds up to extraordinary productivity of economic output per developer (Netflix is a good example of that in action: relatively tiny workforce, massive platform and sales, global projection; and that's why they can pay their engineers so much).
Further, the US has a very progressive income taxation system. People earning ~$110,000+ per year are carrying the tax load for the majority of the population. The US middle class has an extremely low tax burden compared to most other developed nations. High income persons paying higher taxes are what make that possible, and it produces one of the highest median after-tax income figures of any nation. That tax base pays for free healthcare for the bottom quarter of the population, among many other expensive social safety net systems.
Productivity is why US software developers can earn so much. Not because they're so much more productive in lines of code versus the rest of the world. Rather, because software developers at US tech companies produce very large economic outcomes on average.
So do software developers in many other parts of the world. The difference is more that employment is a competitive market and the market rate for a decent software developer in the US tech hubs is recognised as being much higher than most other places so people moving jobs expect higher rates. Sadly, those rates do not necessarily need to be tied to productivity in any meaningful way, and so in much of the world software developers continue to be paid far less than the value they can generate because they don't negotiate well or bargain collectively to push salaries up.
However, it's not really a fair comparison. For example, in the UK, a lot of us solve that problem by going independent at some stage. At that point, you are dealing with clients on a business-to-business basis where fees charged can be related to value generated, and if you know what you're doing and get results, you can far exceed the income that almost any salaried software development position will offer.
Similarly, there are a lot of small tech firms here that are not SV-style startups with big funding and aiming to be the next unicorn or to fail within a relatively short period. They're just a few people who've got together to take on bigger projects or invest in more infrastructure or otherwise scale up, and they're happy to be doing that indefinitely and again making better money and enjoying better conditions working for their own business than they would likely get working for someone else's.
You're comparing full-time software development income versus the literal median income (which also includes people working few hours). That's your first mistake in the comparison. The median full-time individual income in the US is close to $50,000 now.
Junior developers in SV are getting $110k? The BLS numbers are such that the US median for all 1.4 million software developers is going to be close to that figure for 2020.
> You cannot have these high salaries without someone else getting shafted.
Yes you can. Wealth, incomes, productivity are not static/fixed, you can expand them rather than merely redistribute a fixed pot. As a recent example, if that wasn't true, modern China (specifically its incredible gains over the last 20-30 years) would have been impossible. Their $50-$60 trillion in new household wealth would have had to come entirely from the rest of the world's pockets (which didn't actually occur). Instead, it mostly derived from epic productivity gains.
Productivity is why US software developers can earn so much. Not because they're so much more productive in lines of code versus the rest of the world. Rather, because software developers at US tech companies produce very large economic outcomes on average. That is due to the way you can scale into the huge US economy ($22 trillion), and then push out globally; it adds up to extraordinary productivity of economic output per developer (Netflix is a good example of that in action: relatively tiny workforce, massive platform and sales, global projection; and that's why they can pay their engineers so much).
Further, the US has a very progressive income taxation system. People earning ~$110,000+ per year are carrying the tax load for the majority of the population. The US middle class has an extremely low tax burden compared to most other developed nations. High income persons paying higher taxes are what make that possible, and it produces one of the highest median after-tax income figures of any nation. That tax base pays for free healthcare for the bottom quarter of the population, among many other expensive social safety net systems.