You make less than $920/wk as a developer, before taxes? Are you in eastern Europe?
I worked in a diner ca. 2002-04 and was paid $3/hr from the restaurant but routinely was close to $30/hr after tips as an awkward male teenager. Even $23 back then is equivalent to $35 now.
Yes I make less than $920 a week, and I'm in the midwest US. Comparing this to Eastern Europe is ridiculous. ~60% of Americans make less 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.
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.
I worked in a diner ca. 2002-04 and was paid $3/hr from the restaurant but routinely was close to $30/hr after tips as an awkward male teenager. Even $23 back then is equivalent to $35 now.