I think it would make a lot more sense to pay COBOL developers at the same rate as other software developers. The era where we had analysts writing psuedo-code

I think it would make a lot more sense to pay COBOL developers at the same rate as other software developers. The era where we had analysts writing psuedo-code so clear that it could simply be "coded" into COBOL is over, if it ever really existed in the first place. In addition, paying COBOL developers more is so obviously less expensive than trying to completely re-write all of that legacy code. It is likely true that many people would not be excited to learn COBOL. That said, I do think there would be a good amount of developers, perhaps new to the field, that would be willing to write the code in return for a fair wage and the work experience. But this attitude that COBOL code is somehow worth less than JavaScript code needs to be worked out of the system. It simply is not true and it is clearly doing harm.