>Proper average market salary and inflated market salary are two different things I don't think you can have "inflated market salary." Instead what you have is

>Proper average market salary and inflated market salary are two different things I don't think you can have "inflated market salary." Instead what you have is the true market salary (for an experienced engineer that's good, that's a minimum of $200k at this point), and then you have the amount that most companies are willing to pay (which typically caps at $125-150k). In the US, until the 1970s, average income (in constant dollars) rose at a pretty compelling rate. After the 1970s, a number of factors have combined such that we've not seen the same rise in real income -- despite the fact that productivity, as in, the amount of value we're adding to companies' bottom lines, has been rising. This is why the gap between the rich and the rest has been growing so quickly. The added productivity is enriching the few at the expense of the many, except for a very few exceptions; one of those is exceptional software developers, who can take advantage (at the moment) of their rarity to actually negotiate salaries commensurate with their productivity. I'm one of those who was able to secure a $250k+ offer from a big company, which is awesome, and I'm really lucky to be in this position. But the reality is that I know a lot of developers who are really good and who should be making over $200k/year, at a minimum, but who make $125k or less. Importing H1-B workers in large quantities keeps those salaries lower than they should be. Instead companies need to raise compensation to keep up with demand. Maybe it means they can only afford half as many developers, but they're likely better off with fewer good developers anyway. :)