>One minor quibble - if they were further up the economic ladder,
>they would have the government working for them a lot, but that
>wouldn't prevent them from spouting libertarian rhetoric between
>phone calls to their lobbyists.
>
>But it is a minor quibble. Personally, I'd put most of the weight
>on the simple fact that so many of them are in high demand, and are
>mobile. As far as I can tell, a 20-something programmer can move
>around in industry and geography more easily than anybody else.
>This mitigates the effect of being in a hierarchy, since they can opt
>out of any single given hierarchy and look for better condition.
Curiously, the new State of Working America reports that the wage premium for programmers and other IT professionals has remained remarkably flat, despite all this talk of strong markets. It may be that their compensation isn't fully reflected in government wage surveys, but the visa controversy suggests that employers don't want to pay up for talent, even if it's in relatively short supply.
Doug