"IT" takes in a very wide spectrum of jobs. In my hometown in southen Oregon, a major local company offered listed jobs for software testers, payhing a range of about $8.50 to $13.00 per hour. 500 miles north, in Seattle and nearby Bellevue, jobs for "software testers" (also a wide spectrum of jobs) range from about $20 to $80 /hr, with higher rates for specialized skills. Wages for IT personnel maintaining networks, virtual labs, server farms, etc. range widely as well. You'd think that skills that were in high demand would get paid the most. The reason that caring and responsible kindergarten teachers, who are (to listen to the parents of small children) in high demand, don't get paid much is that the funding isn't available. The incredibly low wages paid to software testers in the S. Oregon company I mentioned are explained in part by that company's filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy early in 2011. So, some IT workers are well paid and some aren't, and there's a raftload of reasons.