Does the midwest have a strong union culture or something? I'm in the southeast and whenever I look at data for pay on most trades people, you still are unlikely to come anywhere near the salary for a software engineer unless you have 10-20 years of experience, and even that is dependent on the trades. Checking various trades on Glassdoor around my location shows the low end being mid-20 to low-30s with the high end capping in the 50s or 60s, which doesn't sound bound till you see that amount for years that people want for that pay.