It also means that somewhere out there is a business that can actually produce enough value to pay market rate and you should work for that company instead.
With the dominance of tech in the mindshare of people looking for a job, they're only looking at well known tech companies. Apple, Google, Facebook, etc... and these are also the places that can afford to take a risk on a new dev as they've got the institutional inertia to help carry someone along.
The flip side of that is that many people entering the job market don't consider companies like Dominos (only pizza company with a software patent), UPS (that whole 'don't make left turns' navigation thing), Target (early leader in data science), or McDonalds (hiring for some neat stuff in AI drive throughs).
Next, new grads are often expecting that the wages that the big tech companies can offer are standard across the field. I've more than once seen on Reddit a new grad getting an offer (that they applied to) in the northern Great Plains and then backing out when they were offered 70k to work in Fargo.
Another version of the "where are you applying" is that they're only applying to companies in Seattle, SF, and LA and then complaining that they can't find a job.
The idea that seems to be consistent with these new grads is a "I am worth $100,000 and I won't accept anything less." There's a consistent statement that the person is worth that much rather than the work that they do is worth that much.
Spend some time in /r/cscareerquestions to get more of this.
Those trying to hire aren't blameless in this. Expecting developers to fit nicely into the same payroll box as everyone else who reports to a manager in the office with a white collar job could very well mean that the offer is well below what someone with the necessary skills would accept.
My rough ballpark for what a dev should get (with large error bars) is 2x per capita income for the area. That tends to get fairly close to acceptable.
Likewise, if "market rate" is above "value produced by the employee" it doesn't make any sense to pay that much.
There are lots of companies out there that need some tech and some programming, but when the company revenue is only a few million that has to span a few score employees, and costs... its not possible to pay the small handful of devs six figures and keep everything in the black.
Likewise, there are new grads that are scoffing at working for 2x per capita income for the area in the midwest when that's less than 100k (and then complaining that they can't find any jobs).
There is a mismatch of expectations - possibly on both sides of the table.