Yeah you're right. It probably really comes down to a lack of potential employers. Hopefully this push by the US can change that.

Other branches of engineering: mechanical engineering, material science, chemical engineering, certainly civil engineering tend to pay at a lower level overall as well. And the purer sciences often require advanced degrees to get "real" jobs at all.

When I worked for a computer systems company after school, my impression was that the various types of engineers at the company were on fairly similar pay scales. What I think you've seen the past couple of decades is that out-sized salaries at some mostly software-related West Coast companies have really driven up compensation for specific types of jobs. It seems more likely that will settle down to levels with comparable jobs over time than the other way around as a lot of people who are late to the game try to jump in.

That's an interesting angle I'd never considered. If the government simply creates a lot of potential employers via funding, the labor market becomes competitive, which improves working conditions, compensation, and ultimately attracts talent that would not have otherwise considered the industry. The most interesting part is that outcome is almost a certainty if the government focuses on creating that competitive labor market through their investments; it doesn't require moonshots, breakthroughs, or wild successes to work, yet it can produce them, and can become self-sustaining.

> If X works in something low level like device physics then there are a limited number of companies doing cutting edge fab stuff like that. Intel, TSMC, Samsung. The small number of companies limits your salary potential.

You should be very careful about comparing raw salary numbers: a much better metric to compare is "'salary' minus 'cost of living at the job location'".

If you're pulling in 400k USD per year, it actually doesn't matter what the cost of living is. You tie up 40% of your income in a 1-2 million dollar house and still save $50-$100k a year while buying everything you want on a daily basis, then retire after 20 years and live like a king

Not possible if you have a family and 2 kids, and the best private schools in the area are charging $50-75k USD per kid per year. And the spouse insists on sending the kids to the best school and also wants a big house in a nice neighbourhood.

Unlikely you save anything significant on $400k under a relatively common scenario, and plus there's maybe only a few hundred locales on Earth with jobs that pay that much.