[the_ancient]

>There is no way that $195k ($180k + $15k) is the top 1bps of wage earners at 26. That's pretty comparable to, if not less than, what you could expect in tech at that age.

First you can not say a person works "in tech" any more like you can with Legal. The Information Technology industry has sooo many different Job Classification today that you can not longer loop everyone that "works in tech" together. Not even all programmers or administrators can be looped together anymore IMO. However there is 3 Basic area's of information technology that you might be able to Group together. Support, Administration, Development...

That said like the legal Field, Technology has also be decimated, H1B, "The Cloud", the rise of MSP model @ the expense of Internal IT and other issues are massively lowering the wages

So while a person @26 working for a Top Silicon Valley Company (apple, Amazon, Google, etc) as a High level Programmer, might get 195K, I do not believe you can say a person at 26 should "expect" to get 195K far far far far far from it.

If they are in Operations/Administration, you are looking at 40-70K nation wide, if you are in programming a little more, if you are In Repair or "HelpDesk" a little to much less..

Specialty Area's like DBA or Senior Linux Admin can command those high pay levels in select regions as well.