Base salary is almost meaningless, you have to consider total comp. You'll see the same seemingly low wages at finance firms that have h1b visa's, but in reality those people are making significantly more.
We're talking about software engineers here. Base salary is almost meaningless in most finance and some legal firms, but not at a 30-person software consulting firm.
I looked up companies that I once worked for on h1bwage and I know for a fact that my H1B co-workers were not enjoying large bonuses.
A visa application listing a bay area senior s/w engineer prevailing wage of 78K should be outright rejected. Yet, it was accepted.
