I've seen a lot of job listings, at very large companies and academics for the 45-50 range. Keep in mind, these are jobs requiring a PHD, 10 years of experience, and a dozen or so technologies.
It's not really the money that's skewed, it's their idea about the person they need for the job. They don't need someone with that background (most of the time), they just need a junior level software engineer in which case the pay scale may not be too bad. There's a problem in realizing this, however, when the standards for your own field (molecular biology for example) are extremely high, so you expect it of all others as well...
