The data doesn't bear this out though -- the median* salary for a software developer is not only substantially higher than the national average salary, the rate of growth is also higher:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/5n4R_Osks_fVsVmedxJKsp9zPu...

That's empirical evidence of a tight labor market that's difficult to fake. Why else would salaries rise so quickly from such a high base? Even if employers lie (they do), the salary numbers from BLS are separate from that.

Of course, there are always people who slip through the cracks unfortunately. But avoiding anecdotes and looking purely at the numbers, it's difficult to find a labor market in the USA that's tighter than the one for software engineers.