For a software person that would likely not be terribly difficult. People don't realize how easy it is for software to bring in avalanches of money due to the very early illegal wage-fixing tech companies engaged in (and were convicted of by the courts.. far, far too late to undo the damage). I am convinced the productivity gains that software makes possible is really responsible for wages freezing in the 80s. It's an easy sell to give people a 5% annual raise when their productivity grew by 8%. What do you do when they start using software that grows that productivity by 50%? 150%? 500%? It suddenly looks absurd to compensate people according to the value they are creating for the company. A secretary in the 80s could answer maybe 25 letters a day if they were pretty good, using snail mail and typewriters and whatnot. A secretary today can answer 300 emails before lunch with ease. They are creating profoundly more value, reducing headcount by huge amounts, making possible fundamentally different levels of interaction between customer and supplier... and they're making the same amount for it.