Not even close, not when all things are considered. $50/hour is 100k/year, which is still considered a decent salary. 24k/year in 2000-2002 was definitely not considered a decent salary. $12/hour for sw engineers was evil. I hung up on that recruiter and cursed for a while, cold-called my way to a transitional $20/hr job, and then finally landed somewhere at $55/hr which is when things started to feel normal again. $55/hr back then is not the same as $230/hr now.