Programmer wages have little to do with how good/bad the language is at a particular task. They have to do with how difficult it is to find programmers who can code at the level needed by the employer.

Perl coders tend to be paid less because there are a lot of coders out there who can knock simple scripts together - and that's all a lot of people need. I would also guess that there is more Java work than perl work out there so resources are scarcer in the Java world.

If I was going to pick a language to learn that would give me the most renumeration it would be COBOL, since there are few people learning it and there is a lot of COBOL maintainance work out there.

Language choice on a project can have surprisingly little to do with whether the language is the best at solving a particular problem. It has more to do with buzzword compliance, the employers existing skill base and code base, etc. Perl is usually rejected for non-technical reasons in my experience.

That said, I do most of my professional coding in perl so it can pay some of the time :-) However, I am no language bigot and am happy to use other programming languages - and learn new ones all the time.

To survive in the commercial world you need a portfolio of skills - don't rely on a single language or you'll get bitten.

To increase the wages of perl coders encourage more perl work, and combat any FUD you see against the language.

(or remove other perl programmers from the work pool by a secret programme of assassination - but now I'm letting you into my secrets of success :-)