These things vary by market.

I'm a Perl programmer, in Los Angeles, at a company that is known to use Perl. I get a cold call every couple of weeks or so from a recruiter who wants to offer me a Perl job. Since I'm uninterested, I've never found out what rates they would try to get me, but I've seen ads go by on the LA.pm list for salaries up to $90K. Which I assume would be somewhat negotiable for the right candidate since I know salaries actually go somewhat higher than that.

I know that when we looked for experienced programmers, it wasn't particularly easy to find them. Part of that is that we're picky, you aren't going to bluff your way through our interview process. But part of that is that there is a limited supply of good people around, and most of them already have jobs that they like.

But that's Los Angeles. I'm also on the Boston.pm mailing list, and my very strong impression is that the Perl job market there is not in nearly as good a condition.