This is more Horse Hooey
There are a large number of American computer programmers out of work...and most of them were let go because companies preferred lower paid lesser trained foreigners
There is no shortage of labor. There is a shortage of companies who will hire American
This brings up an interesting dichotomy - that no one ever talks about. I think pay is a big driver in the tech fields, just like you said. I think pay is a much smaller factor in the unskilled labor fields. I think those who say "Americans won't do the work" are both right and wrong
.right to some degree on labor, wrong to some degree on the tech. Two totally different faces of the same problem.
Two possibilities with your out of work programmers: They program in Cobol or some other out of date language. Or they have skipped around from company to company. And the last company has let them go.
Tell them to take a few classes in a language that is actually used. And they will get a job. Try SQL, Ruby on Rails or C sharp.