Yes, it is industry-specific. Not only do software engineers have the necessary skills to do contract programming or start something up by default, they also make enough money such that building up a nice amount of savings is a trivial issue.
Outside software however, things are quite bleak. Many people are stuck in that awful income range where they make too much to qualify for government aid, but too little actually save any meaningful amount of money[1]. And, unlike with a lot of software companies, their jobs don't really allow them to work remotely. So when they become long-term unemployed, they get hit hard.
[1]You know, software is kind of a unique field, in the sense that you have both ends of the income spectrum. On the one hand, you have homeless wanna-be founders who eat nothing but ramen all day. On the other hand, you have people who get paid six figure salaries in comfortable office environments. What you don't have however is people who are in the 20k-40k range. As a result, most software engineers cannot sympathize with those people.
Outside software however, things are quite bleak. Many people are stuck in that awful income range where they make too much to qualify for government aid, but too little actually save any meaningful amount of money[1]. And, unlike with a lot of software companies, their jobs don't really allow them to work remotely. So when they become long-term unemployed, they get hit hard.
[1]You know, software is kind of a unique field, in the sense that you have both ends of the income spectrum. On the one hand, you have homeless wanna-be founders who eat nothing but ramen all day. On the other hand, you have people who get paid six figure salaries in comfortable office environments. What you don't have however is people who are in the 20k-40k range. As a result, most software engineers cannot sympathize with those people.