Dice released their 2010-2011 Tech Salary Survey Results. If you have a technical job, take a look and see how you rank.
As you read through it, don't get too bummed by all the average results shown. The numbers generally show a single axis of data, meaning that all the other values are simply average values. An example: In the "Average Salary By Experience" section, the average salary during the 2010-2011 reporting period was $95,399. That's kinda wacky in my experience for someone with more than 15 years of experience. But you have to remember something when you see that number - it is the average across all of the other axes: company size, employment type, region of the country, job title, industry, skill set, education level, etc.
The real numbers for you would be an average of all the respondents' salaries that match your number of years of experience, company size, employment type, region of the country, etc. You get the picture. Due to the simple laws of supply and demand, some areas of the country pay disproportionately more for J2EE developers or good DBAs.
Still, the number are useful. The year-over-year values show where your job is headed in terms of salary across all the axes shown. Compare your current job title or skills to a different title or set of experience to find out if the job change you were mulling over makes sense financially.
All that said, the biggest impact on your salary is likely to be YOU. Are you Smart and Gets Things Done? Do you observe and promote the Practices of an Agile Developer? Do you do what you can to keep your development skills current? Does your boss (and his boss) value what you do? Are you a valuable member of your team (would your team members agree)? Are you seen as a leader by your peers? Not a supervisory leader (that's different), but the guy that people go to when they can't figure something out, or when they need a suggestion for solving a problem. My point here is that unless you work for a company where there just isn't room for higher salaries or career advancement, your salary will be governed mostly by what you do - by making yourself invaluable to the company.


