The Northwest also has a high percentage of self-employed tech professionals: They may be speaking from sad experience.

Respondents in the mountain states -- where self-employed technologists are proportionately rare -- were the most optimistic, regionally.

And people in the Northwest,

Hopefully we can get high tech jobs in northwest Pennsylvania.

U.S. tech workers, ... are increasingly nervous about employers' use of temporary non-U.S. citizens in tech jobs. The most anxiety comes from the most vulnerable.

Most agree the present environment makes it harder to succeed with self-employment.