The company I work for has offices in a lot of markets (Seattle, NY, San Fran, Chicago, Houston, L.A., etc...). I have seen compensation fluctuate a lot based on cost of living, and the local job market. The cost of living here in Chicago is high but the pay is a little higher than average. The cost of living is lower in Houston but the pay is equal/higher than Chicago because there is more demand down there. In California (North and South) the cost of living and demand for SQL skills (dev and DBA) are very high and so is the compensation.

All that said, DBA's are hot right now; they seem to get paid more SQL Developers. I have seen DBA jobs in Chicago that pay more than $200K (Hedge fund and trading companies). SQL developers without SSIS skills can make 60-75/hour on W2; if you have solid SSIS skills then add $10-15/hour. In Chicago nearly every "SQL Developer" job involves SSIS and pays more than the jobs that don't.

If you want to keep doing what you love and make more money then going S-Corp (what most people refer to as 1099) is the way to go. You will make a higher hourly rate and there are many companies that will find contract work just as if you were a W2 contractor. In addition to the hourly rate you get awesome tax benefits and keep a higher percentage of your income.

Where can you go with SQL Development skills? I work in BI & Big Data primarily and it's crazy how far SQL skills will get you there. HiveSQL is huge, AWS Redshift (a cloud DW platform that runs PostgreSQL SQL) is hot and there are many other places in the big data world where SQL skills are great to have.