Without knowing what field your husband is in, I don’t know why he wouldn’t be able to command at least 100K (and probably more).
I have 14 years of experience and make just a bit under what he was asking for as an automated test engineer (QA) with a background in embedded systems design (I work in hospital equipment design). My brother has similar years of experience in DSP and makes a bit more than I do (working for a satellite video equipment manufacturer). I would say the normal wage for a senior software engineer (someone with 12+ years experience) in this area is probably around 95-105K. I think mechanical and hardware engineer’s average a bit lower, but 70K would definitely be very much on the low side.
Of course, it depends on his field – sometimes if you get overspecialized, it can actually work to your disadvantage if theres not a large enough market for those skills at the moment (something I learned a few years back myself) – after all, if there’s only one company hiring in an area for a particular specialty – and that company knows it – they can turn that to their advantage.
