I inspect welds for a living. Almost all of our work is stainless pipe and tube and we only use TIG for stainless hand welds, or an orbital machine on tubing. We install the tanks, tubing, valves, ect. in pharmaceutical plants. TIG is a superior process for stainless. MIG and stick welding are used in other industries because they are much faster (more weld feet per hour) and generally easier (less training time/less skill required on average) to perform.
I luckily haven't had to travel alot for my job but my experience is when I do have to go north from Philly up welders make 45-50 bucks an hour. So those prices are not really high for the Baltimore area.