8 ms·

Regardless of whether or not you think the bill is a good idea, I don't think the opponents arguments against it quoted make sense. As long as the new minimum

Regardless of whether or not you think the bill is a good idea, I don't think the opponents arguments against it quoted make sense. As long as the new minimum still clears the market and all spaces are still filled (I think they would be), all this bill does is replace the pool of H1-B visas awarded with a higher-paying one. The quote "It also could disrupt the marketplace, threaten thousands of US jobs, and stifle US innovation" would only make sense if one would expect that lower-paid workers on average contribute more to US innovation, and are less likely to displace Americans. I would predict the opposite, or at least no effect. One might hope that the people companies are willing to pay top dollar for are the higher skilled ones that companies have trouble hiring enough of in the US. It's interesting that the bill is a half-measure in that it doesn't take the idea to its logical conclusion and eliminate the lottery and sort applications by salary and take the top N, but I imagine that would be politically unpopular. I think you could possibly argue against this bill perhaps for some kind of fairness reasons, but I think the arguments quoted don't make sense.

jrs95 9y ago
There's basically no way it threatens U.S. innovation because underpaid H1B workers are mostly at banks, insurance companies, etc. Maintenance engineers, or hardly anyone for that matter, at massive corporations aren't exactly doing a lot of innovation.
- tedmiston 9y ago
  I'm not super familiar with how pay for H1Bs compares to citizens. It would be interesting to see some data around this.
  - jrs95 9y ago
    My understanding of this is that it's not much lower than other entry level pay, but they tend to get no raises or smaller raises because their immigration status is tied to their current employment so they can't easily switch jobs. Often times low cost H1B workers have been used to replace more senior people too. There was a big wave of this around the time of the last recession as a cost savings measure. I'm not super familiar with data on the topic though, that would definitely be nice to see.
sitkack 9y ago
> eliminate the lottery and sort applications by salary and take the top N This is exactly what should happen.
- conanbatt 9y ago
  Why?
  - wallace_f 9y ago
    Consider the Brain Drain argument that is used to explain why poorer countries have a hard time catching and keeping up with already-developed countries. It's the other side of that.
    - conanbatt 9y ago
      But someone that could provide enormous value in the future, might not qualify today. It is also a harm in the terms of brain drain. There should be very little doubt on the fact that any restriction will harm everyone in that 'ladder of skill'. It particularly harms those who would acquire those skills later on and dont have them today.
  - pfisch 9y ago
    Those skills are more in demand and probably much rarer. It makes more sense that employers would need to look beyond US borders to fill those positions.
    - Nrsolis 9y ago
      ORRRRR....maybe they should pay higher wages to stimulate demand for people to enter in those occupations. I can't help but think that the H-1B VISA program should be tightly restricted by industry and time-limited. If we can't find programmers, our immigration policy should be to recruit them abroad and then find a way to put them onto a fast-track to citizenship. NAY...we should COMPEL them towards the process of citizenship lest they forfeit some amount of tribute. In no way or shape should our immigration policy serve to distort the labor market here to corporate benefit. We should be seeking every possible mechanism to help our economy grow via the increasing demand for skilled labor here in the USA. That doesn't happen when you collapse demand for entry-level positions in the USA like H-1B has ben demonstrated to do. We should also BAN in the strongest possible terms the practice of forcing an employee to train their replacement or put it under such onerous terms that no corporation would do it. I'm talking about the equivalent of a years salary in severance or more. If you can't do the job on day one, you have no business replacing a native worker who is doing the job.
cplanas 9y ago
> [eliminating the lottery] I imagine that would be politically unpopular. Why? I'm in the US with a work visa and the idea of having a lottery to decide who is allowed to work in the US is absolutely insane for me. It just does not make sense.
- leggomylibro 9y ago
  In the USA, "politically unpopular" often refers to the companies who pay for the legislative campaigns, not the people who vote in them.
- freeone3000 9y ago
  Politically unpopular is usually restricted to people who are able to vote. If you're on a work visa, you're not the target audience.
  - cplanas 9y ago
    No doubt about that, but which is the reason to make a lottery out of it? "An engineer with Harvard education making 150k against an engineer from a lesser university abroad making 60k. Mmmm... impossible to decide. Let's flip a coin."
  - conanbatt 9y ago
    This is the reason why the debate over this has little to no regard for the people involved in the immigration process.
- trishume 9y ago
  Basically for the reason someone else mentioned in a different thread: It would probably mean the visas would entirely go to Silicon Valley. There's a lot of angles that people could get mad about: - The "one percent" angle: The visas would help well-off people like me to earn extremely large amounts of money instead of merely large amounts of money in our home country. Instead of people from India/elsewhere who aren't as well off. - the fairness angle: Almost all the visas would probably end up going to Silicon Valley, which may seem unfair to other industries and locations. - lobbying angle: As someone else mentioned, the industries that profit off of cheap H1B workers, as well as industries outside of tech that couldn't pay enough, would lobby and advertise against such a change. These same arguments all apply to raising the minimum salary, but just to a lesser extent. I mean, I'd be in favour of sorting by salary, both from a selfish perspective (It would make it easier for me to get a visa) and because I think it would be better for the US in terms of bringing in highly skilled labour that is least likely to be competing with Americans (if you could hire an American, why would you pay a huge amount to win the visa salary sort?). I think there are much better immigration policies, but as far as tweaks to H1B go its solid. But, I think it would be unpopular both among Democrats and Republicans.

jrs95 9y ago

There's basically no way it threatens U.S. innovation because underpaid H1B workers are mostly at banks, insurance companies, etc. Maintenance engineers, or hardly anyone for that matter, at massive corporations aren't exactly doing a lot of innovation.

tedmiston 9y ago
I'm not super familiar with how pay for H1Bs compares to citizens. It would be interesting to see some data around this.
- jrs95 9y ago
  My understanding of this is that it's not much lower than other entry level pay, but they tend to get no raises or smaller raises because their immigration status is tied to their current employment so they can't easily switch jobs. Often times low cost H1B workers have been used to replace more senior people too. There was a big wave of this around the time of the last recession as a cost savings measure. I'm not super familiar with data on the topic though, that would definitely be nice to see.

sitkack 9y ago

> eliminate the lottery and sort applications by salary and take the top N This is exactly what should happen.

conanbatt 9y ago
Why?
- wallace_f 9y ago
  Consider the Brain Drain argument that is used to explain why poorer countries have a hard time catching and keeping up with already-developed countries. It's the other side of that.
  - conanbatt 9y ago
    But someone that could provide enormous value in the future, might not qualify today. It is also a harm in the terms of brain drain. There should be very little doubt on the fact that any restriction will harm everyone in that 'ladder of skill'. It particularly harms those who would acquire those skills later on and dont have them today.
- pfisch 9y ago
  Those skills are more in demand and probably much rarer. It makes more sense that employers would need to look beyond US borders to fill those positions.
  - Nrsolis 9y ago
    ORRRRR....maybe they should pay higher wages to stimulate demand for people to enter in those occupations. I can't help but think that the H-1B VISA program should be tightly restricted by industry and time-limited. If we can't find programmers, our immigration policy should be to recruit them abroad and then find a way to put them onto a fast-track to citizenship. NAY...we should COMPEL them towards the process of citizenship lest they forfeit some amount of tribute. In no way or shape should our immigration policy serve to distort the labor market here to corporate benefit. We should be seeking every possible mechanism to help our economy grow via the increasing demand for skilled labor here in the USA. That doesn't happen when you collapse demand for entry-level positions in the USA like H-1B has ben demonstrated to do. We should also BAN in the strongest possible terms the practice of forcing an employee to train their replacement or put it under such onerous terms that no corporation would do it. I'm talking about the equivalent of a years salary in severance or more. If you can't do the job on day one, you have no business replacing a native worker who is doing the job.

cplanas 9y ago

> [eliminating the lottery] I imagine that would be politically unpopular. Why? I'm in the US with a work visa and the idea of having a lottery to decide who is allowed to work in the US is absolutely insane for me. It just does not make sense.

leggomylibro 9y ago
In the USA, "politically unpopular" often refers to the companies who pay for the legislative campaigns, not the people who vote in them.
freeone3000 9y ago
Politically unpopular is usually restricted to people who are able to vote. If you're on a work visa, you're not the target audience.
- cplanas 9y ago
  No doubt about that, but which is the reason to make a lottery out of it? "An engineer with Harvard education making 150k against an engineer from a lesser university abroad making 60k. Mmmm... impossible to decide. Let's flip a coin."
- conanbatt 9y ago
  This is the reason why the debate over this has little to no regard for the people involved in the immigration process.
trishume 9y ago
Basically for the reason someone else mentioned in a different thread: It would probably mean the visas would entirely go to Silicon Valley. There's a lot of angles that people could get mad about: - The "one percent" angle: The visas would help well-off people like me to earn extremely large amounts of money instead of merely large amounts of money in our home country. Instead of people from India/elsewhere who aren't as well off. - the fairness angle: Almost all the visas would probably end up going to Silicon Valley, which may seem unfair to other industries and locations. - lobbying angle: As someone else mentioned, the industries that profit off of cheap H1B workers, as well as industries outside of tech that couldn't pay enough, would lobby and advertise against such a change. These same arguments all apply to raising the minimum salary, but just to a lesser extent. I mean, I'd be in favour of sorting by salary, both from a selfish perspective (It would make it easier for me to get a visa) and because I think it would be better for the US in terms of bringing in highly skilled labour that is least likely to be competing with Americans (if you could hire an American, why would you pay a huge amount to win the visa salary sort?). I think there are much better immigration policies, but as far as tweaks to H1B go its solid. But, I think it would be unpopular both among Democrats and Republicans.