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That's a reasonable criticism, it would indeed create an unfortunate incentive to trade benefits for salary. It's not ideal, but I still think it would be bette

That's a reasonable criticism, it would indeed create an unfortunate incentive to trade benefits for salary. It's not ideal, but I still think it would be better than the status quo since it would still be voluntary. I wouldn't take a high-stress poor quality job even if it payed really well. The companies wanting to hire people do have to pay enough to win the lottery, but still have to offer enough benefits to entice the in-demand worker. It would increase inequality (marginally, H1B pool is still small), but I only think inequality is bad insofar as the poor are worse off. This just creates more wealth since in theory Google would only pay $200k+ if they're at least that productive at developing new useful things people want to pay Google money for. The US also gets more tax dollars, and more "innovation" insofar as that is a thing. You could still argue it's better to give the large salary increases to poorer people though. I wrote another comment elsewhere with a list of reasonable potential arguments against top N sorting and this was one of them.

oxymor0n 9y ago
I assume that you are not a foreign worker. For us, >I wouldn't take a high-stress poor quality job even if it paid really well isn't really an option when doing so risks upending our lives. Even if we don't plan to stay here permanently (I don't), the risk of having the application denied creates an enormous pressure for us to maximize the salary number. Another angle that is overlooked is that the H1B program isn't just for tech and finance people. I have friends in the creative industry who are on H1B too, and their salary is never as high as ours. In that sense, abolishing the lottery and prioritizing by salary would absolutely deny them any chance of working in the US. Now, if you take the absolutist position that the H1B program is only there to fill positions that are not filled by Americans, then perhaps you'd be OK with that scenario, but I think the diversity (in terms of industry and skillsets, not demographics) provided by the lottery scheme is an important benefit of the program.
- trishume 9y ago
  Like I said, I wrote another comment where I write about arguments I think are reasonable, including that H1Bs only going to tech and rich people would be unfair. I was writing what you quoted from my perspective, I'm a Canadian student who would like to emigrate to the US after I graduate. I have offers from companies in the US that are significantly larger than the still quite good amounts I could earn in Canada. These offers are already large enough they could probably win a top N salary sort, if the bonus/stock was reallocated as salary. But, if they tried to make the job high-stress or low-quality in order to compensate for additional salary to win the sort, I'd just not take the job and stay in Canada. I imagine most people who could win top N salary sorts are also in enough demand in their home country that they could do well there (if not as well as in the US). Like I said though, top N sorts would be politically unpopular , because among other reasons, people like me aren't good humanitarian targets for charity, and fair enough. Ideally I'd say decide who immigrates based purely on economic reasons and use the marginal tax revenue of approving higher-paid people to increase aid. Back of the envelope math suggests that if you did that you could save ~7 children from dying horrible deaths by malaria every year of their career for every marginal top N immigrant rather than lottery immigrant. That helps a lot more poor people. But, I know this kind of thing also isn't politically feasible.

oxymor0n 9y ago

I assume that you are not a foreign worker. For us, >I wouldn't take a high-stress poor quality job even if it paid really well isn't really an option when doing so risks upending our lives. Even if we don't plan to stay here permanently (I don't), the risk of having the application denied creates an enormous pressure for us to maximize the salary number. Another angle that is overlooked is that the H1B program isn't just for tech and finance people. I have friends in the creative industry who are on H1B too, and their salary is never as high as ours. In that sense, abolishing the lottery and prioritizing by salary would absolutely deny them any chance of working in the US. Now, if you take the absolutist position that the H1B program is only there to fill positions that are not filled by Americans, then perhaps you'd be OK with that scenario, but I think the diversity (in terms of industry and skillsets, not demographics) provided by the lottery scheme is an important benefit of the program.

trishume 9y ago
Like I said, I wrote another comment where I write about arguments I think are reasonable, including that H1Bs only going to tech and rich people would be unfair. I was writing what you quoted from my perspective, I'm a Canadian student who would like to emigrate to the US after I graduate. I have offers from companies in the US that are significantly larger than the still quite good amounts I could earn in Canada. These offers are already large enough they could probably win a top N salary sort, if the bonus/stock was reallocated as salary. But, if they tried to make the job high-stress or low-quality in order to compensate for additional salary to win the sort, I'd just not take the job and stay in Canada. I imagine most people who could win top N salary sorts are also in enough demand in their home country that they could do well there (if not as well as in the US). Like I said though, top N sorts would be politically unpopular , because among other reasons, people like me aren't good humanitarian targets for charity, and fair enough. Ideally I'd say decide who immigrates based purely on economic reasons and use the marginal tax revenue of approving higher-paid people to increase aid. Back of the envelope math suggests that if you did that you could save ~7 children from dying horrible deaths by malaria every year of their career for every marginal top N immigrant rather than lottery immigrant. That helps a lot more poor people. But, I know this kind of thing also isn't politically feasible.