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As someone who makes the "raise wages" argument here on HN pretty often, I'm going to go ahead and partially agree with you. "Raise wages" shouldn't be a conver
by geebee 6y ago
As someone who makes the "raise wages" argument here on HN pretty often, I'm going to go ahead and partially agree with you. "Raise wages" shouldn't be a conversation ender. But I do think "raise wages" is a very reasonable conversation starter, and often holds up under scrutiny.
Another factor is that here on HN, aa lot of people are programmers who work in a field without an AMA or ABA controlling the number of people who are allowed to work in a field (under penalty of fines or imprisonment), nor does our field have a governing body that has greatly limited foreign competition (in fact, the US government has generally created immigration visas to increase the supply of programmers, even if not to the levels demanded by high tech employers).
On top of that, we constantly hear about companies being "unable to hire", with no mention of the salary. Like, not even a peep. Or open offices, or obnoxious white board exams on inverting binary trees, or open distain for anyone who has family obligations, or...
I remember, back during some of the earlier debates in the early 2000s about the H1B, a tech CEO testified in congress about a critical worker they were trying to hire. They wanted someone with a PhD in a genetics-related field, specialized programming ability, and unix sysadmin skills.
Feinstein asked "what are you offering?". The answer: "90k a year, "generous" options - and a lease on a new BMW!".
Feinstein answered "what was the name of your company again?" and everyone laughed (right, ultra wealthy Feinstein would consider 90k a year livable in Palo Alto). What she didn't say is: "uh, why do you think you can hire someone with a difficult doctoral degree that takes 7 years to complete with a 50% attrition rate, specialized programming skills that take years to develop, and unix sysadmin skills that would make someone highly employable without all that other stuff, for 75% of the salary you'd offer to 2 year MBA or 3 year law degree from programs with a 99% completion rate".
Raise wages. Or, even better, let the market work. Allow immigrants to come here without letting tech companies tell them what they have to study, where they have to live, or what jobs they're allowed to work. Allow all people, immigrant or born here, to choose their profession in response to their own interests and external market signals.
You know, "raise wages", compete, put up or shut up. No, it doesn't end discussion, but it's usually a very compelling argument.
- phenkdo 6y agoThat's a well reasoned argument, I am especially thrilled to hear one that didn't appeal to the extremes, although I don't agree that there is a direct causal relationship between supposedly low salaries and h1b. Here's a quick experiment, click clearancejobs.com [1], as of this writing it lists 50K+ well paying jobs (high 6-figs) fully reserved for US Citizens, especially those whose antecedents can be traced. And this usually means people with surnames like Smith, Green, Johnson et al. And, this is just one website, over say a job cycle time of a few weeks. Now one can extrapolate that there are hundreds of thousands of such jobs. Now H1b is 65K Visas a year, Let's say that 80% of H1b are fraudulent - which it is NOT, but just for the sake of argument, let's say 80% are outright fakes - this is more than offset by very high paying US citizen only jobs in on a single website, over just a few weeks! Now salaries might not be going up as as much as some wish for, but in an economy there are many more variables than just supply & demand, that determine wages. I would also remind you tech worker salaries are already among the highest, if not the highest, salaries in any professional class. Only very specialized doctors like Neurosurgeons, plastic surgeons etc make more. To somehow say that H1b is the root of all evil can only come from a very spoilt entitled class - dare-I-say White American Males - that has all the bountiful benefit of an economy with FULL employment, Actually FULL++ employment. And yet, they are just so fragile, entitled and selfish.... H1b is, at most, a _minor_ inconvenience to a set of very spoilt brats, used to having it their way, or throwing a tantrum otherwise. 65K jobs is not even a droplet in the ocean that's the US economy, and yet the fact that this issue gets some much coverage is a testament to the power of this very privileged group. [1] www.clearancejobs.com
- diebeforei485 6y agoFor someone fresh out of a PhD program, that was a decent base salary back in the day.
- geebee 6y agoSure, but does it make sense to speak of a “shortage” of Ph.d holders when shorter degrees with vastly lower attrition rates pay much more? The Rand institute, a historically very pro-immigration organization, published a paper concluding that the aversion to STEM phds among people with choice is rational and market driven. I’m all for immigration, but I Am deeply against allowing corporations to coerce immigrants into a narrow set of career choices as a condition of living and working in the US.
- diebeforei485 6y agoI don't think it has ever made financial sense to do a PhD, except in "pure science" fields with thin job markets for those with only undergraduate degrees.
- geebee 6y agoThen why is congress discussing “stapling a green card” to PhD degrees recipients a way we wouldn’t for other immigrants? I’m not saying we should shut these People out, I’m asking why we force them to get these degrees as a condition of living and working in the US? This is all based on industry claims of a shortage, when all evidence points to long completion times, high attrition rates, poor pay, and dim career prospects as driving the low interest in these degrees.
- triceratops 6y agoI think the low pay and long hours during the PhD program are also a large contributor to that aversion. There's a ton of opportunity cost associated with it too.
- triceratops 6y agoThe problem is that "raise wages" alone isn't a panacea. Higher prices are a signal to stimulate higher supply. If the supply is artificially constrained that signal is useless. So I agree with the rest of your post - raise wages, but also increase supply without restrictions on employees or the types of jobs they can take.