>$208k minimum salary does seem a little steep in order to justify hiring a foreign worker over an American I thought the idea was that it's for foreign worker

>$208k minimum salary does seem a little steep in order to justify hiring a foreign worker over an American I thought the idea was that it's for foreign workers who are so rare or specialised that you simply cannot get a local to do the same job. It's hard for outsiders to a given industry to evaluate whether someone is exceptional enough to grant a visa, so the salary is an indirect measurement - if they can command that sort of money then they're probably rare enough that it's a legitimate request for the H-1B.