8 ms·

It seems like it would be so easy to fix the H1-B program but no one wants to and I feel like I must be missing something. The purpose of the H1-B is to allow

It seems like it would be so easy to fix the H1-B program but no one wants to and I feel like I must be missing something. The purpose of the H1-B is to allow companies to hire foreigners with special skills that can't be found amongst US citizens. So why not just grant H1-Bs to the companies that are willing to pay their talent the most? Let any company apply and list a salary which they have to agree to pay for at least two years, and then just issue them highest salary first until they hit the quota for the year. No country based quotas or any other kind. Just straight up salary. And make the visa transferrable if another company wants to take it over after say the first two years at the same or better salary. If people are so skilled then they must be valuable, right? This would be good for both the employee and the country, bringing in the most highly paid people. The only ones that would get hurt in this process are the companies that abuse the system to underpay people and then get them beholden to the company.

tonmoy 3y ago
Because then the agricultural company in Alabama wanting to hire the brightest chemist will be at a disadvantage compared to the IT firm in California. Forgetting about the cost of living adjustments for each area the industry wide disruption alone may not be worth it
- ok123456 3y ago
  Have a different auction for different worker skill classifications.
- HeatrayEnjoyer 3y ago
  A disadvantage in what way? Unless I'm missing something this just sounds like markets being markets. As a worker, why would I accept a job that pays less and requires me to live in Alabama if I can do better?
  - dalyons 3y ago
    Because chemistry and IT/swe are not the same jobs. And America also needs chemists
    - athowawaym 3y ago
      [dead]
    - horns4lyfe 3y ago
      America HAS chemists.
    - 29athrowaway 3y ago
      If there is more demand for chemists, the wages will go up which in turn will incentivize more Americans to pursue being chemist as a career.
      - kube-system 3y ago
        To a point, they will. However, the amount they can rise is capped by other economic factors. e.g. If wage pressure goes beyond a businesses ability to pay, they can't hire. This then leads to businesses ceasing operations and hiring nobody.
      - 15457345234 3y ago
        > wages will go up The issue is that tech can pay exorbitant salaries compared to physical-world companies as the product they're producing has infinite reach and is often 'evergreen' It's the same issue as investment banking; when you can almost literally print the money you're paying salaries with you can hire everyone at any price. The issue is, that leads to the smartest people in the country all ending up at 'virtual' industries and you discover eventually you don't have an economy, you just have a giant video game.
        medvezhenok 3y ago
        You just have to turn off the money printer and watch the tech money dry up (What we’re seeing now)
vsskanth 3y ago
Administration A introduced a rule prioritizing higher wage levels, got blocked by the courts and Administration B rescinded it.
next_xibalba 3y ago
The fact that the U.S. immigration system is so obviously broken is the topic on which I am most vulnerable to conspiracy theories. It just makes no sense. From the Southern border to H1-B, it looks designed to anger and disappoint every single stakeholder (excepting the businesses who employ illegal immigrants for poor wages).
- nostromo 3y ago
  Because the major donors for both parties support illegal immigration. Republican donors enjoy the labor of illegal immigration which is much cheaper than domestic labor. Any crack down on unauthorized workers in agriculture or hospitality, for example, would disrupt lots of big donors. Democratic donors have openly stated that demographic changes would help them win more elections. These are the "demographics are destiny" folks that noted that increasing hispanic populations are good for them in elections. (If you're not winning enough votes, change the voters.) There was a lot of truth here -- just look at California, New Mexico, and Arizona elections from the 80s and 90s vs today. Recent polling suggests this may be changing. So you end up in a strange situation where policies supported by the vast majority of Americans from all political stripes is (mostly) ignored by the parties.
  - olliej 3y ago
    > Democratic donors have openly stated that demographic changes would help them win more elections. How does "illegal immigration" impact this? You know undocumented workers cannot vote, right? Hell, you know documented, legal, residents also cannot vote? The only people who get to vote in US elections are US citizens. Demographics shifts obviously help the modern DNC, for the same reason it helped the GOP a century ago: Conservatism is definitionally rooted in having minimal demographic variance (be it race, gender, religion, or whatever), so if you have two parties one of which says "only this group matters" and the other says "more than that one group matters", then increasing the demographic variation will always favor the latter, because for anyone not in the ideal conservative demographic will see that party as actively targeting them. It's also important to be careful when saying "look at elections from the past", because a lot of laws were passed in many countries in the late 20th century to address a variety of biased laws that impacted the voting power of targeted blocks. In the US there was redlining which prevented specific demographics from voting in specific areas of the country, coupled with extensive gerrymandering this allows large scale disenfranchisement that is still being undone by the courts today, even though redlining itself became "illegal" in the 80s. There are a wide array of actions that occurred in the states you're talking about through the decades you referenced and onwards to now, that both made it possible for demographics to shift where previously people were functionally banned, and to reduce the disenfranchisement of demographics that were already present. None of that resulted in "illegal immigrants" impacting elections though, because again, non-citizens cannot vote in US elections (even though they pay taxes in the country that produced "no taxation without representation"). As an additional note, because of US government representation being determined by total population, and not "legal voters" the abuse of biased law enforcement is hits multiple times: first off victims of that bias lose representation, but then regions that get prisons get increased voting power. If you're in a region with 1000 people, but have a prison that has 5000 prisoners, then you get the congressional representation that comes from 6000 people, but only 1000 of them get to vote. Again, prisoners should be able to vote. Felons should be able to vote. Ex-cons should be allowed to vote. If there are enough of those groups to impact election outcomes, then it's a reasonable assumption that law enforcement is being used as a tool to restrict voting rights (Something that multiple people from the Nixon and Reagan administrations have explicitly stated was the reason for how the "war on drugs" was set up).
nrmitchi 3y ago
It’s because the positions that talent may not exist for (but is needed) isn’t necessarily as profitable (and can’t pay as much) as other industries under the same program. Basing on salary alone would mean ~100% of visas go to tech talent in major cities, and every other profession is cast aside. That’s not to say that ranking based on salary within an industry wouldn’t be a potential improvement. Or modifying caps to be industry based. There are definitely options here that could be a bit more surgical.
tomrod 3y ago
Some pushback on your logic chain: > foreigners with special skills that can't be found amongst US citizens This is honestly rare, unless you couple it with a wage level that is lower than the domestic market will bear. Some individuals involved in R&D, but outside of that there are few skills that are not found in the US. I believe the condition isn't not found, but rather, in low supply? > make the visa transferrable if another company wants to take it over after say the first two years at the same or better salary. This would be a huge boon.
- ojbyrne 3y ago
  H1Bs are transferrable. I did it at least twice.
  - arcticbull 3y ago
    Transfers are cap-exempt, but the new employer still needs to file LCA and hence do the prevailing wage determination. You're effectively applying for a new H-1B for the balance of the time remaining on the first one, exempt from the cap. [1] [1] https://flag.dol.gov/programs/LCA https://flag.dol.gov/programs/LCA
- nine_k 3y ago
  The foreigners with special skills for which it's really hard to hire someone in the US, even for a lot of money. Maybe if you agree to pay $1M / mo, you'll have them leave their current jobs and flock to you, but will your business still stay profitable? Hence the idea of prevailing wage, and paying somehow above that. This of course creates an avenue to game the system, because prevailing wage for basically any work in SF or NYC is likely higher than on average over the entire US. You can undercut local markets a bit by bringing in smart people from abroad, and paying them less than they would make in SF or NYC if hired as locals, but more that the country-wide average. (Smart, hard-working, educated people from underprivileged places get a chance of having a better life while working to improve the US economy! What's not to like?)
  - remarkEon 3y ago
karmasimida 3y ago
> So why not just grant H1-Bs to the companies that are willing to pay their talent the most? Because industries pay differently. Unless you argue H1Bs all go to big techs. The problem with H1B program is, no matter how it is structured, it WILL be gamed.
- athowawaym 3y ago
  [dead]
- sverhagen 3y ago
  I have no stake in the discussion, but "pay their talent the most" could be among comparable job titles, or something like that?
  - quatrefoil 3y ago
    Then it's a race to the bottom with titles. You're no longer a software engineer, you're a "computer technician". H-1B is probably one of the most gamed and abused visa categories, perhaps next to marriage-related stuff.
    - sciencesama 3y ago
      But there are very few that are handed out !! Compared to illegal and marriage related ones and the bar is pretty high !!
- nmca 3y ago
  The point is that paying more isn't gaming the system (and to be super explicit, yes if the US were to choose to allocate 25k annual h1b by ranked wage & thus all 25k were to go to various flavours of computer programmer or financial modeller, that seems totally fine)
- TheCoelacanth 3y ago
  How is that a problem? If they aren't willing to pay as much, then obviously they don't need it as much.
0xcde4c3db 3y ago
The thing you're "missing" is that it absolutely is, in practice, about laundering low-wage foreign labor. It's not actually complicated. It's obfuscation of exploitation. Same as it ever was. You're just not supposed to believe that your country is doing that.
- quatrefoil 3y ago
  A lion's share of H-1Bs go to big tech companies where people make $250k a year or more. And where total comp of $400k+ is common for senior roles, with no regard for visa status. Yes, it alters market dynamics and the whole reason it's done is that the same skills are not available domestically for that price (or at all) - but talking about "low-wage labor" and "exploitation" as the whole point of the program is pretty rich.
  - 0xcde4c3db 3y ago
    > A lion's share of H-1Bs go to big tech companies where people make $250k a year or more. And where total comp of $400k+ is common for senior roles, with no regard for visa status. Since you're apparently so acquainted with the stats, please enlighten us outsiders: what percentage of H-1B employees make $250K a year or more, and what percentage of H-1B employees make $400K+?
    - dilyevsky 3y ago
      This data is actually public and scrapable. Here’s a (non-official) chart for CA: https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/H1B-Salary--in-California https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/H1B-Salary--in-Califor... Considering US DOL didn’t count stock comp for prevailing wage (at least last i checked) it would not surprise me if over 50% do in fact clear 250k in total gross comp
    - wenc 3y ago
      You can Google it. Few people seem to know this and love to argue in circles about what H1bs make but all H1B salary data is public. You can even search by company and see how much your colleagues make for each job title (no names though) Strange but true.
dilyevsky 3y ago
Firstly, your assumption seems to be that it’s broken but I don’t think uscis or most other participants actually share that opinion. What they need to fix is fraud and you can have fraud in any system including the one you proposed. Secondly, h1b is not just a working visa - it’s officially a “dual intent” visa meaning it’s also a path to immigration. If we do what you are suggesting then 99.99% of applicants will be senior-principal sw engs from china/india. Which, i assume, is not the intention of this program. Besides, companies already have to pay over prevailing wage for the role in the area. I don’t think you can just conjure up expert professionals out of thin air by raising wages despite what folks on hn/reddit seem to believe. We tried that in 2021 - didn’t work too well
- proudeu 3y ago
  Yeah junior devs that barely can use css being paid 200k was quite common sight at the height of pandemic bubble. Most of them are gone now though. I guess that’s why HN seems to be in slightly more bitter mood nowadays than in the past 2-3 years
fishtoaster 3y ago
Another goal (as I understand it) of the H1-B process is to allow foreigners who've come to the US for school to stay here and work after they've graduated. This seems (IMO) better than training a bunch of valuable people, then having them immediately go back home. A system based entirely on salary would bias towards only senior roles, preventing the handling of that scenario at all.
lmm 3y ago
> So why not just grant H1-Bs to the companies that are willing to pay their talent the most? Because then the acceptance rate would be x% for people from India, y% from China, and 0.001% for everywhere else, which would be politically untenable.
- bubblethink 3y ago
  H1B does not have country caps. So the acceptance rate is already that based on the distribution of applicants. You are thinking of green cards, which do have country caps, and that's why this whole set up is quite asinine. It creates a large immigrant population with limited rights and no realistic path to permanent residency.
  - lmm 3y ago
    > So the acceptance rate is already that based on the distribution of applicants. Currently it's a lottery which you can at least argue is fair in the sense that every applicant has an equal chance. If they made it so that only the highest paid were accepted, that would skew the distribution much further.
saltcured 3y ago
The problem with replacing a lottery with a salary ranked cutoff is that all skills do not exist on a single linear axis proportional to economic value. It is not as if all academics are currently highest paid across the economy, so why would that be true of imported academics? To me, an ideal skilled worker system would define quota categories by skill/job at a much finer granularity, i.e. hundreds or thousands of different H1-B sub-categories somehow weighted by policies rooted in national strategic interest. Maybe some kind of blinded auction process that could minimize abuse. Both potential employer and employee go through some vetting process and post their needs/skills using a standard ontology. Then, a matchmaker assigns job offers that are binding. You might allow either party to reject the offer and go back into the matchmaking pool for a limited period or number of offers before they are evicted with a cooling-off period before they are allowed to reapply. You would also need some kind of anti-abuse audit. Otherwise, malignant players could establish esoteric job requirements via covert channel and then mislabel both the worker and the position to try to force the matchmaker's hand. How do you distinguish a truly rare skill from covert ear-marking?
- elashri 3y ago
  > It is not as if all academics are currently highest paid across the economy, so why would that be true of imported academics? I think that academic positions are already exempt from H1-B restrictions. To be more specific, these will be exempted [1] - a higher educational institution - a nonprofit entity related to or affiliated with a higher educational institution, or a nonprofit research - organisation or a government research organisation [1] https://www.nnuimmigration.com/h1b-cap-exempt/ https://www.nnuimmigration.com/h1b-cap-exempt/
  - elevatedastalt 3y ago
    They are only exempt from the yearly quota (aka 'cap'). They still result in foreign talent being brought in so if your concern is about displacing the labor pool that still applies.
- athowawaym 3y ago
  [dead]
tziki 3y ago
Salaries vary by field. You can be an incredibly talented animation artist but you'll still get paid less than the average software engineer.
- nmca 3y ago
  right, but that's approximately because one is less valuable modulo the adjustment period and some noise.
  - tziki 3y ago
    Wrong, it's because being an animation artist is much more often a career of passion, which brings down the salaries in the industry due to increased labor supply.
COGlory 3y ago
Or we could pay grad students and post docs actual wages and have no skill shortages.
tivert 3y ago
> So why not just grant H1-Bs to the companies that are willing to pay their talent the most? As others have pointed out, you're assuming highest salary == most valuable, but what your idea will lead to is a bunch of talented people working on new ways to get people to click ads or write yet-another trading algorithm. IMHO, you'd fix the H1-B program by doing two things: 1. Eliminate the requirement that the visa-holder have a sponsor past the start date, so the they can quit immediately and take a different job if they are underpaid or the working conditions are poor. That will eliminate any potential exploitation enforced by the program. 2. Limit the sponsors to legitimate US-based companies who will employ the workers for in-house work. Working out a precise definition may be hard, but it should be possible because it's pretty clear when we see it. Basically, something to prevent foreign contracting/outsourcing companies from even using the program.
- CalRobert 3y ago
  I have the opposite experience, I guess, as a US citizen who immigrated to Ireland, but after putting in my two years with the company that sponsored me and getting the right to work without sponsorship I left within a month for a 50% raise (actually more like 150% but I got lucky on stock) and full remote (before full remote was normal). A lot of the appeal of an immigrant is that they can't quit or take a better deal.
  - tivert 3y ago
    > A lot of the appeal of an immigrant is that they can't quit or take a better deal. Exactly, the whole point of my proposal is to undermine that appeal. An H1-B program structured like I propose would mean that employers would only sponsor immigrants when they truly can't get employees with the needed skills domestically at the real market rate.
    - CalRobert 3y ago
      We agree! I phrased my response clumsily, I meant my experience was the opposite in that I emigrated from the US instead of immigrating to it. I like living in Europe but it likely came with $2 million or so in opportunity cost, especially since I'm from norcal...
sfifs 3y ago
The purpose of H1B is to keep wages in control amongst highly qualified American workers so that owners and executives can create a more competitive financial advantage in P&L and stock price juicing I'm surprised even in HN we are taking PR at face value.
NanoYohaneTSU 3y ago
According to your logic the H1-B program doesn't need to exist at all then. You can find all special skills within US Citizens. However what happens is that companies deny interviewees the chance so they can obtain H1-B workers for cheaper or for political power. We need to abolish the program completely.

tonmoy 3y ago

Because then the agricultural company in Alabama wanting to hire the brightest chemist will be at a disadvantage compared to the IT firm in California. Forgetting about the cost of living adjustments for each area the industry wide disruption alone may not be worth it

ok123456 3y ago
Have a different auction for different worker skill classifications.
HeatrayEnjoyer 3y ago
A disadvantage in what way? Unless I'm missing something this just sounds like markets being markets. As a worker, why would I accept a job that pays less and requires me to live in Alabama if I can do better?
- dalyons 3y ago
  Because chemistry and IT/swe are not the same jobs. And America also needs chemists
  - athowawaym 3y ago
    [dead]
  - horns4lyfe 3y ago
    America HAS chemists.
  - 29athrowaway 3y ago
    If there is more demand for chemists, the wages will go up which in turn will incentivize more Americans to pursue being chemist as a career.
    - kube-system 3y ago
      To a point, they will. However, the amount they can rise is capped by other economic factors. e.g. If wage pressure goes beyond a businesses ability to pay, they can't hire. This then leads to businesses ceasing operations and hiring nobody.
    - 15457345234 3y ago
      > wages will go up The issue is that tech can pay exorbitant salaries compared to physical-world companies as the product they're producing has infinite reach and is often 'evergreen' It's the same issue as investment banking; when you can almost literally print the money you're paying salaries with you can hire everyone at any price. The issue is, that leads to the smartest people in the country all ending up at 'virtual' industries and you discover eventually you don't have an economy, you just have a giant video game.
      - medvezhenok 3y ago
        You just have to turn off the money printer and watch the tech money dry up (What we’re seeing now)

vsskanth 3y ago

Administration A introduced a rule prioritizing higher wage levels, got blocked by the courts and Administration B rescinded it.

next_xibalba 3y ago

The fact that the U.S. immigration system is so obviously broken is the topic on which I am most vulnerable to conspiracy theories. It just makes no sense. From the Southern border to H1-B, it looks designed to anger and disappoint every single stakeholder (excepting the businesses who employ illegal immigrants for poor wages).

nostromo 3y ago
Because the major donors for both parties support illegal immigration. Republican donors enjoy the labor of illegal immigration which is much cheaper than domestic labor. Any crack down on unauthorized workers in agriculture or hospitality, for example, would disrupt lots of big donors. Democratic donors have openly stated that demographic changes would help them win more elections. These are the "demographics are destiny" folks that noted that increasing hispanic populations are good for them in elections. (If you're not winning enough votes, change the voters.) There was a lot of truth here -- just look at California, New Mexico, and Arizona elections from the 80s and 90s vs today. Recent polling suggests this may be changing. So you end up in a strange situation where policies supported by the vast majority of Americans from all political stripes is (mostly) ignored by the parties.
- olliej 3y ago
  > Democratic donors have openly stated that demographic changes would help them win more elections. How does "illegal immigration" impact this? You know undocumented workers cannot vote, right? Hell, you know documented, legal, residents also cannot vote? The only people who get to vote in US elections are US citizens. Demographics shifts obviously help the modern DNC, for the same reason it helped the GOP a century ago: Conservatism is definitionally rooted in having minimal demographic variance (be it race, gender, religion, or whatever), so if you have two parties one of which says "only this group matters" and the other says "more than that one group matters", then increasing the demographic variation will always favor the latter, because for anyone not in the ideal conservative demographic will see that party as actively targeting them. It's also important to be careful when saying "look at elections from the past", because a lot of laws were passed in many countries in the late 20th century to address a variety of biased laws that impacted the voting power of targeted blocks. In the US there was redlining which prevented specific demographics from voting in specific areas of the country, coupled with extensive gerrymandering this allows large scale disenfranchisement that is still being undone by the courts today, even though redlining itself became "illegal" in the 80s. There are a wide array of actions that occurred in the states you're talking about through the decades you referenced and onwards to now, that both made it possible for demographics to shift where previously people were functionally banned, and to reduce the disenfranchisement of demographics that were already present. None of that resulted in "illegal immigrants" impacting elections though, because again, non-citizens cannot vote in US elections (even though they pay taxes in the country that produced "no taxation without representation"). As an additional note, because of US government representation being determined by total population, and not "legal voters" the abuse of biased law enforcement is hits multiple times: first off victims of that bias lose representation, but then regions that get prisons get increased voting power. If you're in a region with 1000 people, but have a prison that has 5000 prisoners, then you get the congressional representation that comes from 6000 people, but only 1000 of them get to vote. Again, prisoners should be able to vote. Felons should be able to vote. Ex-cons should be allowed to vote. If there are enough of those groups to impact election outcomes, then it's a reasonable assumption that law enforcement is being used as a tool to restrict voting rights (Something that multiple people from the Nixon and Reagan administrations have explicitly stated was the reason for how the "war on drugs" was set up).

nrmitchi 3y ago

It’s because the positions that talent may not exist for (but is needed) isn’t necessarily as profitable (and can’t pay as much) as other industries under the same program. Basing on salary alone would mean ~100% of visas go to tech talent in major cities, and every other profession is cast aside. That’s not to say that ranking based on salary within an industry wouldn’t be a potential improvement. Or modifying caps to be industry based. There are definitely options here that could be a bit more surgical.

tomrod 3y ago

Some pushback on your logic chain: > foreigners with special skills that can't be found amongst US citizens This is honestly rare, unless you couple it with a wage level that is lower than the domestic market will bear. Some individuals involved in R&D, but outside of that there are few skills that are not found in the US. I believe the condition isn't not found, but rather, in low supply? > make the visa transferrable if another company wants to take it over after say the first two years at the same or better salary. This would be a huge boon.

ojbyrne 3y ago
H1Bs are transferrable. I did it at least twice.
- arcticbull 3y ago
  Transfers are cap-exempt, but the new employer still needs to file LCA and hence do the prevailing wage determination. You're effectively applying for a new H-1B for the balance of the time remaining on the first one, exempt from the cap. [1] [1] https://flag.dol.gov/programs/LCA https://flag.dol.gov/programs/LCA
nine_k 3y ago
The foreigners with special skills for which it's really hard to hire someone in the US, even for a lot of money. Maybe if you agree to pay $1M / mo, you'll have them leave their current jobs and flock to you, but will your business still stay profitable? Hence the idea of prevailing wage, and paying somehow above that. This of course creates an avenue to game the system, because prevailing wage for basically any work in SF or NYC is likely higher than on average over the entire US. You can undercut local markets a bit by bringing in smart people from abroad, and paying them less than they would make in SF or NYC if hired as locals, but more that the country-wide average. (Smart, hard-working, educated people from underprivileged places get a chance of having a better life while working to improve the US economy! What's not to like?)
- remarkEon 3y ago

karmasimida 3y ago

> So why not just grant H1-Bs to the companies that are willing to pay their talent the most? Because industries pay differently. Unless you argue H1Bs all go to big techs. The problem with H1B program is, no matter how it is structured, it WILL be gamed.

athowawaym 3y ago
[dead]
sverhagen 3y ago
I have no stake in the discussion, but "pay their talent the most" could be among comparable job titles, or something like that?
- quatrefoil 3y ago
  Then it's a race to the bottom with titles. You're no longer a software engineer, you're a "computer technician". H-1B is probably one of the most gamed and abused visa categories, perhaps next to marriage-related stuff.
  - sciencesama 3y ago
    But there are very few that are handed out !! Compared to illegal and marriage related ones and the bar is pretty high !!
nmca 3y ago
The point is that paying more isn't gaming the system (and to be super explicit, yes if the US were to choose to allocate 25k annual h1b by ranked wage & thus all 25k were to go to various flavours of computer programmer or financial modeller, that seems totally fine)
TheCoelacanth 3y ago
How is that a problem? If they aren't willing to pay as much, then obviously they don't need it as much.

0xcde4c3db 3y ago

The thing you're "missing" is that it absolutely is, in practice, about laundering low-wage foreign labor. It's not actually complicated. It's obfuscation of exploitation. Same as it ever was. You're just not supposed to believe that your country is doing that.

quatrefoil 3y ago
A lion's share of H-1Bs go to big tech companies where people make $250k a year or more. And where total comp of $400k+ is common for senior roles, with no regard for visa status. Yes, it alters market dynamics and the whole reason it's done is that the same skills are not available domestically for that price (or at all) - but talking about "low-wage labor" and "exploitation" as the whole point of the program is pretty rich.
- 0xcde4c3db 3y ago
  > A lion's share of H-1Bs go to big tech companies where people make $250k a year or more. And where total comp of $400k+ is common for senior roles, with no regard for visa status. Since you're apparently so acquainted with the stats, please enlighten us outsiders: what percentage of H-1B employees make $250K a year or more, and what percentage of H-1B employees make $400K+?
  - dilyevsky 3y ago
    This data is actually public and scrapable. Here’s a (non-official) chart for CA: https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/H1B-Salary--in-California https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/H1B-Salary--in-Califor... Considering US DOL didn’t count stock comp for prevailing wage (at least last i checked) it would not surprise me if over 50% do in fact clear 250k in total gross comp
  - wenc 3y ago
    You can Google it. Few people seem to know this and love to argue in circles about what H1bs make but all H1B salary data is public. You can even search by company and see how much your colleagues make for each job title (no names though) Strange but true.

dilyevsky 3y ago

Firstly, your assumption seems to be that it’s broken but I don’t think uscis or most other participants actually share that opinion. What they need to fix is fraud and you can have fraud in any system including the one you proposed. Secondly, h1b is not just a working visa - it’s officially a “dual intent” visa meaning it’s also a path to immigration. If we do what you are suggesting then 99.99% of applicants will be senior-principal sw engs from china/india. Which, i assume, is not the intention of this program. Besides, companies already have to pay over prevailing wage for the role in the area. I don’t think you can just conjure up expert professionals out of thin air by raising wages despite what folks on hn/reddit seem to believe. We tried that in 2021 - didn’t work too well

proudeu 3y ago
Yeah junior devs that barely can use css being paid 200k was quite common sight at the height of pandemic bubble. Most of them are gone now though. I guess that’s why HN seems to be in slightly more bitter mood nowadays than in the past 2-3 years

fishtoaster 3y ago

Another goal (as I understand it) of the H1-B process is to allow foreigners who've come to the US for school to stay here and work after they've graduated. This seems (IMO) better than training a bunch of valuable people, then having them immediately go back home. A system based entirely on salary would bias towards only senior roles, preventing the handling of that scenario at all.

lmm 3y ago

> So why not just grant H1-Bs to the companies that are willing to pay their talent the most? Because then the acceptance rate would be x% for people from India, y% from China, and 0.001% for everywhere else, which would be politically untenable.

bubblethink 3y ago
H1B does not have country caps. So the acceptance rate is already that based on the distribution of applicants. You are thinking of green cards, which do have country caps, and that's why this whole set up is quite asinine. It creates a large immigrant population with limited rights and no realistic path to permanent residency.
- lmm 3y ago
  > So the acceptance rate is already that based on the distribution of applicants. Currently it's a lottery which you can at least argue is fair in the sense that every applicant has an equal chance. If they made it so that only the highest paid were accepted, that would skew the distribution much further.

saltcured 3y ago

The problem with replacing a lottery with a salary ranked cutoff is that all skills do not exist on a single linear axis proportional to economic value. It is not as if all academics are currently highest paid across the economy, so why would that be true of imported academics? To me, an ideal skilled worker system would define quota categories by skill/job at a much finer granularity, i.e. hundreds or thousands of different H1-B sub-categories somehow weighted by policies rooted in national strategic interest. Maybe some kind of blinded auction process that could minimize abuse. Both potential employer and employee go through some vetting process and post their needs/skills using a standard ontology. Then, a matchmaker assigns job offers that are binding. You might allow either party to reject the offer and go back into the matchmaking pool for a limited period or number of offers before they are evicted with a cooling-off period before they are allowed to reapply. You would also need some kind of anti-abuse audit. Otherwise, malignant players could establish esoteric job requirements via covert channel and then mislabel both the worker and the position to try to force the matchmaker's hand. How do you distinguish a truly rare skill from covert ear-marking?

elashri 3y ago
> It is not as if all academics are currently highest paid across the economy, so why would that be true of imported academics? I think that academic positions are already exempt from H1-B restrictions. To be more specific, these will be exempted [1] - a higher educational institution - a nonprofit entity related to or affiliated with a higher educational institution, or a nonprofit research - organisation or a government research organisation [1] https://www.nnuimmigration.com/h1b-cap-exempt/ https://www.nnuimmigration.com/h1b-cap-exempt/
- elevatedastalt 3y ago
  They are only exempt from the yearly quota (aka 'cap'). They still result in foreign talent being brought in so if your concern is about displacing the labor pool that still applies.
athowawaym 3y ago
[dead]

tziki 3y ago

Salaries vary by field. You can be an incredibly talented animation artist but you'll still get paid less than the average software engineer.

nmca 3y ago
right, but that's approximately because one is less valuable modulo the adjustment period and some noise.
- tziki 3y ago
  Wrong, it's because being an animation artist is much more often a career of passion, which brings down the salaries in the industry due to increased labor supply.

COGlory 3y ago

Or we could pay grad students and post docs actual wages and have no skill shortages.

tivert 3y ago

> So why not just grant H1-Bs to the companies that are willing to pay their talent the most? As others have pointed out, you're assuming highest salary == most valuable, but what your idea will lead to is a bunch of talented people working on new ways to get people to click ads or write yet-another trading algorithm. IMHO, you'd fix the H1-B program by doing two things: 1. Eliminate the requirement that the visa-holder have a sponsor past the start date, so the they can quit immediately and take a different job if they are underpaid or the working conditions are poor. That will eliminate any potential exploitation enforced by the program. 2. Limit the sponsors to legitimate US-based companies who will employ the workers for in-house work. Working out a precise definition may be hard, but it should be possible because it's pretty clear when we see it. Basically, something to prevent foreign contracting/outsourcing companies from even using the program.

CalRobert 3y ago
I have the opposite experience, I guess, as a US citizen who immigrated to Ireland, but after putting in my two years with the company that sponsored me and getting the right to work without sponsorship I left within a month for a 50% raise (actually more like 150% but I got lucky on stock) and full remote (before full remote was normal). A lot of the appeal of an immigrant is that they can't quit or take a better deal.
- tivert 3y ago
  > A lot of the appeal of an immigrant is that they can't quit or take a better deal. Exactly, the whole point of my proposal is to undermine that appeal. An H1-B program structured like I propose would mean that employers would only sponsor immigrants when they truly can't get employees with the needed skills domestically at the real market rate.
  - CalRobert 3y ago
    We agree! I phrased my response clumsily, I meant my experience was the opposite in that I emigrated from the US instead of immigrating to it. I like living in Europe but it likely came with $2 million or so in opportunity cost, especially since I'm from norcal...

sfifs 3y ago

The purpose of H1B is to keep wages in control amongst highly qualified American workers so that owners and executives can create a more competitive financial advantage in P&L and stock price juicing I'm surprised even in HN we are taking PR at face value.

NanoYohaneTSU 3y ago

According to your logic the H1-B program doesn't need to exist at all then. You can find all special skills within US Citizens. However what happens is that companies deny interviewees the chance so they can obtain H1-B workers for cheaper or for political power. We need to abolish the program completely.