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You can! If you look at the report it breaks down H1b pay range by occupation and education level. An H1b software engineer median is ~$120k. Using other offi

You can! If you look at the report it breaks down H1b pay range by occupation and education level. An H1b software engineer median is ~$120k. Using other official sources, the median pay for US software engineers overall is... ~$120k.

dgs_sgd 1y ago
Interesting. I think this gets at guywithhat’s sibling comment: > you'd have to do a study to show that the talent couldn't have been trained in the US, and that an increased supply of workers didn't drag down salaries, either short or long-term. If the median H1B for software is exactly the same as the overall median, it makes you wonder if the median would be different if the H1B was not an option available to employers.
- lucketone 1y ago
  It would definitely be higher. Lower supply tends to drive the price up.
  - DaveZale 1y ago
    I saw this in my specialized science field too, in California a couple of decades ago. Real wages for that work have dropped 5 fold at least, partly due to automation, but I saw labs that were 100% immigrants, many H1Bs. Not complaining, just observing. were H1Bs necessary though? No. Many US born in that field found themselves jobless upon graduation. It was all about cheap labor
    - stanford_labrat 1y ago
      yup, anecdotally the majority of postdocs these days are internationals who are willing to work 60+ hour weeks on $50k a year, for the infinitesimal chance to land a R1 tenure-track faculty position. americans have no interest in getting a phd and then subjecting themselves to this kind of indentured servitude.
- ajross 1y ago
  Whoa whoa whoa, that's (1) not correct[1], but (2) shameless goalpost motion in any case. The whole premise of your original contention was that we should measure like-profession salaries to see whether or not there is an effect. Then when no effect was shown, you switched it up in favor of an argument that (again, incorrectly) predicts that such an effect can't be shown at all. That's not good faith discussion. [1] Immigrant labor is arriving, by definition, in a pre-existing market. If immigrants can't be hired more cheaply than existing labor, by definition they can't be pulling wages down.
thatfrenchguy 1y ago
> An H1b software engineer median is ~$120k. Base salary, not total comp, the first year
reliabilityguy 1y ago
> An H1b software engineer median is ~$120k. > Using other official sources, the median pay for US software engineers overall is... ~$120k. So, it seems that if we remove H1b workers and assume that the demand would have stayed the same, then domestic salaries should have been higher. Assuming, of course, that companies won’t simply offshore.
- skydhash 1y ago
  Maybe? But what about training and talent pool? Imagine how many companies would not take off because there’s no one to implement the founder’s idea. Imagine you’re a startup and you have hiring difficulties because all the good ones are over at Oracle or Microsoft (doubting the existence of FAANG).
  - reliabilityguy 1y ago
    Maybe, maybe not. Too many factors to consider, and it’s extremely hard to get a definitive answer.
  - sciencesama 1y ago
    We can arrest all of them and send them back like in hyundai !
    - nxm 1y ago
      If they don’t have valid visas for the kind of work they were doing, like was the case for Hyundai, then the indeed were breaking the law
  - randomname93857 1y ago
    >> Imagine how many companies would not take off because there’s no one to implement the founder’s idea... Why should we do imaginary stats with narrated conditions? America striven on startups well before H1B became expanded so much it's barely doesn't include janitor positions... with smaller H1B pool, startups may need pay more. But also more compensation and demand in IT in US would make more people go to IT - smth-smth middle class, not poor class. BTW, what's the stats on how many doctors and lawyers come to US on H1B?
giantg2 1y ago
Median salary for a software engineer according to BLS is over that - around $133k.
AtlasBarfed 1y ago
If h1bs are statistically a lot more centered in higher income urban areas, while overall populations of a given profession are more evenly distributed across the country... Then that $120,000 salary median can still represent a 50% undercut of similar Urban salaries for a profession. I'm going to contend that that is the case. But I don't have time to chase down the statistics
- jopsen 1y ago
  Underpaid or overpaid doesn't really matter. Sure it's sound to argue that wages would be higher with more constraint supply. BUT: The network effect of all SWE talent from across the globe moving to the US is also huge. Probably, you'd have a smaller overall tax base without H1B. Make no mistake most countries would like to keep their H1B expats :) If you really wanted to grow US supply of engineers, you'd have to start by fixing the education system, making it cheaper, and then wait 5 years.
_DeadFred_ 1y ago
The problem you will have selling this to this crowd is we have been in the meetings. We know that 'we're going to use a consulting team on this' means lower wages. We know that 'we going to outsource this' to a company full of H1Bs is being done... to lower costs. Maybe at FAANGs what you say is true. But at every place I've been when H1Bs ended up added (normally via consultancy or outsourcing) it was always to cut costs. And the only costs we were cutting was staff.
jpleger 1y ago
K, but if these are experts that literally do not exist in the US, why are the salaries not higher than median? It wasn't meant to fill junior level positions. This program was meant to allow talent that is not available in the US, so that gaps could be filled with experts from overseas.

dgs_sgd 1y ago

Interesting. I think this gets at guywithhat’s sibling comment: > you'd have to do a study to show that the talent couldn't have been trained in the US, and that an increased supply of workers didn't drag down salaries, either short or long-term. If the median H1B for software is exactly the same as the overall median, it makes you wonder if the median would be different if the H1B was not an option available to employers.

lucketone 1y ago
It would definitely be higher. Lower supply tends to drive the price up.
- DaveZale 1y ago
  I saw this in my specialized science field too, in California a couple of decades ago. Real wages for that work have dropped 5 fold at least, partly due to automation, but I saw labs that were 100% immigrants, many H1Bs. Not complaining, just observing. were H1Bs necessary though? No. Many US born in that field found themselves jobless upon graduation. It was all about cheap labor
  - stanford_labrat 1y ago
    yup, anecdotally the majority of postdocs these days are internationals who are willing to work 60+ hour weeks on $50k a year, for the infinitesimal chance to land a R1 tenure-track faculty position. americans have no interest in getting a phd and then subjecting themselves to this kind of indentured servitude.
ajross 1y ago
Whoa whoa whoa, that's (1) not correct[1], but (2) shameless goalpost motion in any case. The whole premise of your original contention was that we should measure like-profession salaries to see whether or not there is an effect. Then when no effect was shown, you switched it up in favor of an argument that (again, incorrectly) predicts that such an effect can't be shown at all. That's not good faith discussion. [1] Immigrant labor is arriving, by definition, in a pre-existing market. If immigrants can't be hired more cheaply than existing labor, by definition they can't be pulling wages down.

thatfrenchguy 1y ago

> An H1b software engineer median is ~$120k. Base salary, not total comp, the first year

reliabilityguy 1y ago

> An H1b software engineer median is ~$120k. > Using other official sources, the median pay for US software engineers overall is... ~$120k. So, it seems that if we remove H1b workers and assume that the demand would have stayed the same, then domestic salaries should have been higher. Assuming, of course, that companies won’t simply offshore.

skydhash 1y ago
Maybe? But what about training and talent pool? Imagine how many companies would not take off because there’s no one to implement the founder’s idea. Imagine you’re a startup and you have hiring difficulties because all the good ones are over at Oracle or Microsoft (doubting the existence of FAANG).
- reliabilityguy 1y ago
  Maybe, maybe not. Too many factors to consider, and it’s extremely hard to get a definitive answer.
- sciencesama 1y ago
  We can arrest all of them and send them back like in hyundai !
  - nxm 1y ago
    If they don’t have valid visas for the kind of work they were doing, like was the case for Hyundai, then the indeed were breaking the law
- randomname93857 1y ago
  >> Imagine how many companies would not take off because there’s no one to implement the founder’s idea... Why should we do imaginary stats with narrated conditions? America striven on startups well before H1B became expanded so much it's barely doesn't include janitor positions... with smaller H1B pool, startups may need pay more. But also more compensation and demand in IT in US would make more people go to IT - smth-smth middle class, not poor class. BTW, what's the stats on how many doctors and lawyers come to US on H1B?

giantg2 1y ago

Median salary for a software engineer according to BLS is over that - around $133k.

AtlasBarfed 1y ago

If h1bs are statistically a lot more centered in higher income urban areas, while overall populations of a given profession are more evenly distributed across the country... Then that $120,000 salary median can still represent a 50% undercut of similar Urban salaries for a profession. I'm going to contend that that is the case. But I don't have time to chase down the statistics

jopsen 1y ago
Underpaid or overpaid doesn't really matter. Sure it's sound to argue that wages would be higher with more constraint supply. BUT: The network effect of all SWE talent from across the globe moving to the US is also huge. Probably, you'd have a smaller overall tax base without H1B. Make no mistake most countries would like to keep their H1B expats :) If you really wanted to grow US supply of engineers, you'd have to start by fixing the education system, making it cheaper, and then wait 5 years.

_DeadFred_ 1y ago

The problem you will have selling this to this crowd is we have been in the meetings. We know that 'we're going to use a consulting team on this' means lower wages. We know that 'we going to outsource this' to a company full of H1Bs is being done... to lower costs. Maybe at FAANGs what you say is true. But at every place I've been when H1Bs ended up added (normally via consultancy or outsourcing) it was always to cut costs. And the only costs we were cutting was staff.

jpleger 1y ago

K, but if these are experts that literally do not exist in the US, why are the salaries not higher than median? It wasn't meant to fill junior level positions. This program was meant to allow talent that is not available in the US, so that gaps could be filled with experts from overseas.