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This article, or a variant of it, has been posted many, many times over the past few weeks. I usually chime in. I point out that 7 of the top 10 users of the

by geebee 17y ago

This article, or a variant of it, has been posted many, many times over the past few weeks. I usually chime in. I point out that 7 of the top 10 users of the H1B visa are Indian outsourcing companies that cycle workers through the US to learn a job before moving them back to India, and I provide a link. I express concern that the high number of visas may be discouraging young Americans from going into engineering and science at a time when we need them most. I link to an NPR segment with Ron Hira, where he mentions that the department of labor certified the prevailing wage at under $10/hr for a bunch of programmers, and another 70+ programmers at $24,000/yr. I've done this an embarrassing number of times now, though I am passionate about the issue, as I do think US policy is inadvertently driving young Americans out of engineering, and I think this is exactly whey we're in this situation where 60% of our grads My question at this point is: how many people reading this are encountering a variant of this post for the first time? Are we all just gathering for a well-worn argument. Part of the problem here is the concept of "news priming". This is done by PR departments and political groups - prior to a lobbying or legislative initiative, they'll try to frame the issue in the public mind. This is why the proponents of the H1B tried to get it termed the "innovation visa" (and probably weren't happy when India's minister of commerce called it the "outsourcing visa.") And of course, many people here are passionate about the issue - on both sides, of course, so we jump in to make sure we are part of the "priming." But I am curious - how many people here are surprised with anything in my post? I'm starting to suspect that most people on hacker news are pretty well informed about this by now.

psranga 17y ago
I seriously doubt that immigration is driving Americans out of engineering/programming. Let's take a look at some basic numbers. The median household income in the US about $50k, men's medial income is 45K and women's is 35K. If you assume a two income family with median earners their income will be approx $80k. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_...) Salaries in the tech industry (even at very low positions) are much higher than this (i.e., than 50k, 45k, 35k). This is now when salaries are supposedly low due to immigration. I do see that Americans respond to economic incentives in other professions. During the real estate bubble a HUGE number of people passed the realtor exams and got into the real estate business. Programming/computer skills are the easiest skills to pick up (no need for expensive equipment). I'm actually very puzzled that there aren't more Americans in engineering/programming. I'm unconvinced that fear of immigration-induced salary decreases is the reason why Americans don't want to go into engineering.
- geebee 17y ago
  The part of your argument that leaves me unconvinced is your use of the median income as a benchmark. The article referenced (on yahoo) mentions the high percentage of foreign nationals who obtain PhD's and Master's degrees at US Universities. So you're comparing someone who was talented enough in high school to hit the ground running with Calculus at university. This student then sleeps very few hours struggling with advanced calculus, differential equations, stochastic processes, nonlinear optimization, compiler design, chemistry, and physics. He scores well enough on the GRE (and perhaps the subject test) to get into a PhD program, and makes it through 6 years + a dissertation. You compare that to the median. Seriously? Meanwhile, his fellow lawyers in training breeze through a Poly Sci major. It's tough to get into a top law school, but no harder than getting into a top engineering program (because you don't have to compete with foreign nationals to get into law school in the US on anything near the scale you do in engineering). 3 years of law school or 2 of an MBA program are no picnic, but virtually all students at these programs obtain their degress (which is hardly the case at PhD programs, I know this from personal experience at Berkeley). Salaries would have to be as high or higher than Law/MBA to convince Americans to do this. Instead, engineering salaries can lag way behind, because it's easy to get foreigners, especially from countries without much economic opportunity, to sign up for this as a way of gaining a path toward US residency and citizenship. While salaries might not be actively lowered, they almost certainly place a limit on wage growth. When this happens over decades (and wages aren't similarly controlled in other fields where Law and MBA students are hired), you'll start to see a huge wage differential. To me, this has clearly happened - and now Americans have no interest in signing up for such an intensely rigorous path with rewards that are, quite frankly, much lower than in other professions.
  - psranga 17y ago
    Wrt median: Your points seem to support what I am saying. The median general salary is much lower than even the tech industry's supposed depressed wages. Then why aren't people scrambling to become engineers like they did to become realtors or at least encouraging their children to become engineers? I don't have the link handy, but NY Times had a great graphic with salaries of different professions. Lawyers are paid more than computer people, but the delta is not a multiple (iirc it was about 50% more). So it's not even clear to me that lawyers are paid significanty more (considering the criticality of their work). Also it's not clear to me why you bring in PhD and master's. Most engineers in tech don't have those degrees.

by geebee 17y ago

psranga 17y ago

I seriously doubt that immigration is driving Americans out of engineering/programming. Let's take a look at some basic numbers. The median household income in the US about $50k, men's medial income is 45K and women's is 35K. If you assume a two income family with median earners their income will be approx $80k. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_...) Salaries in the tech industry (even at very low positions) are much higher than this (i.e., than 50k, 45k, 35k). This is now when salaries are supposedly low due to immigration. I do see that Americans respond to economic incentives in other professions. During the real estate bubble a HUGE number of people passed the realtor exams and got into the real estate business. Programming/computer skills are the easiest skills to pick up (no need for expensive equipment). I'm actually very puzzled that there aren't more Americans in engineering/programming. I'm unconvinced that fear of immigration-induced salary decreases is the reason why Americans don't want to go into engineering.

geebee 17y ago
The part of your argument that leaves me unconvinced is your use of the median income as a benchmark. The article referenced (on yahoo) mentions the high percentage of foreign nationals who obtain PhD's and Master's degrees at US Universities. So you're comparing someone who was talented enough in high school to hit the ground running with Calculus at university. This student then sleeps very few hours struggling with advanced calculus, differential equations, stochastic processes, nonlinear optimization, compiler design, chemistry, and physics. He scores well enough on the GRE (and perhaps the subject test) to get into a PhD program, and makes it through 6 years + a dissertation. You compare that to the median. Seriously? Meanwhile, his fellow lawyers in training breeze through a Poly Sci major. It's tough to get into a top law school, but no harder than getting into a top engineering program (because you don't have to compete with foreign nationals to get into law school in the US on anything near the scale you do in engineering). 3 years of law school or 2 of an MBA program are no picnic, but virtually all students at these programs obtain their degress (which is hardly the case at PhD programs, I know this from personal experience at Berkeley). Salaries would have to be as high or higher than Law/MBA to convince Americans to do this. Instead, engineering salaries can lag way behind, because it's easy to get foreigners, especially from countries without much economic opportunity, to sign up for this as a way of gaining a path toward US residency and citizenship. While salaries might not be actively lowered, they almost certainly place a limit on wage growth. When this happens over decades (and wages aren't similarly controlled in other fields where Law and MBA students are hired), you'll start to see a huge wage differential. To me, this has clearly happened - and now Americans have no interest in signing up for such an intensely rigorous path with rewards that are, quite frankly, much lower than in other professions.
- psranga 17y ago
  Wrt median: Your points seem to support what I am saying. The median general salary is much lower than even the tech industry's supposed depressed wages. Then why aren't people scrambling to become engineers like they did to become realtors or at least encouraging their children to become engineers? I don't have the link handy, but NY Times had a great graphic with salaries of different professions. Lawyers are paid more than computer people, but the delta is not a multiple (iirc it was about 50% more). So it's not even clear to me that lawyers are paid significanty more (considering the criticality of their work). Also it's not clear to me why you bring in PhD and master's. Most engineers in tech don't have those degrees.