New H1-B Visa bill doubles the salary requirements to $130K/yr | Hacker News Reader

New H1-B Visa bill doubles the salary requirements to $130K/yr

timesofindia.indiatimes.com

537 pointsmataug463 comments

Here is the summary straight from the horses mouth: https://lofgren.house.gov/uploadedfiles/high_skilled_bill_sx...

A few points:

- This does not raise the salary requirement to $130k/yr. This only applies to employers that do not want to do the extra paper work for "attestations regarding recruitment and non-displacement of U.S. workers"

- It takes a "market based" allocation strategy which allows "cash bonuses and similar compensation" to be included. This is a joke.

- Startups and small businesses will get 20% of the visas. It'll be interesting to see how this is gamed

- This does not fix the Corporate/Higher Ed partnership loophole

- This does not fix the power imbalance between visa holders and employers

I personally don't see this bill going anywhere. Zoe just needs to look like she is doing something.

Thanks for this!

I've been on multiple H1B visas, at both large companies and startups. I've also sponsored H1B visas as an employer. I would support this bill.

The headline is a classic example of sensational journalism by the Times of India.

The $130k salary requirement applies only to "dependent employers", defined as employers with over 15% of their workforce on H1Bs. This is clearly aimed at reducing H1B misuse by TCS, Infosys, and their ilk.

The vast majority of companies who employ people on H1Bs aren't "dependent" employers by this definition, and hence will be unaffected by the salary increase rule. If anything, they'll benefit from more visas being available to non-dependent employers.

Also, startups will likely benefit from the 20% requirement.

As you said, this seems to penalize the Infosys-type companies, and seems to give favorable treatment to Silicon Valley firms. Given that's her district, this should not be surprising.

Regardless of the merits of this particular bill, at least we now have a conversation going with both political sides weighing in.

Here's hoping that they end up somewhere rational.

EOD, this is just a bill, such bills have been introduced in the past but never saw the light of day, its just that, this time around, this is being introduced under Trump.

All in all, there are some benefits in this bill. Does it say anything about green card backlog? or was my interpretation wrong?

Although a startup might only marginally benefit because a single one would be a significant portion of their employees, right? So it would be over 15% right off the bat if they have fewer than 7 people

I think this 15% rule applies only to companies with more than 50 employees

Note that this bill is completely separate from Trump's possible upcoming executive order which may also affect H1B:

https://www.murthy.com/2017/01/31/possible-executive-order-t...

There are enough unscrupulous actors that will pay 130k on paper and have ways of paying much less in reality. Enforcement and audits will also have to increase correspondingly, and penalties must be severe.

In Australia, 7-11 was paying staff minimum wage then demanding half of it back in cash. Literally mugging their own staff.

A lot of fly in fly out workers too. They make good salaries but have to spend a massive chunk of it "renting" accommodation off their employer.

this makes perfect sense. thank you! these sensationalist article titles are very misleading!!!!

And Samsung US. They pay H1B's absolute crap. This would be a good thing for them.

http://www.h1bdata.info/index.php?em=samsung&job=&city=&year...

Just a glance, doesn't seem that bad.

You're including Austin, TX (Semiconductor) in that search. Their CA engineer salaries are much lower. Also, I wonder about that data. I've seen bigger CA databases that have more records and lower salaries. Also, look at what AirBNB pays their H1B's.

http://www.h1bdata.info/index.php?em=SAMSUNG+RESEARCH+AMERIC...

Edit: Sorry, going to retract this. My data is a few years old. It seems like they have started paying market rates.

http://h1bpay.com/salaries?company=samsung+&city=mountain+vi...

> - Startups and small businesses will get 20% of the visas. It'll be interesting to see how this is gamed

Probably the old fashioned way: Tata Startup Services, a wholly owned subsidiary of Tata Consulting Services.

And the hill staffers who wrote the bill will start up a consulting service on how to comply with the small business requirements.

Someone will be using a "startup company name" generator for these wholly owned subsidiaries and be filling out the paperwork for 50 of them all at the same time. No doubt to get a discount on the legal fees.

I wrote about this earlier:

http://fightthefuture.org/articles/hr-170-will-all-large-com...

Basically bills like this will allow Tata, Wipro and others to just absorb all the talent within the industry. Some versions I've seen do restrict the wage increase to companies that have n% of their workers being H1-B employees, which seems a bit more reasonable.

But currently they take around 60% of all awarded visas, in the future they will be capped to 20% at most if they went the start up route.

While everyone seems to be focussing on TCS, Infosys etc, the worst abuse of H-1B comes from small staffing firms in US. I foresee them using the 20% set aside for startups.

Well the "startup" still has to pay roughly 15% (or whatever the number is) more than market rate, so this loophole won't work. They can't just reduce the salary once it's "acquired".

EDIT: Also this is one of three H1B related bills in Congress. I suppose there will be some compromise between them, considering that they are sponsored both by Republicans and Democrats.

Yep. When money is to be made they need no invitation.

- It takes a "market based" allocation strategy which allows "cash bonuses and similar compensation" to be included. This is a joke.

Honest question, why is this a joke?

It relies on the companies own estimate of the value of those bonuses... but bonuses are discretionary and the value of private company stock can be hard to determine. So you could have a salary of $90k, $10k of healthcare benefits, and $30k worth of "assumed" bonuses in the form of options, restricted shares, etc. which:

a) you're not certain to get anyway (because they're bonuses)

b) might not really be worth $30k

> the value of private company stock can be hard to determine

The IRS uses 409A valuation. These valuations have been high enough to cause huge AMT burden to engineers. Sam Altman etc have written about it; Zoe Lofgren herself has been trying for years to fix it.

Why do you think it is a joke?

Even if you do get these bonuses, don't you pay taxes on the assumed value?

Employer-provided healthcare is considered compensation, and the "cost" is somewhat determined at will depending on creative accounting.

How is it so? I'd say there are real dollars going to the healthcare providers.

Yup. The fact that compensation is included, is useless. Companies give you unvested shares worth tonnes that take > 4 years to fully vest. The attrition rates are so high, the sweat shops can get away with it.

Startups offer equity, consulting companies don't. That would actually tend to favor startups as the equity they grant drives the "compensation" upwards despite it being monopoly money until the shares actually vest and assuming they're even worth printing at this point.

Sometimes I wish we could just fine Tata for going against the spirit of the h1b law. If its a large enough fine they might stop their shenanigans.

Unvested RSUs aren't counted as compensation, at least for tax purposes.

If you get $1,000,000 worth of equity that vests in 100 years, your annual stock compensation is still $10,000.

None of the sweat shops offer equity.

I get the impression that this new bill is like putting lipstick on a pig which is the current system. I was hoping the amendments to the H1-B bill would be one of the silver linings of a Trump presidency, but I guess not anymore.

I've commented on this before, at: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13433540 I'm copying the comment below:

---

I'm on an H-1B, and the thing that infuriates me about the dialogue on this is that they are effectively trying to ban skilled immigration, and exclude people like me from coming.

If you don't qualify for the family-based or refugee route, employment-based immigration is the only viable pathway. The amount of hate I see piled on people trying to come here via the employment-based immigration seems insane to me. These people make it seem like employment-based immigration is not as respectable or legitimate, compared to refugee/asylum and family-based immigration.

The problem with requiring higher wagers is that for people like me, who were students in US -- it's very hard to get an ultra-high salary for the first job out of college. (I did my undergrad here, and I don't have a Master's.) I was a student (on an F-1 visa), and my first job out of college offered me $60,000/year. On my first job on my H-1B visa (in NYC), I was offered $85,000 a year (got slightly over $100,000 with bonuses). Then, just about a year and half later, I was paid (incl. lucky cash bonuses) slightly over $200,000 in a single year. (My base salary is $130,000 now.)

If you raised wage requirements, you'd basically be not allowing people like me to continue to stay and work in the US (after graduation from college), and would instead only allow people from outside who have lots of experience (and skill) and can command a much higher salary upfront.

---

It's very disappointing to see the level of vitriol directed towards people who are just trying to build a better life in this country, especially here on HN.

One could argue that H-1B is a visa that never was intended to apply for fresh graduates - it's a vehicle for "importing" specialists that USA doesn't have, bringing in unusual expertise that USA can't build locally. Yes, "People from outside who have lots of experience (and skill) and can command a much higher salary upfront" is the exclusive target audience for the intended goals of why the H-1B visa is implemented, and if it's dominated by other people then it's not working as intended.

Likely there should be some path for immigrant students to stay, but H-1B shouldn't be that path.

H-1B was not setup as a path for graduates to stay in the US. It was intended to allow highly skilled workers in and has been gamed since then to do all kinds of things.

That said, I think a permissive immigration policy is in our intrests, but H-1B is a poor basis for such a policy.

I'm honestly a bit confused to see this point raised here. I certainly have seen vitriol aimed at H-1B workers, including on HN. Raising minimum salary would be a way to restrict the program, but the comment you're replying to specifically calls that change "lipstick on a pig". I guess 'lipstick' might be an endorsement, but it's fair to say that this bill is about making Americans happier with a still-broken system.

Suggesting that the existing H-1B system is broken and in need of reform isn't necessarily a call for less skilled immigration. My two biggest complaints about it are actually both pro-immigration.

First, I think what was meant as a way to integrate skilled immigrants into the economy has been transformed into a way to marginalize many visa-holders into non-standard consulting work.

Second, I think the H-1B system has created a distorted market which hurts both visa holders and domestic workers by creating a labor pool which is basically unable to bargain. Tying someone's immigration status to the actions of a single employer makes even basic negotiations like "this work environment is terrible" or "I'm underpaid for the work I'm doing" untentable, since the employer has an irrefutable lever over the employee. That's terrible for visa-holders working at inappropriate wages or under unpleasant or unsafe conditions. It's also bad news for domestic workers, who rightly complain that they're not just competing against international labor but handicapped-by-law labor. In an industry which has already seen one major wage-fixing conspiracy, I think it's understandable that there's some nervousness about employers using the law to create an artificial boundary on labor prices.

I'd like to see skilled immigration massively expanded, and I think part of that process is reforming the H-1B system. Many companies use the system quite reasonably, but others are specifically using it to avoid treating American or international workers fairly.

The system has been good for you and I don't begrudge that. I'm happy for you. But besides its successes, the current system has fomented a fair bit of abuse of h1bs and suppressed American citizens wages... at least based on what I've seen as a longtime developer (working with h1bs and contractors at times) and job hunter. But it was put in place with the long-broken promise that it would not do that.

This is a proposed bill by California democrat Zoe Lofgren.

Thankfully it has zero chance of passing.

Bloomberg suggests this is going to get upstaged by the administration's proposed changes; but they're not really revealing any details about the draft. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-30/trump-s-n...

This months old Vanity Fair article gives some insight that Trump feels there is a role for immigration policy to make it easy for foreign students getting good jobs in the U.S. and innovating here; while his senior counselor and strategist thinks there are too many asians in Silicon Valley, and that it risks degrading civil society. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-30/trump-s-n...

But most any substantial change to immigration policy that isn't national security related, must come from Congress.

It looks like you posted the Bloomberg link again the second time, not the Vanity Fair link

>while his senior counselor and strategist thinks there are too many asians in Silicon Valley

The idea that you can have "too many" of any type of person is about an un-american as one can be. Somehow Trump has no problem with 'too many' chubby white supremacists in the white house. Oh right, whites get a pass on everything. Its only non-whites that have to worry about being too high profile or too successful as to not upset whites. Or dating/marrying white women.

This is straight up racism, open and direct from the white house. I'm not sure how anyone is tolerating this and why there isn't more of an uproar.

I think the shortest fix for the violation part(Corporate/Ed tech loophole and the Implementation/Consultant loophole) is some boots on the ground for DHS to investigate worksites. If there is enough economic incentive vested in any one area, sooner or later people will game it. And the H1B business is very lucrative. Putting in oversight to such a thing is hard without boots on the ground/human resources. AFAIR Visa program is run entirely on applicant fees making to slapstick to a bill even a harder sell given how much congress frowns upon spending.

I think it would be much cheaper and more effective to just auction the the slots (by how much the employer is willing to pay the employee); otherwise, you're just in a quagmire of "is this really a startup for purposes of the exemption", "is this person's role really close enough to Deep Learning Expert", "is this really what similar workers" make, etc -- a hundred loopholes to exploit.

Given what "boots on the ground" typically means for federal agencies (i.e. armed raids), your suggestion makes me twitchy.

> DHS to investigate worksites

This is not a man in suite arriving at site via Uber asking polite questions. This is mostly a SWAT team storming through all doors and killing dogs if any an then taking away all your documents, interviewing all employees. In short that is end of business to you.

Remember they will not come alone. They will bring sleuths from all other departments and you will be fined for not having appropriate number of fire extinguishers and for not having a separate bin for dry cells.

You clients will avoid you and your landlord will be upset.

Thanks for pointing these things out... I've been saying for a few years now, that H1Bs should have a salary floor of 8-12x minimum wage, or the top 10-15% income bracket... given that it's supposed to be for specialized technical skills that aren't able to be found domestically.

^This. Thanks for taking the time to dig through the legislation. I wish news articles were this critical.

> Startups and small businesses will get 20% of the visas. It'll be interesting to see how this is gamed

Probably in exactly the same ways Federal contracts are gamed.

I grant you this is in fact not the perfect reform bill, the question is, is it better than the current situation? To me it looks like it's at least somewhat better, so as a Canadian who may want to move to the US at some point, I'm hoping it passes.

> as a Canadian who may want to move to the US

You can move to the US on the TN visa (as long as NAFTA is still valid). I've met programmers from Canada and Mexico who are on the TN visa.

> so as a Canadian who may want to move to the US at some point, I'm hoping it passes.

Why would it affect you?

Thank you. Good points. Is anybody working on a better bill?

>attestations regarding recruitment

Isn't the compliance enforcement budget zeroed out?

Thank for the summary and link. I was about to have a heart attack.

Whoever is working on the bill is disconnected from reality and the damage it is doing long term here.

Why's everyone so focused on IT? Everyone can learn how to code, it's not a real science.. Oh it's hacker news :)

Now walk into any major university science department. See who the newly minted PhD students are in biology, chemistry, physics, math ... Most are foreigners. This bill will send them home after they graduate... USA will lose here and other countries win big time on people with great science backgrounds with brains who are willing to work and move the science forward. It will take decades for American educational system to change (if it ever changes) and generate the replacements.

> Why's everyone so focused on IT? Everyone can learn how to code, it's not a real science.

I think that's exactly why people are focusing on IT. The H-1B program is meant to allow companies to hire foreigners with rare skills that are hard to find domestically. In reality it's abused to import cheap labor and undercut average American workers doing common work like building applications or administering systems. There should be no problem continuing to hire PhDs and other foreigners with actual unique skillsets at $130k.

> In reality it's abused to import cheap labor and undercut average American workers doing common work like building applications or administering systems.

Really? How much should it cost to do common work like building crud applications or administering systems? Right now, (based on all the H1-B, and similar visa holders I know, which is a good amount) it's ~2X the median household income to pay one visa holder to do it.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to make $200-300K to sling crud apps and keep the lights on in a datacenter.

That's the point. It's to discourage employers from using H1-B visas to hire people to make CRUD apps and instead hire domestically.

I think companies will just outsource crud jobs. There's enough talent outside the US. Until now, they were being brought in with H1b. Now they'll just do if from across the world.

> There should be no problem continuing to hire PhDs and other foreigners with actual unique skillsets at $130k.

You're applying your software-dev tainted view of salaries to the sciences - how much do you think a typical PhD-holding research scientist earns?

Scientists used to make a good living in the USA. Now the market is flooded with cheap foreigners and science is a road to poverty. Ending the employment of cheap foreigners, including as TAs and RAs, would go a long way to making science a respectable profession again.

And it would open the field to American women. When math and science professors can't make a decent living to support a family until after their prime child bearing years, any claims of equal treatment and equal opportunity are nothing but a sham. Science careers today practically demand that women permanently give up any hope of a family just to get on the professor track.

And things are just getting worse. It's time to stop importing foreign science grads.

In grad school i was one of those TAs teaching science to 1st/2nd year university kids. Let me tell you, i was horrified and could not believe these kids paid $50k/year to attend these essentially "baby sitting" classes with high school level information.. at most. 95% kids knew nothing IMO and were planning to go to med schools, i pissed off many of them (as i later discovered) by not giving them anything higher than a C (honestly they deserved to fail). They thought i was too hard one them, but all i was looking for is understanding of the subject and they clearly had very over the surface level of understanding .. Where i come from they would not even be able to enter the university at all...

To me the educational system is clearly broken, most schools in USA are unable to produce quality talent. One of the things that annoyed me was the love of multiple choice tests .. i never encountered one in academia until i came to the USA. What, they tell you the answer when you take the test? Whats the point of the test?

Until USA fixes education system ground up starting from the elementary school to high school to college there will continue to be a need for talent from outside of the country. Until teaching becomes a highly respected and competitive profession (see Japan) - things will not change.

There is a lot of demand for smart well educated people in this country and Since America does not have enough of these people inside (see last election results lol) there will continue to be a flow of brains from the outside of the country.

Foreign science grads are what is driving the US as a leader in R&D. Look at the post-docs at labs in MIT, look at the US Nobel prize winners - the majority of them are immigrants

If companies are limited to domestic scientists then they'll quite happily move their R&D departments to countries with more relaxed immigration laws. Foreign universities will happily take the best researchers from around the world that are denied work in the US.

We're seeing this in the UK from the Brexit fallout. We were getting the brightest from around Europe working in our research labs. Now that we're going to make it more difficult for them they're probably going to go elsewhere.

The abuse of h1b program by IT firms is the issue that has to be separated out and resolved on its own.

There is no reason why we should send a freshly graduated physics scientist back to Uganda or whatever because he can't find an employer willing to pay him/her some abstract 130k salary straight out of school (which is A LOT OF MONEY).

Again, when I hire - I do it strictly based on skills and experience. If I have to do a bit more paper work to get this talented guy work for us I'll do it - but there is a limit. And at 130k limit a lot of these brains will flow back overseas. It would be a huge mistake for USA to get rid of willing to work just talent like that.

I don't see any reason why h1b visa holders shouldn't have a high bar to reach. The whole point of the program is to bring the best of the best, not the average or mediocre, which could likely be filled by an American somewhere.

People seem to be missing his core point - 130k is absurd money for most industries, aside from Tech and Finance.

edit: and not all locations in America pay the same amount of salary for tech workers either.

130k salary is absurdly high amount of money for people outside of IT and finance. Stop living in a bubble. It will price out a lot of talent that will be forced to leave the country. Wich is a huge mistake for American society.

While yes, that newly minted physicist shouldn't be sent back upon receiving her diploma, the H-1B visa is NOT the program that's supposed to keep her here.

There aren't a ton of job for PHds in chemistry, biology, chemist, math etc. They end up working at hedge funds or web developers or things not necessarily related to their PHd. Look at big pharama and see how much they spend on R&D or basic research. Its a very small percentage of revenues.

You are clearly outside of the field. There are tons of jobs in the biotech industry for qualified graduates. The issue is finding people with appropriate scientific and industry backgrounds. This is why h1bs are hired. I don't care what color you are and where you come from. If you know your stuff I will hire you.

I do know something about the industry. A couple a of years ago Merk had a massive layoff. Basically there mission was to get rid of R&D because R&D wasn't cost effective. They would much rather just buy up startups when a drug looked promising. I think most of the other big pharmas are doing the same. I have friends who are phds doing stuff that a tech could do. Look at how many BMEs with BS degrees are getting jobs. A lot of these jobs don't need a phd.

Who do you think is driving a lot of the research work at the biotech start ups that the Merc and others are buying up?

>The issue is finding people with appropriate scientific and industry backgrounds.

My wife worked in biotech. It's very easy to find people with the appropriate undergrad and Master's degrees. It's hard to find someone with a postdoc in exactly what your company does. Unfortunately, the firm wanted to do exactly that: any advancement required going back to academia for a very precise degree/research program. There was no system of internal training or advancement at all, and as a direct result, the firm is (still) chronically understaffed, chronically overworking its employees, and frankly not at all a good place to work.

Thing is, that's your problem as a biotech firm, since the doctoral and postdoctoral job track was never meant to produce workers for industry. You really ought to just take people at an earlier stage of their career, train them for your unique needs, and advance them over the years. While doing so, you should also provide competitive salaries, reasonable hours, and job security.

Oh, and respect for basic safety. None of this "if a chemical fire starts, see if you can put it out before pulling the fire-alarm" crap I've heard about.

Lastly, if we're going to talk xenophobia, why should a firm in the Northeastern United States receive visas to hire a Serbian postdoc (educated in one of Europe's many cheap, publicly-funded university systems!) instead of hiring and training up an undergrad from Nebraska? Are Nebraskans less deserving to "immigrate" to the Northeast than Europeans?

Or are American firms just trying to leech off other countries' public education systems while not paying into making the American system comparably cheap and accessible? How come the undergrad from Nebraska has massive student-loan debt, while the European postdoc has been earning net income since grad school?

if there's really a scarcity, then there shouldn't be a problem paying higher wages as these bills require right - especially given how huge money-spinners successful drug molecules can be.

You seem to be assuming that salaries are based only on scarcity. This is of course wrong - they also are based on available budgets. If there's nobody to hire for available money, the result may be not more money offered, but less startups surviving. Startup can be hugely successful - but more likely it would be wasted money. Salary floor means more money wasted, means higher risk, means less startups. Or at least less startups located in the jurisdiction having price floors.

Yes, there is a problem paying 130k. For a masters or even phd straight out of school that's a lot. (I'm excluding you living in bubbles like SF).

If this was true, salary increases would follow suit. Biotech is not a well-paid industry, especially considering the level of education required. Ergo, we have way more people than we need in this industry already (yes, business owners probably disagree).

"Everyone can learn how to code, it's not a real science." Yes but not everyone who learns to code can get a job coding. Not everyone can get into Google or Facebook just cause they learned to code. The software engineering interviews don't test your ability to code, they test your ability to problem solve w/ data structures & algorithms.

If you live in middle America flyover country it's hard to get any tech job. And the H1-B program is making it a lot harder.

If you think banning access to international talent will make next startup owner to set up shop in Omaha, you are sadly mistaken. It'll be Toronto, or Vancouver.

If you think there won't be people that would try to start businesses in America, you are sadly mistaken.

>If you live in middle America flyover country it's hard to get any tech job.

Mind, that might have something to do with middle America having defunded its state university systems, making skilled labor difficult to produce. We live in an economy where gluts of unskilled labor are a very bad thing for productivity, and it's about time state governments got that through their damned heads.

You are exactly right. Single minimum wage doesn't make any sense considering there is such a wide gap between IT and everything else. However keeping minimum wage to the 1989 level hurts H1B IT workers more because many of them literally end up getting just that even if they qualify for far more. I guess the issue is not solvable easily because to create job titles and assign it minimum wage number that is, say, at least 10% more than average current is herculean task in itself.

Your point stands, I just wanted to note that the wage level was established in 1998, not 1989. There is a typo in this article, possibly misread from the bill summary https://lofgren.house.gov/uploadedfiles/high_skilled_bill_sx...

If the demand for other types of workers isn't high enough to warrant that level of pay, why do they need to bring in foreign workers?

Lower pay doesn't mean abundance. For example, professors for mathematics, theoretical physics, geology etc would be low paying job but its also hard to find people with great skills in these areas.

I don't think academic jobs are covered in this. The current system also has exemptions for academic H1-B workers (no lottery).

Also, hard science PhD students are typically hired on J-1 (when they stay in academia/research) or O-1 visas (if they find a relevant position the industry).

After you graduate you have to get h1b to work. Nobody is going to pay straight out of school biologist 130k.

There is no shortage of biologists. Pay and conditions in the life sciences is abysmal. The sausage factory relies on graduates for cheap labour.

So if foreign students knew the couldn't even get a poorly paid job after graduating, would they go elsewhere? Would this cause a collapse of the university pyramid scheme? Would labs have to start paying real living wages for staff?

Lots less science would get done in the short term. US universities would no longer get the best and the brightest from around the world. The size of departments would plummet. But in a few years the number of graduates wouldn't totally dwarf the number of jobs available. That might not be a bad thing.

You're misunderstanding the immigration system if you think you "need" to be on H-1B. H-1B is just one of many statuses you could get. O-1 is one that is perfectly appropriate for a brilliant PhD.

(Source: I am on an O-1)

A lot of people with core science backgrounds are working on h1b visas today in this country. This bill can really screw up a lot of lives.

Again, a lot of these people find positions on J-1, O-1, or cap-exempt H-1 visas.

Edit: you can downvote me but it'd be nice to explain why at least. I have a hard time understanding how raising the salary requirement for capped H-1B visas will affect core science PhD students.

O-1 is only awarded to an exceptional few.

You and some other folks seem to be oblivious on how H1-B works and this bill itself. You need to have 12 years of working experience OR bachelors degree OR a mix of both for H1-B eligibility.

Regarding students (PhDs or anyone on F-1 visa), they will get straight path to permanent residence.

At least the pdf file for new H1B visa bill means that there will be new line or new path for F1 visa holders.

Also, F1 visa students provide good enough subsidies and education discounts to American students (both in-state & out-of-state tuition).

There is no straight path for students from F-1 visa to permanent residence.

I would agree with this. These new changes are clearly attempting to address the rampant abuse of the system by the likes of TCS and Infosys and in the process they are affecting other legitimate h1b candidates.

A potential solution can be something like a different type of work permits or different requirements for h1b applicants applying after they studied here, something along those lines.

And probably for the best. We kind of need the US to take a back seat for a while. Let it be an inbreeding backwater that it clearly wants to be, the world will breathe easier for it.

We've been drifting in this direction for decades now... if someone else wanted to take the wheel, why haven't they done so already? Sure, Putin wants to be the daddy, but he just doesn't have the industry to get there. Other than him? It's like the rest of the world believes the hype, even more than we do.

Or maybe the hype is true?

China certainly is doing a great job at this and Trump's dismissal of the TPP means China just get a major leg up in its regional ambitions.

The US still is an 800lbs gorilla, but it got there by making a lot of aggressive globalization, immigration, military, and investment moves. Now we have an administration that is against all those things and is run by a man who has a cult of personality behind him and can do 'not wrong' to his base. We're on a completely new path that, historically, has not ended well for modern economies. Isolationism and protectionism in a globalized economy simply does not work. Ask Hugo Chavez how well his Venezuelan experiment worked.

>We've been drifting in this direction for decades now...

This is untrue. Ignoring Bush's recession, we've been on a non-stop upwards path in almost any metric that matters: gdp, gdp per capita, military power, science publishing, space, tech innovations, environment regulations, social progress, healthcare access, etc. We are hard to beat when managed correctly. The current administration is going against all the things that have given us a leg up over the years. That is something to be concerned about. US supremacy is not a given. Its hard fought and Trump is giving up the global fight for bizarre reasons like trying to bring coal and manufacturing jobs back, neither of which is even feasible considering natural gas/renewable competition and what automation is doing to manufacturing right now.

>This is untrue. Ignoring Bush's recession, we've been on a non-stop upwards path in almost any metric that matters: gdp, gdp per capita, military power, science publishing, space, tech innovations, environment regulations, social progress, healthcare access, etc.

You mean, ignoring the Second Great Depression that, outside America's richest metro areas, never ended and is still ruining lives right now?

Oh yes, other than the unbearable, unfathomable misery of tens of millions of people, we're doing great!

It's fun to pick on W, but it's pure fantasy that his anything has been our main problem. USA was a powerhouse from the late 1930s through the late 60s. Big important things got built and sold and used efficiently. Basically until the Baby Boomers entered the workforce. We've coasted ever since. The military spending you like so much has been more of a drag than a benefit, but perhaps only marginally since we export lots of weapons.

I'd like to believe that China will be the next nation to drag the rest of the world in the direction of progress, but they have so much standing in their way... USA might come to its senses before they get started...

It does appear that that's what we want to be; I question whether the world will be breathing easier once it happens. The tantrums of an insanely weaponized and idiotic civilization bumbling towards irrelevance don't instill in me a sense of calm.

Where else do software engineer get paid close to 130k? Not too many other places.

This makes sense from a distance. Such employees are supposed to be specialists, not hired for the purpose of undercutting wages. I'm not in the bay area, but if you're bringing in a specialist from another country because you can't find one here, this sounds like the sort of wage that person ought to have.

Whether this restriction makes sense in the first place is a different question, but this does sound like it fits the spirit of the h1-b.

I'd be curious to hear an opposing claim on this as I don't know a great deal about it and wonder if I'm missing something.

I think the existing system foments a covert lie-rewarding fear-inducing form of indentured servitude and depresses native nonmanagerial salaries of actual programmers.

I was told early in my career by at least two CEOs that I shouldn't waste my time doing programming (and should join the managerial class) because it would be done overseas or by low cost labor onshore. I do think it's a bummer for those hoping to move/live here from overseas and may slightly reduce US tech industry competitiveness, but it looks to me to be a removal of a capital-favoring wage-surpressing distortionary loophole in our immigration policy that at the end of the day is probably a good thing.

Color me surprised, I commented on many related threads recently but this sounds actually pretty good!

$130k is maybe a little high for seed stage startups but given that we're talking about relocating engineers to the most expensive region in the world, I believe it's fair. And the path from F-1 to Green Card will solve companies taking advantage of people on OPT status, at least partially.

Thing is that the whole of US isn't Silicon Valley or Seattle. Startups in upcoming hubs like Portland and Boulder will suffer(sic) because the salary requirements are too high for them to satisfy given the living costs.

It basically means that the only companies who are gonna be able to hire through H1Bs are the big cos or unicorns.

Companies may have to do something unimaginable and invest in their employees who may not have the exact skill set they need and offer them training or give them time to ramp up....

And yet that delay is antithetical to starting to work in a new area, innovating rapidly, etc. The ability to attract and retain employees from anywhere around the world is a massive advantage, and this sounds like a disincentive program.

I agree with you that training is part of the solution, but for niche applications that can be pretty hard, you're talking people who have studied for years. So if you are doing work like that, why wouldn't you set up in a country without such restrictions? E.g. Vancouver.

How about caps on the percentage of H1Bs/L1s in any company (e.g. 15%), and the ability for H1B workers to transfer employers?

"but for niche applications that can be pretty hard, you're talking people who have studied for years."

How many people that have studied for years to become experts at niche applications are being paid only $60,000 a year - the current minimum for H1B Visas? I would think that getting such an expert is well worth $130,000 a year.

Only works if you have enforceable non-compete contracts to prevent your workers from leaving after you trained them, since most employers will pay a premium to get workers who are already trained and the original employer will pretty much never give salary bumps that high year-over-year since it would quickly bankrupt them.

Non-compete clauses are unenforceable in California exactly because it's desirable in a macroeconomic sense for employees to spread their skills throughout all the businesses in the economic cluster by osmosis. Bringing back non-competes to deal with a lack of talent (especially when that talent exists, it's just abroad) is regressive.

Companies are just going to focus on remote-only work cultures until Trump forbids outsourcing work overseas altogether.

<blockquote> Only works if you have enforceable non-compete contracts to prevent your workers from leaving after you trained them, since most employers will pay a premium to get workers who are already trained and the original employer will pretty much never give salary bumps that high year-over-year since it would quickly bankrupt them. </blockquote>

If an employer won't pay an employee based on market rates, when that employee leaves, they are going to have to pay the next employee they get to replace them at least market rate anyway and on top of that probably 30% more for a recruiters fee, plus the loss productivity while they are looking for a replacement, plus they are losing a person with knowledge of the company.

I read something somewhere.

A software dev manager asked his manager for a training budget for his employees. His manager asked him, what if we spend the money on training and they leave? The software dev manager asked his manager, what if we don't train them and they stay?

Started a company in a college town on the east coast with far lower cost of living than the valley. The existing financial H1B requirements and recently the promises of the new administration made it financially unfeasible to even be able to consider hiring the international students working with us after they graduated. Really unfortunate because they were extremely talented employees and not easily replaced here.

For some reason, people like to ignore the 25,000 infosys H1Bs to talk about a hypothetical startup H1B. Can you please name one of those Boulder or Portland startups? Maybe point me to the "who is hiring" post where they are trying to pay the required wage but nobody wants to work for them?

It basically means that the only companies who are gonna be able to hire through H1Bs are the big cos or unicorns.

It also means that there is an economic incentive at all levels to consider hiring Americans first. Which is the point.

Have you seen the article where Siemens tried hiring people for the new factory...and the majority of American people who showed up to apply couldn't even pass school level tests...?

Educational system in usa is broken. THAT should be number one item to address for this administration. Instead they are playing smoke and mirrors game worth us diverting our attention from the real issues.

P.s. it is convenient to have poorly educated constituents - they are much easier to brain wash and control. So chances are education system will not be fixed any time soon.

> Have you seen the article where Siemens tried hiring people for the new factory...and the majority of American people who showed up to apply couldn't even pass school level tests...?

So Siemens was forced to hire H1-B workers, but if this bill passed they couldn't because of a $130K premium?

Oh, I see, you're conflating manual labor with highly skilled technical work and hoping no one will notice because you wave your hands and shout "the educational system, man, it's broken!"

Yes I saw that. I also saw the part where more people passed the basic test than there were available positions.

No matter how good our educational system is, there will be people in the left tail of the Bell curve.

> Have you seen the article where Siemens tried hiring people for the new factory...and the majority of American people who showed up to apply couldn't even pass school level tests...?

Could of have also been Siemens trying to game the system. Oh look nobody local passed this test we gotta hire foreign workers who work for less money and avoid unions....then they fail to give the test to their foreign workers who might also fail the test.

Startups in Portland, etc, are trying to arbitrage their low cost of living, which is great, but the fact that the companies in SF, etc can pay more shows that they're providing a greater economic benefit and should probably get the.immigrants that can justify such a salary.

Your assumption is that the startup will have a chance of growing only if it has access to H1B. Why would local talent not be enough for that startup?

That is not my assumption at all. It is about casting a wider net. In an ideal world, the talent a company needs is available instantly and locally. But the world isn't ideal. Sometimes the talent is available instantly but not locally.

Startups can't afford to train and develop developers as much as big companies can. It is in the interest of the startups to hire quickly and to hire as close to the profile they want to hire. Not being able to do that might stall progress at the desired pace.

That applies to any industry. Might need a specific lawyer today, why not get one from India? Might need another specific doctor, again, why not China?

There's a wide enough net in the USA, which is not a small country. It just costs money in wages or time in training. If we did what you're suggesting with everything, we'd have more buoys of the American middle class collapsing other than just tech.

>In an ideal world, the talent a company needs is available instantly and locally. But the world isn't ideal. Sometimes the talent is available instantly but not locally.

That's a utopia for employers, but it's a dystopia for workers.

I've been working for big companies (Fortune 100) exclusively as a contractor for the last four years. The unspoken expectation has been for me to be able to do the job well enough to produce production quality code without training.

You're absolutely right, and I've said it myself in the past, this heavily favors one kind of companies in a few high CoL areas. You're better off selling ads than trying to cure cancer or solve the energy crisis, and sadly that's not only true when hiring foreign talent.

Nobody is solving the energy crisis by writing a React CRUD app.

Well, I'm fairly sure even Tesla needs CRUD apps.

Well, and given that the premise of H1-B visas is that "we literally couldn't find a local who could do this", I'm OK with that.

Outside the Bay Area, you're probably not going to pay a frontend website programmer $130K on an H1-B. You're not supposed to, though! You can find plenty of that talent already in the country. If you need specific PhD-level STEM skills that you haven't been able to find locally, you're probably not going to mind paying them $130K because they're likely critical to your business, and that would be their market rate anyway.

There are many loopholes with this logic, although I can see how the "free market will fixit!" philosophy is so common.

The unavailability of required talent does not magically make it economically feasible to pay more for that talent. Especially the process of hiring new employees is an expensive and slow process. The vitality of American businesses depends critically on the availability of great talent at a reasonable cost. And 130k seems like a really really huge expense, especially to non-silicon valley businesses.

> You can find plenty of that talent already in the country.

No you cannot. Sure the H1B is abused horse gets beat a lot and sure there is a lot of abuse. But what shouldn't be missed is that the H1B gives American companies access to a market of the best talent in the world, to allow them to hire that talent for themselves.

History has shown how diversity and pluralism, along with dynamic markets have contributed to the blooming of civilizations. It has also shown how jingoism and trade wars have led to their fall.

> The vitality of American businesses depends critically on the availability of great talent at a reasonable cost.

You could just as easily say that the vitality of American businesses depend on a well paid consumer class. Aka the people we're raising wages for.

> But what shouldn't be missed is that the H1B gives American companies access to a market of the best talent in the world, to allow them to hire that talent for themselves.

It still does unless I'm missing something?

I'd find that persuasive if I hadn't worked with H1-Bs hired solely because they'd work more cheaply and for longer hours than their local counterparts. The current H1-B program on paper looks great. In practice, in my experience, it seems to be abused all to hell.

Well, if we are going by anecdotes, then all the H1B workers I know have been extremely talented, culturally assimilated, make more than 130k workers. Can you see why we don't rely simply on anecdotes in this forum?

I'm certainly not denying the existence of a problem. I am pointing out the flaw in your reasoning that simply raising the minimum salary will benefit American society (Businesses + Workers). It won't, because it will make them incapable of accessing the best talent at a reasonable rate.

>The vitality of American businesses depends critically on the availability of great talent at a reasonable cost.

If the vitality of American business depends critically on keeping high-skilled labor as cheap as possible, then capitalism is a failure and we should throw it in the trash-heap of history.

> Well, and given that the premise of H1-B visas is that "we literally couldn't find a local who could do this", I'm OK with that.

H-1B visa does not have such a premise. Green card applications do though - are you confusing the two?

I think you have that backward. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-1B_visa:

> The regulations define a "specialty occupation" as requiring theoretical and practical application of a body of highly specialized knowledge in a field of human endeavor including but not limited to biotechnology, chemistry, architecture, engineering, mathematics, physical sciences, social sciences, medicine and health, education, law, accounting, business specialties, theology, and the arts, and requiring the attainment of a bachelor's degree or its equivalent as a minimum (with the exception of fashion models, who must be "of distinguished merit and ability"). Likewise, the foreign worker must possess at least a bachelor's degree or its equivalent and state licensure, if required to practice in that field.

It says nothing about the availability of these skills locally.

> http://www.dollartimes.com/inflation/inflation.php?amount=60...

Those seed stage startups are going to need more capital! Go back to what valuations in 1989 looked like too.

Well intentioned but misses the mark.

If this had been in place when I came to the US, me and many of my friends (petroleum, chemical, electrical and software engineers and possibly nurses, doctors, anesthesiologists and doctors) would have had to have left the US after getting STEM degrees here. Instead of this, just ban skilled immigration to the US and be upfront about not wanting immigrant skilled labor. Everyone will understand. It's your country.

However, if you want to fix the problem, however, let h1b workers move companies as freely as green card holders without having to "transfer" the visa from company to company, and let holders apply for a green card on their own after a year or two. Simple.

Solves the supply problem and balances the relationship between the employer and h1b holder to more closely match a normal employment relationship, not one where they hold all the cards and can literally decide your fate at a moments notice, forcing you to work for lower wages just so they can maybe .. eventually ... sponsor your green card or make you do more work than you should for the same reason.

This is a good but flawed move.

In very high COL places like NYC and SFBA $130k is barely a living wage unless you can put up with a 2h commute.

OTOH, in low COL markets (eg. KC) this eliminates H1-Bs from consideration for most entry-level positions.

For many markets in the middle (an example doesn't come to mind, perhaps Los Angeles?) where $130k+ is a decent salary for an entry-level position this new minimum works.

What's really needed to make H1-B work on a national scale for a broad range of professions while still limiting abuse is something like a COL adjustment, or scaling the minimum with some formula like 75% of the median salary, or the 30th percentile, or something similar.

Edited to add: I am assuming that no more than 30% of your salary is spent on rent, you save 10% of your salary, that you are working in downtown San Francisco, that your commute is under 30m door to door via public transportation, and you live in a 2-bedroom apartment.

Also: https://smartasset.com/mortgage/what-is-the-cost-of-living-i...

> OTOH, in low COL markets (eg. KC) this eliminates H1-Bs from consideration for most entry-level positions.

Isn't that the point? I thought H1-Bs were supposed to only be used when the skill set required could not be found locally. This does not match up with entry-level positions unless there are no programmers in the area.

Well, do you want the price to reflect the wage of an average entry-level employee, or that of a talented one?

I'm not sure the US should have as a goal keeping every foreign grad here.

Speaking as a New Yorker, $130k is not "barely a living wage", unless you have a really distorted definition of "living."

You do not need to commute 2h for reasonable housing -- I lived in Brooklyn (which, for me, was a very comfortable 25m door-to-door commute), and was very happy there.

You're right, I shouldsn't have lumped NYC (in all of it's five borroughs) in with SF.

NYC actually has neighborhoods that are affordable, often only a few blocks away from expensive ones.

$130K is not barely livable.

"SFBA $130k is barely a living wage unless you can put up with a 2h commute." Goto craigslist, look for single bedroom in a house or apartment. You can easily find a place for < $1700/mo not in the ghetto. People like you (and the media) always like to blow things out of proportion (sensationalism) but never actually look at any real data.

I lived in sf for < 130k a year at one point in my career. The majority of employee's in the energy sector / startups in the bay area also are making < 130k / year

> NYC and SFBA $130k

Really ? Surely it can't be that expensive ?

It is not. I am lost of what 'barely living' here means.

130k is totally decent, however it is also not rare. For entry level job to big companies/good startups, the market price is between 110k-120k, and it usually takes 2 years or so to bump up your salary to 130k level(one raise is good enough), assuming you are a reasonable(above average but maybe not excellent) engineer.

So, no, I completely disagree with this 'barely living salary' bullshit, it makes us software engineers look like spoiled ungrateful whiny babies. Not GOOD!

I think it's a combination of hyperbole and being out of touch.

$130K is not "barely a living wage". It's a very good salary in the Bay Area and 1.5 times the average wage in SF.

It's not. Maybe he's assuming a stay at home wife and/or children which would be a stretch on $130k, it's true.

You can live well and have savings as a single guy on $130k in both those areas.

This is complete hyperbole. $130k is considered a good salary in NYC.

Well, I may be exagerating the 2h commute part, but RE prices in SF (and therefore rents) are completely ridiculous at this point, and East Bay places near any BART (light rail) station are too. Sharing an apartment doesn't help much since the sharing seems to be built into the price of apartments with more rooms.

Taxes in CA are a bit higher than elsewhere in the US as well, but at least there you're getting a halfway decent safety net. Rents are high only due to the suppression of the housing supply.

I think this is the entirely wrong solution because it misunderstands the problem.

The problem isn't that the H1B requirements are off a bit. The problem is that H1B visa holders are essentially indentured servants. Say you're a foreigner who applies for an H1B job. Your employer does a bunch of paperwork, gets you an H1B visa, and imports you. Now you can't quit because you can't get a new job. Of course you get underpaid, and of course companies love their H1B workers.

The US should scrap the whole system and replace it with some kind of merit- or point-based visa system for skilled foreigners. The replacement system should have portable visas so that the foreigners aren't inherently cheaper to employ than citizens, permanent residents, and holders of less broken visas.

(Frankly, I agree a bit with the anti-immigrant save-our-job perspective right now. Citizens, permanent residents, etc do have an unfair disadvantage to H1B workers because of the broken structure of the H1B visa.)

> The problem is that H1B visa holders are essentially indentured servants. Say you're a foreigner who applies for an H1B job. Your employer does a bunch of paperwork, gets you an H1B visa, and imports you. Now you can't quit because you can't get a new job. Of course you get underpaid, and of course companies love their H1B workers.

Actually, the program dictates that people are paid above prevailing wage for their position.

But... people get miscategorized all the time. And they also get into big company loans from contractors like TCS for their travel to the US that they couldn't hope to pay without continued employment through them. They also get into bad contracts that include substantial financial penalties for leaving. And just because a company in the US is paying above prevailing wage, that doesn't mean that the employee doing the work is getting it. All of that leads to an environment that is very disappointing.

I do agree that doubling the salary requirement will not fix the real problems, but I don't see it as a problem either. If anything, people close to the edge will end up with a pay bump.

Is it better to be TN?

TN is better if you're Canadian, but you have to do some legal wizardry if you want to get a green card.

While TCS, Infosys etc figure prominently in the H-1B debate, I think this new bill does not affect them as much as it is made out to be. The real downside is for staffing firms (popularly known as "desi consulting shops"), mostly run by Indian-Americans.

TCS employs 370K+ employees worldwide and had revenue of $16B+ in 2016. They might have gotten 3K H-1Bs each year. If they know how to run projects staffing 370K employees with 3K H-1Bs per year, they will figure out a way to run it with 500. Also, with that kind of revenue, they will pay the $130K if it comes to that.

H-1Bs, I suspect, have a power law distribution. TCS, Infosys etc top the list of H-1B visas per year, but there is a long tail of companies which get allotted few visas every year. Some of these in the long tail are high tech firms in real need of skill and are the ones paying appropriately for it (AmaFaceGoodSoft etc). But I think the larger cohort are the staffing shops which bend the rules often and pay low.

A quick calculation: $60,000 in 1989 adjusted for inflation equals $116,132.42 in 2016. This changes the narative a lot.

Well inflation may have increased but as per pew research wages are stagnated for decades (http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/10/09/for-most-wor...) . In that narrative, this increase is unfair to companies outside of SF/NYC area and also unfair to students who came to USA for studies.

Rather than adjusting for inflation, try adjusting for productivity instead:

http://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/

The productivity gap is really an economics understanding gap.

The whole idea is that when productivity goes up, prices go down! To suggest wages should go up when productivity goes up is a complete misunderstanding of economics. It's stupid. You only need one! Prices going down is how the free market adjust for productivity.

If they wanted to make a fair comparison, chart a graph between productivity and the cost to buy a basket of goods in real money. You'll find wages have gone up! Roughly the rate of GDP growth per year! Shocking!!! /s

Good point. Also, wages are not disposable income - the government redistributes more wealth than it used to. The number on your payslip may not be bigger but you can afford more food and health care. Any graph should take this into consideration.

I don't see how. Can you please elaborate?

Seen this way it only updates the salary requirement to accompany inflation, so you are actually just putting it like it already was during the beginning of the 90's.

Benefit costs have increased much more than the rate of inflation though.

This is a blatant hypocrisy on American side. They will sue the shit out of Indian Solar, Pharma, Angri industries if it has competitive prices but won't allow india/emerging nations to do the same in their market. Emerging nations are bullied by developed nations for a long time and the saga goes on. I get that H1b visa was used to provide cheap services but globalization works both way. Powerful nations can't just enact the laws which only works in their favor.

I don't understand your claim of hypocrisy. What is America saying is bad, but also doing?

And what suing are you talking about?

Basically USA has long history of suing Indian companies which competes with their product in Indian market.Some examples.. (1) The US Said India's Solar Power Plan Discriminates Against American Companies — And the WTO Agrees - https://news.vice.com/article/the-us-said-indias-solar-power...

(2) Indian pharma companies legally trying to make cheap generic version. Nope, big boss USA doesn't like it because it is against 'globalization'.

Pfizer Inc. (PFE) Keeps Suing Generics Makers In India http://www.ibtimes.com/pfizer-inc-pfe-keeps-suing-generics-m...

and the list goes on.

But when Indian companies tries to compete in the market by providing cheap services, Nope. Sorry, Can't do.

Basically the post world war II history is all about enacting the laws to the maintain the hegemony of selected few elite countries. S. Korea and Japan were lucky in that regards as sympathy of west was on their side but emerging countries like China, India and Brazil are screwed.

I think we've seen throughout history that what you listed above is largely possible for powerful nations. It is a "benefit" of being a powerful nation to express that power. This is much more an optimization problem than a logical debate.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is just a proposal that has to get ratified by the House of Congress, right?

It's noteworthy that Zoe Lofgren, the sponsor of this bill, has attempted to pass similar bills before, which were not successful. See e.g. https://www.us-immigration.com/blog/bill-fails-in-the-house-...

That is right. Forget voting, this bill may not even go to the Committee. I am not sure if this worth all this hysteria. If it is proposed by a ranking Republican member of the House Judiciary Committee, we will know it is serious.

Exec orders might be coming. https://news.google.com/news/amp?caurl=http%3A%2F%2Famp.usat...

>"The raised salary level - to more than $130,000 - is more than double the current H-1B minimum wage of $60,000, which was established in 1989 and has since remained unchanged."

This is interesting. Adjusting for inflation, $60K in 1989 is worth 117K in today's dollars. This adjustment is essentially just a compensation for inflation.

Isn't this discriminatory on states with lower cost of living? 130k is not very high in Bay area for big companies and non entry level engineers.. However, at emerging cities in the US, that may be unattainable until say director positions for now.. So government powers more immigration and bias to CA at the cost of other cities developing cities? (Disclaimer) H1B from big co in the east coast, senior SE making 110k. Will make > 130k if bonus and stock compensation could be included though.

I don't think we as a country have figured out cost of living adjustments to compensation and taxes in general. I know first hand that there are certain jobs that pay you very similarly no matter where you are. So the guy in NYC pays more in taxes and cost of living while the gal in Texas saves a lot more especially with no state income tax, low property taxes, and lower cost of living.

I agree. Thinking about it, I made a conscious choice to stay at my current job in the east coast for this reason. (Nett money I could save was higher even with a lower pay than bay area). But, the impact of such variation only contributed to some decisions like mine, but not viability of jobs. I wonder what impact having access to viable H1B labor force would do for CA and expensive cities vs rest of the US.

> I don't think we as a country have figured out cost of living adjustments to compensation and taxes in general.

I'm not sure you should. There's a reason for the cost of living to change so much from one region to another, and compensating that change with government money can have severe economic impacts.

Aren't we already compensating by virtue of tax deductions at federal level and allowing certain states to not tax income?

Sure some cities come ahead/untouched in this.

But these immigration plans are to get rare skills, or combinations of skills. If that's not worth the 130k, your company doesn't need those skills enough to use this type of program.

The program is now used for generic skills in some cases, and those should be handled through other immigration programs.

This will cause a housing crashing in the lower cost of living places like Texas where an H1B holder routinely makes less than $80K a year, but can still afford to buy brand new homes in the best school districts. Their employers will not able to hike their wages and will likely turn to outsourcing firms or open offices in the coasts where there is more qualified talent available.

It will get fixed in about 4-5 years when enrollments into tech degrees catches up with the job market.

How can an Indian or Chinese immigrate to USA under the current system?

Legally there is simply no way besides marriage. These people who are actually very skilled have a very good history of assimilating in the mainstream and being successful in USA are discriminated against.

As a student you have to lie that you will return to India, as a H1B you have to lie that you intend to return back. As H4 you have to sit quietly at home like an obedient biblical wife.

At the root of H1B is the a deep systemic hatred and racism against Asians.

the 130K cut only applies to H1 dependent employers: those company that has at least 15% H1 employees.

So this pretty much means, if you are not in tech, most likely you won't be affected, as your employer most likely won't have 15% H1 employees.

If you are in tech, and is in one of thoes legit tech companies, most likely you are also covered, as you will make 130K. Your employers may need to be a bit smart when it comes to meeting the cut, e.g., it may need to reduce some of your RSUs/EFTTs and put them into your salary. But you should make it.

The new proposal doesn't say much about H4s. But I didn't really read much details of the new proposal. As of today, H4s can have EAD if their H1 spouses apply green card and get i-140 approved.

At the root, we have this new proposal today exactly because Indian companies try to abuse the current H1 system. I know stories of both Chinese and Indians got effed up by the H1 system, real stories from real friends in my life, including my wife. I blame Indian outsourcing companies as much as I blame the system, to be honest.

As a student, on F1 visa, if your intention is to stay, honestly you shouldn't get the F1 visa in the first place. If you have to lie about this intention to DHS, that's your own problem. H1, on the other hand, is a dual-intention visa. So you don't need to lie about stay or return. That's why H1s are allowed to apply green card.

> So you don't need to lie about stay or return.

Dual intent does not mean you can tell the visa officer you will request the employer to also sponsor green card. That will most certainly get your visa rejected.

This increase in salary is not for the H1-B workers benefit; rather, it's to make hiring them more expensive so American workers will be considered first--as they should be.

I would support any law that REQUIRED American companies to hire Americans first and then consider foreigners ONLY if no qualified Americans can be found in the 50 US states.

If America wants to do good by her workers, she needs to put Americans first. Always and foremost. Let India, Vietnam, and China take care of their own people first.

H1-B visas have always been bad for American workers. And they always will be. I would raise the minimum to $250k, were it me. Very few companies will pony up the currency to play that game. If companies were to hire Americans again FIRST, as they should have been doing, perhaps American primary and secondary schools as well as universities would have stronger STEM programs. No one is going to suggest STEM to their children if they have to compete with foreigners.

On H1-B and desire to immigrate here... I'm not opposed to immigration if it's done the old fashioned way like my dad did it. Come here, apply, wait your tenure for green card, and eventual citizenship. Don't come here for an American passport, come here because you want to be an American.

The reason top companies (FB, Google, major SV startups, etc.) exist primarily in the US is because the US is able to attract talent from all over the world.

If these companies had never been able to hire the best people, there wouldn't now be the same companies hiring more Americans. They would simply exist in other countries, instead of the United States.

By the way, I work at one of these companies and have had frank discussions about compensation with many of my coworkers and I can guarantee you that H1-B holders are NOT being paid less than Americans.

Obviously none of this applies to body shops like Infosys and Tata.

> On immigrating here... I'm not opposed to immigration if it's done the old fashioned way like my dad did it. Come here, apply, wait your tenure for green card, and eventual citizenship.

This suggests to me that you don't actually know what an H1-B visa is. Getting an H1-B is the first step to coming here, waiting for green card, etc. How else do you propose people do it? Out of curiosity, what papers did your dad have that allowed him to come?

I understand the nuances of immigration and why people seek the worker visas...

My dad moved here from Europe in the early 60s, went through INS, got a green card, a job, and 6 months later was drafted into the Army and went to Vietnam. Unlike Americans at the time, my dad was given the choice to accept the draft or go back to Europe. He accepted the draft, fought in Vietnam, was injured, and EARNED his citizenship the hard way. My dad was a stellar man in many ways. He exemplified the best work ethic I have ever seen and likely will ever see. He went from being a civilian handyman and cook to E9 in the military (only 1% make this grade by law) to earning almost $200k a year before his death.

You clearly don't understand the inner workings of the immigration system and what's happening with the educational system as well.

It's a shame especially considering the hardships your immigrant dad had to go through to give you an opportunity to live in this country.

What does "went through INS" mean? What papers or visa did your dad have that gave him the right to live here, and how was it meaningly different from an H1-B ?

From what I read, I don't think OP knows. My dad came here on a J-1 visa as a student which meant my mum, my sisters and me came here on a J-2 visa since we were dependent on his visa status.

It took us 10 years of constant applying, thousands of dollars spent before we got our green cards. I still remember my interview because I got my green card in 2015 and it was the most invasive thing I've ever gone through. I still even remember all the interviews we had to do before we got our visas to come to America.

In my opinion, I don't think OP really knows how difficult it is to get to America in the first place as an immigrant. It's not as simple as the media makes it out to be.

I believe that a green card and eventual citizenship is still available through a similar path today. You just have to want it bad enough to sign up for the American military and followup with proper paperwork.

Not many immigrants want to sign up for that duty though.

Source?

And FB, Google, and major SV startups are also paying more than 150k+ to their H1b employees. Especially for jobs in which they cannot find enough american's to fill.

>> I'm not opposed to immigration if it's done the old fashioned way like my dad did it. Come here, apply, wait your tenure for green card, and eventual citizenship.

How exactly do you envision for this to work? "come here" how? as a tourist? "apply for a green card" based on what grounds? etc etc.

>> hire Americans first and then consider foreigners ONLY if no qualified Americans can be found in the 50 US states.

sure, sounds good in theory. in reality though, how do you propose this actually happens? hire more gov-t bureaucrats to harass companies to make sure they went from Jacksonville to Anchorage looking for candidates lol ? what if they did happen to find someone but they don't want to relocate? etc etc. It's easy to be throwing slogans out there but reality is a bit more complex.

That said - I do agree with the fundamental intent of the proposed bill as the rampant abuse of the system by big time consulting shops is very real and needs to be addressed, but again it has to be done in a way that doesn't hurt businesses they are supposedly are trying to help.

I believe your second point (considering foreigners only if no qualified Americans can be found) is already codified into law, or is at least highly suggested. From what I understand, companies will tailor the job description in such a manner that the only person who fits the description is the candidate from the outsourcing company.

I had this discussion with a French guy who calls for similar policies there. I'm a bit surprised that homeland companies hiring foreign workers for cost reasons aren't seen as damaging thus justifying that kind of policies.

I'm also surprised. We shall see...

I never visited U.S and heard about H1-B and its abuse by Indian Body-shops. Let me know if below understanding is correct or not:

1) So far, Indian Body-shops paid low salary compared to original one. (for example, say instead of 80K/yr ,Indian Body-shops paid 40K/yr and kept the remaining for themselves)

2) Now with new bill, increased base amount to 130K/yr and also ensures this goes the employee?

Is that correct?

Yes, Indian body shops have charged high fees >80k while not even remitting even close to the 60k back to the employee. I have witnessed this. I have also witnessed employers rescuing people from such body shops by hiring them for 60k on h1b for jobs that could absolutely be done by a u.s. citizen (web programming) and keeping their salary at 60k for many years despite growing skill. The system is broken and abused... unless you are the employer trying to work the angles to pay less.

Regarding question 2, it does bump up the $ amount but I am not sure it protects the worker any more than currently. Also other posters indicate the proposed 130k only applies to a subset of h1bs for whom less paperwork is filed, so i'm frankly not sure it goes far enough.

Thanks for the details. imo, this will have more impact on Indian body shops profit and shareholders more than affecting employee's and that's why greedy IT companies are more upset.

Its good for U.S IT professionals, since hopefully it will end discrimination based on low-pay. Good for India's IT professionals, because they need to prove their worth based on technical skills and not just cheap labor.

I also hope visa interview system get more technical (i assume its not technical atm)- instead of getting interviewed by someone with-in the company, candidates need to be evaluated by independent third party to allow only right candidates.

Reading the article it doesn't sound like this bill does anything to make it easier for the employee to find a different job once they are here (e.g. Making it easier for other employers to take on sponsorship of the H1-B visa.)

The article says this bill makes it easier for students to get a path to citizenship but doesn't say anything about H1-B workers.

I also don't think the salary requirement is necessarily a win for people who want to come over here as an H1-B worker. The gap is so big it is likely that employers will find someone over here rather than eat the $60k salary increase in some cases. It will be a win for anyone who was going to be close to that new $130k minimum where a big company may just soak the increase.

We really need to replace the H1-B program with something that empowers the employees and allows them to switch jobs and have a clear and easy path to citizenship.

"The gap is so big it is likely that employers will find someone over here rather than eat the $60k salary increase in some cases"

I don't see the problem. I can't imagine a job that's only worth $70,000 being so "specialized" that it the company couldn't have found someone that was already in the U.S. to fill. The company was probably taking advantage of the program anyway to get cheap labor.

> The article says this bill makes it easier for students to get a path to citizenship but doesn't say anything about H1-B workers.

My understanding of the text is that it just makes student visas "dual-intent". This would allow prospective students to get an F-1 visa without having to prove that they have no intention of staying back after completing their degree. It's an open secret that a large percentage of students actually want to work after graduating and many intend to naturalize eventually. This would spare them having to lie on the application. Other than this change, the bill does not do anything to make it easier for students.

You currently cannot file for an adjustment of status to legal permanent resident while on a F-1 visa.

This also includes employment-based Greencard. Currently you would need to obtain a H-1B before you could apply for employment-based permanent residency as EB-1, EB-2, EB-3 etc (assuming you reside in the US).

My understanding is that this removes the common pattern of having to get a H-1B before being eligible for employment-based immigration petitions. Additionally experience obtained during university and on the F-1 Optional Practical Training (OPT) would count towards the experience requirements for EB-1, EB-2, EB-3, etc.

"that employers will find someone over here"

I believe that is rather the point.

Looking at the following database of h1b salaries: http://h1bdata.info/highestpaidcompany.php

It seems like only 63 companies have an average salary above 130k and 1937 companies have average salaries below 130k.

With only 11641 H1b's being at companies with an average salary above 130k and 476425 below the cap.

So this is going to free up a bunch of h1b's at the top end of the sepctrum.

There are at least four stakeholders in this situation:

1. The American company that wants to save money

2. The Middleman (e.g. Wipro etc) that wants to make money on the wage arbitrage

3. The foreign worker on the H1B

4. The American citizen that doesn't want to be replaced by the foreign worker

I'm all for cutting out (2) and making it easier for the foreign worker (provided they have the skills) to become an American and not beholden to (2). However, I don't like the American companies saving money on the backs of American employees losing their jobs. How to balance everything is the tough question.

Yes, #4 is the first problem to handle. I have this idea there's at least a dual world here. (a) IT workers that get replaced by H1Bs and are often asked to train their replacements (more operations and putting things together), (b) big software co that writes handmade software, like Microsoft, Amazon, Google, a startup. It's category (a) where people lose jobs and can't find them, because they are more easily replaced? It's category (a) that needs protection, for cateagory (b) we need way more workers. I just heard today that seattle has 11,000 open software jobs. 11k is a lot of jobs.

A lot of people don't understand this concept.

People even apply it on a more local level, like "why don't Amazon and MS hire more UW grads instead of bringing in transplants from all over the country?"

Amazon could hire 50% of UW CS grads and MS the other 50% and it wouldn't be enough to fill their needs.

One problem with a very high minimum salary is that due to the disparity in cost of living, only companies that could afford H1B workers would be from a few cities like SF and NYC. As a side effect, it would increase the diversity of those cities and not anywhere else. I don't think it is ideal - it concentrates immigrants into a small location; and does not allow immigrants to live in a place of their choice.

I think you are mixing up cause and effect - it's not easier from a financial standpoint for companies in NY to pay high salaries, it just happens that companies who can afford high salaries are located there because it's easier to get top talent at those locations.

Really what they need to change are the accounting loopholes. When I was working at a large employer most of the offshored work was under 'services contracts' where the legal wordings were such that it looks like services are being rendered for a specific purpose. This is to avoid having those people show up as labor on a P&L which affects the corprate bottom line.

What actually happens is behind these agreements are a team of people with an onshore presence and the actual employees overseeing the on/offshore work prefer to work with the same set of people. Once you get a team and rhythm going on work, it made things easier to predict. So both sides want to game this 'services contract' to have the same team for literally years.

If they make corporations count all of the on/offshore people as contractual labor in their accounting practices, which is what they actually are, then companies will be hit negatively in their P&L statements. These are essentially jobs which used to be done onshore so they certainly weren't 'talent can't be found' types of roles.

Contractual labor is a service. If it wasn't, it'd be employment. Both show up the same way on a P&L statement; they're both expenses.

It's all the additional regulation and requirements for employment (healthcare coverage, disability insurance, termination protection) that companies want to avoid by hiring contractors.

For all those worried about their job, just remember this is just a bill that was introduced. It takes around 200 days for bill to pass and become a law. Also 96% of the bills die during the process.

https://www.quora.com/How-long-does-it-take-to-pass-a-bill-i...

I think this is great news.

Right now it is almost impossible to get working visa in US, unless you work for a sweatshop.

Minimal salary makes it easier for small business to hire foreigners.

> The legislation sets aside 20 percent of the annually allocated H-1B visas for small and start-up employers (50 or fewer employers) to ensure small businesses have an opportunity to compete for high-skilled workers

told you so ;)

There are some good ideas in this, but not enough. While not everyone will share this view, it seems like most people agree visas for highly-paid, high-value R&D workers are good, and filling up body shops with seatwarmers is not good. The question is: How to make H1-B unattractive to body shops?

A high minimum salary is definitely one way to do it, but, as another commenter pointed out, there remain loopholes. Another way would be to auction H1-Bs, with a high minimum bid. Another would be to prioritize positions that are not contract-labor positions. If it works right, and expands the tech industry, it should be possible to implement the supposed intent of H1-B-to get people into the country that we don't have.

But, unless the barriers are financial, they will get lawyered into nullity.

lol I'm a senior engineer and I don't make that much annually :(

You need to know your value. I don't know your ability, but you are probably being underpaid.

I agree, but I'll leave it at that since this is very public. However, I'd counter that the average Senior Engineer salary is 112k/year; according to Glass Door anyway.

https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/senior-software-engineer-...

I can't say for certain why, but GlassDoor is significantly lower than reality for positions in my area (Boston, MA.) Of the jobs I see advertised for Senior developers, most of them are in the $140-$170K range these days. Assuming that glassdoor is accurate, perhaps the issue is that people who stay in positions more than a few years fall behind new hires because yearly raises don't keep up with market rates.

That and as you get older with more responsibilities many people don't jump ship as often for higher wages. And the higher wage thing is a fairly recent (5-10 year) thing. We can thank Millenials and Vic investment pushing salaries up from bottom. That being said, if you want the money, try to find a 10x company winner take all in growth mode. Life is otherwise too short. Finance also pays well.

Bodyshops like Infosys, TCS and Wipro should be banned or heavily regulated from exploiting the H1B visa. I don't support them. They don't help anyone but the shareholders of the companies. Americans, Indians, Chinese, Govt. and Startups are equally screwed.

'Best and the Brightest' arguments can't be on the same line as $60,000 annual compensation premise. I'm not against people earning a better living. But it's not so complicated to see that something is broken here.

Me - East Indian on H1B visa with both degrees from reputed US schools (full ride). Multiple patents and publications. Left leaning. 6+ corp experience and 3+ startup exp.

Well I think $130k/year is unfair for companies located outside of california, Newyork, MA, Chicago. I think this bill would benefit companies in those locations where cost of living is very high. What about a company in North Dakota or west Virginia. I don't think any company can afford 130k/year in these states, rather they will outsource their jobs(paying 30% tax). I think salary limit should be set based on the state and it should be set as-least 110k/year for other states where cost of living is very low. Well I think This bill is introduced by democrat to help his state.

What makes you think that it's easier for a company in CA to afford 130k salaries? Costs are even higher there, also for companies. It's rather the other way around - companies paying those salaries are located in CA, NY, etc.

This is such no-brainer reform. I really hope the Valley comes together and crushes the H1-Bs used up by employees of Wipro, Infosys etc. at the expense of much more exceptional people employed by amazon, google etc.

Does this affect existing H1B visa holders working in USA?

I think this is going to drive more jobs out of US. Corporations will seek out opening new off-shore offices, in Asia, Canada and EU.

This doesn't change the fact that we don't produce enough skilled workers to meet our demands. And in Trump's America it's not going to get any better.

Not all speciality occupations pay as high as tech, and it's going to affect them 'biggly'.

Immigrant hate is what this is cultivating.

This is a Democrat proposal

" Providing employment and travel authorization to those with approved employment-based petitions awaiting visa availability, so they have similar protections to those provided portability under the American Competitiveness in the 21st Century Act "

What exactly does this mean? Can people with approved petitions move freely between employers without redoing a labor cert?

Why do these bills make so much noise ? Isn't it the case that any senator, congressman can introduce the bill they want ? Shouldn't we take them seriously only after they have passed committee review ? This is probably 4th such bill in last 2 weeks I suppose.

This bill has even affected stock markets in India!

It seems like, in future, most jobs above 130k will go to Non American workers and on the other hand the american workers will be left with low paying jobs (that is under 130K) or American worker < $130K jobs Non American Workers > $130k I would not support such a bill.

What, you think companies are going to hire non-Americans for a higher price just for the fun of it?

It'll be interesting to see if this takes effect on existing employees. Or only new applicants.

Draft text of the bill: https://lofgren.house.gov/uploadedfiles/high_skilled_bill_sx...

Completely unrelated.

Having never viewed India Times' website before, can I say, I really like their method of pulling in infographics and backing up their statements. I'd like to see a lot more of that in the States.

A Bill? Can we not just decree this down with an Executive Order or something?

Correct me if I'm wrong but if this is proposed by a democratic congresswoman, isn't it unlikely to go into effect versus what I assume would be a more aggressive reform by the Republican party?

This is only $13,000 more than $60,000 in 1989 inflation adjusted to 2016 - $116,132. (1989 is the year this minimum wage was mandated).

Assuming the past law was reasonable, this increase also seems reasonable.

Question from an Indian:

In India, this bill is projected as a move by Trump to limit otsiders getting IT job in US. But this bill is moved by a democrat who also moved a bill against travel ban!

What can I infer from this?

Just to add to the conversation: recently, I analyzed some of the H-1B data and concluded that if you want to get an H-1B visa, you should get your visa certified in March via Indian outsourcing companies that are located in New York City, hire programmer analysts, pay out a base salary above $75,000. You can find the article here: https://www.datacamp.com/community/blog/data-h1b-visa .

Fixing the F1 visa loophole will also reduce tuition costs for American students.

It's simple supply/demand micro-economics.

This is absurd. Most F1 students pay full tuition in the state and private colleges, whereas Americans are eligible for need base aid. F1 students are effectively subsidizing American students.

This actually looks very reasonable.

Hopefully the industry will reinvent itself and VCs fund more overseas startups.

If H1B salary restrictions are a big part of what you're doing as a small startup, there's probably more wrong than that. This move should be hitting large, established firms way, way harder

so is this catching up or exceeding the rate of inflation? How was this salary number not tied to inflation or another index?

If anything it seems to me to be a benefit to those seeking employment who have real skills and ability.

If the $60,000 from 1989 had been indexed on inflation, it would be $115,000 now. So, 130k doesn't seem so unreasonable. Of course, that does exclude states and cities with a lower cost of living.

It would really make more sense to just index it to inflation or even better to the cost of live of the city where the employee would work (but that would potentially leave some loopholes)

>just index it to inflation

It's so that politicians can fight every few years it needs to be raised and say, "vote for me, I fight for wages." On the other side of their mouth, on the years they don't fight for an increase, they can go to businesses, "donate to me, or I might have to fight to raise minimum wage this year."

The minimum wage fight a few years ago is a prime example of this.

$120k might be a starter's salary in the Bay Area but in, say, Rochester, NY, it's nothing to sneeze at.

I agree that indexing to inflation is probably necessary, but there are so many factors to inflation at a local level that it's hard to make a one size fits all

It's slightly more than inflation, but as it does not index to inflation it's going to quickly become meaningless.

Read the article. It is indexed to 35% above the median wage for a computer worker according to some of existing Department of Labor category. That median wage presumably will indirectly rise with inflation, so it's better than the previous static # and arguably more tied to the intent of the statute than even pure inflation indexing would be.

I doubt that category is really as fixed as you are thinking. At one point fast food prep was categorized as factory workers to make some statistics look different.

It was tied to another index according to the article.

How about H1-B cap-exempt candidates, professors, doctors and etc...?

Hopefully this will free up some H1B visa space for small companies.

Is the a data on why skilled immigrants on H1-B accept lower wages?

Still better than staying in their shitty country + hope to become a US citizen one day.

Maybe for some, but I'm working in the US because of the higher wages only. And I'd probably hustle my way to a even higher salary if I could compete by freely switching job. So I was curious if there's data around that. It seems to me more like the natural balance of offer and demand with H1B is broken, as an employer can get high skilled workers, and then lock them in for multiple years without needing to compete salary wise anymore.

I think there's a lot more H1B workers who are attracted to working in the US because of those high wages and not because they want to flee their shitty country. High skilled workers are not refugees. They could go to Canada or any other western country, but they flock to the US if they can because of the high salaries.

So my point is, I don't think it's that they accept a lower wage, the wage offered to them is the highest they can get, it's more then in any other country. The issue seems to be that the H1B artificially lower the American wages, by not giving fare market competition on recruiting, which caps out salaries for H1B workers. If that wasn't the case, the H1B workers might even boost salaries, if companies tried to compete even more aggressively for the highest skilled.

exactly. they have the similar aspirations that forefathers/mothers of most-of-the-americans had.

FYI. The executive order may not be same as this bill.

TL;DR

We'll give H1B visa to Linus/Einstein;

The simplest way to fix this program is to let H1-B holders freely switch jobs.

They already can, in the current system.

They have to reapply through their new employer. The applications can fail.

I love the blatant racism of HN. Everyone loves to rip on the H1-B, which is predominantly used by Indians, but no one seems to give a shit about the TN visa. Aren't those Canadians stealing your precious American jobs too?

I love the blatant racism of HN.

Please don't generalize about the HN community in this way, particularly as you choose to be part of it.

AWESOME

Rumor is, Trump will issue a EO that is much smarter than this bill. In particular it's supposed to replace the lottery system with a priority queue, in which priority will be determined by salary. Combined with a cap, this will lead the system to letting only the most expensive workers through. Not ideal, but better than any alternative I have heard of so far.

Sounds like this should have quite an impact on most of the companies that hire a lot of H1Bs. Out of the list below, only Apple is hitting that salary level with their average.

(edit) http://www.myvisajobs.com/Reports/2016-H1B-Visa-Sponsor.aspx

Also, damn, I knew TCS and Infosys were big, but I wasn't aware they were quite that big.

> I knew TCS and Infosys were big, but I wasn't aware they were quite that big.

I once worked with an Infosys guy who specialised in their HR systems. Back then ( about 2012 ) they were receiving 1.2 million applications per year for entry-level developer positions.

Fixed link: http://www.myvisajobs.com/Reports/2016-H1B-Visa-Sponsor.aspx

The new bill will take "cash bonuses and similar compensation" into account. A rock bottom offer from FB/Google/... to new grads in the bay area is typically 160k.

I don't believe it. Maybe if you add up all the initial grants, but those vest over 4 years but I would bet a rock-bottom offer to a new grad is more like $120k/year or even $100k/year.

Still ample for an H1B (well, under other bills) but I suspect this will put significant upward pressure on salaries in the tech industry.

Yes I was counting equity in, since they're publicly traded companies, RSUs are pretty much equivalent to a cash bonus, at least to me...

But even without that, given the total compensation, I'm sure it'd be easy for said companies to extend offers that are over $130k in cash on paper, since it includes bonuses.

What's your source on those new grad numbers?

My total comp was above $100k as a new grad at Amazon, and I think they pay less than Bay Area companies. Plus, that was three and a half years ago.

Here's a question. Two people in same job with similar performance one is h1b the other a us citizen. Layoffs are coming. Who gets cut?

Well with HR point of view, US citizen gets cut. Not just in this scenario my friend. I am in this business(recruitment). Let me give you another tough scenario (forget H1b).

Two people in same job with similar performance one is US citizen who is contracting and while other is US citizen who is full time with company. As we know the contractor salary is very high.Layoffs are coming, But still HR will fire full time US citizen who is getting less pay because to fire a full time employee we need to wait till next lay offs or provide a big reason to fire him. While on other hand you can fire Contractor any time without any formalities.

My point is if you want to abuse H1b program you will abuse it no matter what. It all depends on work culture(HR) of a COMPANY.

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