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Comment by whoisjuan | Hacker News Reader

A someone who benefited from the H1-B program I’m 100% behind the idea of adding higher wages requirements.

I went to Carnegie Mellon and met some of the smartest people there and it crushed my heart seeing some super talented people lose on the lottery several times and be forced to go back home when they already had an employer in the US paying them 100k+ and willing to go great lengths to keep them.

I was lucky enough to get a visa in my first lottery draw, but that was the only reason I got to do what others couldn’t. Luck.

They lost against those consulting companies that exploited the program with impunity for years.

So the QZ article author here is wrong. Whoever is the next US president, this is the best thing that could have happened to the H1-B program.

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I’ve never understood why H1-B applications weren’t sorted by compensation (salary): higher salaries go first. Seems like a trivial way to prevent visa farming.

H1-B applications are not only for tech jobs, and not only for the bay area. There are many other professions which are subject to the same cap, and also have to look outside of the US to fill roles. Nurses are one that come to mind. If all H1-Bs are just sorted by comp, you'll end up with FAANG getting 80k H1-Bs per year.

You may want to argue that "well then other companies don't deserve them if they can't compete with FAANG", or "then companies should pay SF wages everywhere" (which I sorta-agree with), or "then other industries should pay more!".

They may be valid points, but it is unreasonable to expect that another industry can compete salary-wise against FAANG at the moment, and it doesn't make their inability to find candidates locally any less true.

Regarding preventing visa farming, an easier solution (in my opinion) is to improve the flexibility for an H1B worker; allow them to work for any employer for the term of their status.

If an employer used an H1B in order to hire a foreign worker and then under pay them, the worker would just get another job that pays market rate, without the work status concern. Without the artificial control over the employee, H1B harvesting wouldn't be worth it.

> They may be valid points, but it is unreasonable to expect that another industry can compete salary-wise against FAANG at the moment, and it doesn't make their inability to find candidates locally any less true.

Even if they stopped doing stock buy-backs?

Which industries (non-tech) do you think are doing so many stock buy-backs that if they stopped, they would be paying FAANG level salaries to other H1-B qualifying professions?

And if they stopped doing buybacks, what makes anyone think that money would go to employee expenses rather than other forms of shareholder returns?

> I’ve never understood why H1-B applications weren’t sorted by compensation (salary)

Because further narrowing the firms that benefit would have the effect of narrowing political support for the industrial subsidy represented by the H-1B, so the longer-term interests of those who would have a short-term benefit by such a narrowing are served by sacrificing that benefit to shore up support for the benefit they derive even with the visas less concentrated in their hands.

Won't that unfairly benefit big companies?

Nothing unfair about that; salary is a very direct measure of demand for specific skills

> salary is a very direct measure of demand for specific skills

Only economic demand. Not demand in the more common meaning as need.

See the other comment about H-1Bs being for nurses too.

They aren't going to be offered FAANG salaries but that doesn't mean the country doesn't need nurses.

It means there isn't enough money in the part of the system that pays for nurses to compete with FAANG salaries to get them (and all the consequences of that, such as having to pay all other nurses FAANG salaries as well).

If you followed the chain I guess you could argue that the economic demand for advertising is higher than economic demand for healthcare, like it or not. But that would be a really screwed up way of assessing the best way to assign H-1B visas for the benefit of the country.

Somehow the government doesn't want to fund landowners in California. You'd bet that take-home pay for the same work after taxes and rent is higher in Dallas than in San Jose. I think Facebook is demonstrating this like now.

> You'd bet that take-home pay for the same work after taxes and rent is higher in Dallas than in San Jose. I think Facebook is demonstrating this like now.

It's not, though. Median rent in Mountain View (significantly pricier than San Jose) is now $2390/month [1]. L4 total comp at Google, or E4 salaries at Facebook, is about $260K/year [2]. Average rent for a 1BR in Dallas is $1250/month [3]. Average total comp for a software engineer in Dallas is $110K/year. [4]

After taxes and rent, the Facebook/Google L4 is making $260K * (1 - 0.37 [5]) - 2390 * 12 = $135920/year. The Dallas SWE is making $110K * (1 - 0.16 [6]) - 1250 * 12 = $68939/year. Even with the $4K/month rents from 2019, the Facebook engineer is still putting away $116K/year, more than the total gross of the Dallas engineer.

People tend to underestimate the effect of the top-line on finances and savings. Eric Schmidt had a saying: "More revenue solves all known problems". It applies as much to households as to giant companies.

[1] https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/mountain-view-ca

[2] https://www.levels.fyi/#

[3] https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/dallas-tx

[4] https://www.indeed.com/career/software-engineer/salaries/Dal...

[5] https://smartasset.com/taxes/california-tax-calculator#vyY8q...

[6] https://smartasset.com/taxes/texas-tax-calculator#s0LEbwxtAs

>> L4 total comp at Google, or E4 salaries at Facebook, is about $260K/year ... Average total comp for a software engineer in Dallas is $110K/year

You're using average (median I hope) salary for Dallas vs. high end salaries for San Jose.

You used indeed.com for the Dallas salaries, if you use them for San Jose you get an average of 150K. Too lazy to run the numbers but obviously that would change the calculation quite a bit.

The comment I'm replying to specifically mentioned Facebook, hence I'm using (low-end) Facebook salaries.

The comment mentioned Facebook but that doesn't mean you should compare Facebook salaries in San Jose to non-Facebook salaries in Dallas.

Compare Facebook salaries in San Jose to Facebook salaries in Dallas, that would be a fair comparison. Compare median salaries in San Jose to median salaries in Dallas, that would be a fair comparison.

Compare Facebook salaries in San Jose to median salaries in Dallas, that is not a fair comparison and you know that, you are wasting my time by making me type it out for you, you know full well that that is not a fair comparison.

$260k is a low end salary

According to the resource that was used for Dallas salaries, 150K is the average San Jose salary.

This is a good summary of one of my biggest issues with location adjusted salaries. It often seems to be adjusted as if you will be living in that location (and retiring) in that location, which is rarely the case. Yes, in your example both engineers _may_ end up being equally-prepared for retirement, and be in a similar financial situation presuming that 1, all life costs scale proportionally (which is not true, college tuition for children is a great example, regular vacations are another), and 2, they will live in that location always. This is rarely the case, and just leaves the Bay area engineer _miles_ ahead when they relocate 10 years down the line.

Why is the answer higher wage requirements and not just removing artificial restrictions that prevent employers from hiring qualified employees from abroad? If you want standards, set them and remove quotas.

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