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Comment by SilverElfin | Hacker News Reader

> The fact that H1B's get paid less than Americans across the board is all you really need to know about the issue.

Except this is literally false. Every single study I’ve seen that claims this has no real evidence - just speculation without knowing the details of the jobs or the people being hired, based on their own self-serving false comparisons to make dubious claims that similar jobs are paid differently.

Since you said “across the board”, do you think Google or Amazon pay a software engineer at the starting level differently based on immigration status? No, they don’t. Literally every manager at big tech could tell you this confidently.

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I have worked at Apple for a decade, H1B's absolutely do get paid less. We have many H1B's that literally just sit around and push buttons and file bug reports, and barely know how to code. Some of them can't code at all. Ofc some of them are good engineers, but they are not even in the majority.

There is plenty of data to back this up.

>A total of 60% of all H-1B jobs are assigned wage levels that are well below the local median wage.

https://www.epi.org/press/a-majority-of-migrant-workers-empl...

The EPI report is one of the commonly cited baseless reports. Dig in a level beyond their press claims and you’ll find no real method behind it that justifies their claims, because they have no actual way to compare one worker to another to know they’re equivalent and comparable for the purpose of compensation.

As for your claims about Apple - I am guessing you aren’t a manager and don’t know about how their pay scale works. I’m not doubting your claims about the quality of some workers - although I bet you’ll find plenty of non immigrant people not doing work as well. But I know the claim on pay is wrong, once you adjust for performance ratings and levels.

We have moved far-away from the notion of a factory work who's labour can easily be traced to the output.

I think in general we have to question what work one does - not in a negative way - I think its healthy to do so. Standard economic models and thinking are pretty dated and don't really reflect reality as the world of work evolves.

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