

Immigrant engineers don't drive down U.S. wages - cwan
http://www.informs.org/About-INFORMS/News-Room/Press-Releases/H-1B-Visas

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geebee
"IT professionals in the U.S. who are not citizens actually earned more than
their American colleagues from 2000-2005 and therefore did not depress the
salaries of American citizens"

I disagree with the logic in this statement, because I don't think that you
can conclude that non-citizens don't depress wages simply because they earn
more on average than citizens. By the way, this point of logic doesn't
necessarily refute the conclusion, I'm just disagreeing with the reasoning.

Suppose that IT Professionals fall neatly into two groups. 90% are software
installers, and 10% are ultra programmers. Software installers are poorly paid
and have no programming ability. Ultra Programmers are intensely educated,
well paid, high IQ people who study constantly.

Software installers earn 50K/year, and Ultra Programmers earn 150K/yr.

Now, suppose you double the number of ultra programmers through a visa program
that results in a 25k salary drop for ultra programmers.

Well, the average salary for the non-citizen programmers would still be well
above the average pay, and it would have increased the average pay, but it
would have decreased the "ultra programmer" pay, right? And it would have done
this in a way that led to a decrease in average pay for the citizens.

out of 10

(9 * 50 + 1 * 150) / 10 = 60 (old average for all IT pros)

(9 * 50 + 2 * 125) / 10 = 70 (new average for all IT pros with twice as many
ultras at lightly lower pay, one citizen, one non-citizen)

(9 * 50 + 1 * 125) / 10 = 57.5 (new average for citizens)

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yummyfajitas
Title is misleading.

The fact that immigrants are paid more does not prove that they do not drive
down US wages. If some fraction of the high-wage jobs filled by foreign
engineers would have been filled by US engineers, then the foreign engineers
drove the US engineers into lower paying jobs.

I don't know if or how often that scenario occurs, nor am I arguing against
skilled immigration, just pointing out a bad title.

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hga
Indeed, it's called supply and demand.

The one thing we know _for sure_ is that there isn't a shortage of engineers,
else we'd see rising real wages (real == after inflation).

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Amanjeev
There has been studies after studies on this but I think we all want our jobs
rather be outsourced at 1/20th of the wage than have <1% of qualified
degree(s) holders come to US and work here, pay taxes, contribute to Social
Sec. and Medicare etc.

I wish we all could see how media (Lou Dobbs etc.) are just trying to
sensationalize H1B for their own gains and nothing else.

