
Show HN: A histogram of salaries given to H1B workers in the software industry - Swizec
http://swizec.github.io/h1b-software-salaries/#2014-ca-engineer
======
JeremyMorgan
I'm wondering where the data came from and how accurate it it is.

"In 2012 the Oregon software industry gave jobs to 38 foreign software
engineers."

Ok so here I am assuming you mean 38 new H1B engineers were hired in 2012.
There is no way that could be true, I nearly hired and processed that many
H1Bs personally in 2012. I was working with several others with similar or
higher numbers. And that's just one company in Oregon.

Not trying to nitpick with anecdotal data, but it just seems wrong to me.

~~~
ryen
The link shows h1bdata.info as a source, which uses data from here:
[http://www.foreignlaborcert.doleta.gov/performancedata.cfm#d...](http://www.foreignlaborcert.doleta.gov/performancedata.cfm#dis)

~~~
JeremyMorgan
Yep, and it shows 2,830 H1B applications approved in Oregon in 2012, which
sounds more accurate

~~~
jpatokal
Not all H1Bs are for software engineers though.

------
hoprocker
I am an unabashed infographic fanatic, but one thing that really throws me off
here is the changing scale between graphs. I think it'd be a lot easier to
flip through these tabs if a) the pay scale was the same for each graphic, and
b) the pixel count on the y-axis remained the same.

~~~
rev_bird
Seconding this. The data is thorough and fascinating, but impossible to
compare between any two. Not being able to select two at the same time is
fine, but it'd be really nice to at least be able to switch between two
without getting stuck with apples and oranges.

------
djb_hackernews
This gets to the rub of prevailing wage.

You are hiring a developer, do you call her an engineer where the prevailing
wage is 87k or do you call her a programmer where the prevailing wage is 61k?

This type of fraud is difficult to prove and there probably isn't even anyone
responsible in the government to verify or investigate issues.

EDIT: forgot to mention that the prevailing wage can be determined by salary
surveys provided by the employer themselves (!!) during the labor application,
giving even more incentive for tech companies to suppress wages by any means
possible.

~~~
shas3
Why is there an implicit assumption that the H1B visa program engenders fraud?
A lot of H1B discussions on HN focus on fraud and avoid talking about
legitimate talented foreigners because that stuff is not as interesting. H1B
discussions on HN are like the crime beat in newspapers. Further, 'H1B' seems
like a catchall term for hating on immigrant labor in the software industry.
Here are some examples on HN that demonstrate bigoted generalizations and ill-
informed hate on H1B-workers [1,2,3].

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8687804](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8687804)
[2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8651850](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8651850)
[3]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8637756](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8637756)

~~~
unprepare
Because we have major unemployment inside of the US. We also have the highest
ever rate of Computer Science graduates.[1]

Those two combined make the 'need' for foreign tech workers seem very
suspicious.

On top of questionable need, there are other facets of the program that are
obvious areas of potential abuse (employer reported prevailing wages, employer
sponsorship forcing employees to stay out of the competitive job market, etc)

There may be some absolute need for the most talented people other countries
have to offer, but there is little evidence that generic 'programmers' or
'analysts' need to be imported into this country when we have 4-5% of college
graduates unemployed[2] (thats ~2 million people at least[3])

Or maybe everyone here is a xenophobe

[1] [http://www.geekwire.com/2014/analysis-examining-computer-
sci...](http://www.geekwire.com/2014/analysis-examining-computer-science-
education-explosion/)
[2][http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d13/tables/dt13_501.80.as...](http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d13/tables/dt13_501.80.asp)
[3][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_U...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_United_States#Graduation_rates)

~~~
shas3
It is a hard problem, but there isn't enough evidence to link legal
immigration to the shortages and unemployment that you have cited. It is as
easy to say "there is some unemployment, so we should make life difficult for
non-immigrant aliens, that'll fix it" as it is to say "the sun goes around the
earth because we see it go across the sky." It is not clear if you can draw a
causation between restrictive (or unfair policies, as it currently stands)
immigration and improved employment rates. The debate will be better informed
if you can cite studies that say fixing alien-worker policies fixes employment
(to any extent). Here's a (partisan) starting point:
[https://www.uschamber.com/blog/guest-post-economic-impact-
hi...](https://www.uschamber.com/blog/guest-post-economic-impact-high-skilled-
immigration-reform)

~~~
donw
The problem as I see it is that H1B isn't really immigration; it's even
classified as a "non-immigrant" visa, created so that companies can
temporarily employ foreign workers.

H1B holders are effectively tied to their employers. Sure, they can in theory
find other jobs, but the timeframes and restrictions are very different to
those of an actual immigrant.

Immigration of talented people would be fine. I would love to see a merit-
based system. But the H1B system is hardly immigration.

~~~
cesarbs
Keep in mind that many companies start sponsoring an H-1B employee's Green
Card as soon as they start working at the company. When considering those
companies, H-1B is about immigration.

~~~
droopyEyelids
Do the huge consulting firms that hire 80% of H-1Bs start sponsoring green
cards? Because I believe that 80% of companies could sponsor their H-1Bs,
while still sponsoring a tiny minority of visa holders.

------
ensmotko
It'd be interesting to see how H1B salaries compare to normal salaries, but
that data probably isn't publicly available, right?

~~~
Swizec
Exactly, I was kind of surprised that the H1B data was public in the first
place.

But private companies usually don't release their salary info. I don't even
think public companies do.

~~~
wooyi
payscale and glassdoor has some data but not publicly available. ie
[http://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/san-francisco-software-
eng...](http://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/san-francisco-software-engineer-
salary-SRCH_IL.0,13_IM759_KO14,31.htm)

~~~
nabucodonosor
or [http://wageoffer.com](http://wageoffer.com)

------
throwaway6496
My salary is missing. I earn well over $300k base salary, and H-1B'd in
California, 2014. My salary is on visadoor, but not here. If my high salary is
missing, what other high salaries are missing, too? Does this give us a
distribution that is distorted low?

~~~
hyperlz
There are only 4 cases in CA in 2014 with salaries between 300K and 400K.

~~~
throwaway6497
Since this information is public, what are these companies names? It is too
painful to scrape visadoor.com for this information.

------
arenaninja
Wow, that disparity between developer and engineer... I'm not an H1B worker,
but does this mean I should start calling myself an Engineer?

~~~
grecy
Only if you're a certified Engineer.

I studied Software Engineering, and I'm accredited by the Institute of
Engineers in Australia.

~~~
ryanSrich
> Only if you're a certified Engineer

Not really. If you've got a CS or SE degree you are certainly an engineer. If
you've built systems and worked in the industry solving difficult problems you
are an engineer.

In the US we don't need an expensive piece of paper telling us what we're
qualified to call ourselves.

EDIT: To be clear I'm referring to software engineering. Not all engineering.
I thought that was obvious based on the context of the post but I guess not.

~~~
tjl
Did you have to take a course on ethics? What about software and society? In
Canada, in order to get accreditation as an engineering program (including
software engineering) there's a set of requirements to be taught. One is a
course on technology's impact on society. Also, in Ontario in order to get
professionally licensed as an engineer (which is required before you can call
yourself an engineer, legally) one has to take an exam on ethics & law as they
pertain to engineering. So, we study case law and various ethical situations.

People have been taken to court for calling themselves engineers if they're
not officially licensed. This is why the MCSE is no longer an acronym as there
was a court case about it. There's a few kinds of engineers that don't have to
be licensed as they pre-date the law (e.g., stationary engineers who take care
of things like boilers), but they typically have their own regulatory
organizations.

~~~
swatow
Can you give an example of an ethical problem that might be faced by a
software engineer, that is covered by these courses, and that these courses
would enable a person to deal with significantly better.

~~~
tjl
There were definitely a number in both the practice law and ethics exam and
the official exam that I took. I can't recall them off-hand, though. You can
see the Code of Ethics for Professional Engineers Ontario in the actual law.

[http://www.e-laws.gov.on.ca/html/regs/english/elaws_regs_900...](http://www.e-laws.gov.on.ca/html/regs/english/elaws_regs_900941_e.htm)

See section 77. Generally, it often revolves around 77.2.i,

"A practitioner shall, regard the practitioner’s duty to public welfare as
paramount"

One could see a conflict come up between the company's and the public's
interest. For example, you get asked to write the code in a way that takes
less time, but could expose the client's data to hackers.

~~~
swatow
In my post I asked for situations that _these courses would enable a person to
deal with significantly better._

I agree that a person could be placed in a situation where they were asked to
do something against the public welfare. But I don't see how reading this rule
in a course would actually help the person making the decision.

For example, I've been in situations where security issues came up. Like most
real life matters, it was a matter of judgement, and the tradeoffs were
complex. But I went above and beyond what was expected, to do things the best
way possible. I did it because I thought it was the right thing to do, and
because I take pride in my work. But I didn't need to take a course or get a
certificate to know this.

~~~
tjl
How much philosophy do you know? Much of the material deals with different
value systems and applying those value systems to different problems. So, you
have a complex ethical problem (which many are) and evaluating the problem in
the view of the different value systems as well as the code of ethics. So,
decisions about security of systems is certainly one of those situations.

~~~
swatow
Let's suppose I knew no philosophy. How does this concretely effect how I
would make a particular decision? Can you be specific?

If I were designing human medical trials, then I agree that a course in ethics
would be in order. But all aspects of life involve ethical choices, and I
don't think that you need to be an expert in philosophy to make the right
choices.

~~~
tjl
Understanding ethics can help in making the right choice in a complex
situation. For instance, if you go with act utilitarianism, you choose the
action which maximizes a positive effect. If you believe in rule
utilitarianism, you use the principle of utility (maximizing a positive
effect) to set rules to generally abide by such as keeping one's promise. But,
there could be situations where following the rule gives rise to a negative
effect. This is similar but different to determining rightness by examining
the act itself. Then there's virtue ethics such as those of Socrates and
Aristotle. There's also the role ethics of Confucius.

So, it's often good to examine a complex situation from the viewpoint of
multiple ethical systems and make a decision based on that. That's what
courses in ethics do. They teach various systems and present situations to
examine.

A lot of people might go with consequentialism, which is basically, "The end
justifies the means." Utilitarianism is essentially a subset of this.

So, yes you have some ethical system that you follow, but if you're only
looking at a situation from that viewpoint, you might miss out on an
alternative course of action.

------
negrit
This is not relevant:

> The best city for software engineers was Menlo Park with an average salary
> of $130,640

The best city for software engineers should not determined on salary only.

If the cost of living is 10X cheaper in Huntington Beach and the average
salary is $125k then the best city by far is Huntington Beach. Then again
there is a lot more than salary to consider before moving to a city...

~~~
Swizec
You're right. But I had to use _some_ metric and I thought it was interesting
to show some data about cities.

As an interesting point, engineers in Menlo Park earn $30k more than in San
Francisco. I'm not sure Menlo is that much more expensive to live in.

~~~
CHY872
Remember that Facebook is the largest employer in Menlo Park by a factor of
about 10, which will totally skew those rankings.

Edit: to be more clear, I'm making two points. Firstly, Facebook is not known
for the sort of Tata/Infosys style abusive H1b (and there'll be almost none of
them in Menlo Park) whilst SF is much larger, and there could easily be such a
company with an office in SF.

Furthermore, the bar for entry to work as an engineer at Facebook is possibly
higher than in SF as a whole.

------
nickysielicki
In Alaska, software engineers on an H1B made $72,000/year in 2014 In 2014 the
Alaska software industry gave jobs to 1 foreign software engineers, 100% less
than the year before. Most of them made between $NaN and $NaN per year. The
best city for software engineers was Anchorage with an average salary of
$72,000.

Hahah.

~~~
TwistedWeasel
Same bug for Utah...

In 2014 the Utah software industry gave jobs to 1 foreign software managers,
Infinity times more than the year before. Most of them made between $NaN and
$NaN per year. The best city for software managers was South Jordan with an
average salary of $165,000.

------
montz1
This is pretty cool. I created a similar site
[http://salarytalk.org/search](http://salarytalk.org/search). I has has more
charts and search capabilities for the same dataset across 2010-2014. For
aggregate information per company go to
[http://salarytalk.org/companies](http://salarytalk.org/companies)

------
Flemlord
Coincidentally I just posted an Ask HN question asking how small companies
facilitated H1B workers. I run a small company and don't have time to figure
the process out. Was wondering how others did it:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9096684](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9096684)

~~~
poulsbohemian
When I was at a small company about 4 years ago that was hiring two H1Bs (one
from Romania, the other from Russia), a local lawyer experienced in the
process was hired for a few thousand dollars. All we had to do was answer the
questions from the lawyer, pay the fee, and magically the two guys got on
airplanes and appeared.

------
scilro
Common knowledge is that foreign workers will typically have lower wages on
average because they have less freedom to switch companies, and as such have
less bargaining power. On the other hand, giving greater visibility into H1-B
wages like this could exert an slight upward pressure on their wages as well.

~~~
luuio
>foreign workers will typically have lower wages

>they have less freedom to switch companies

Is there some data/documentation to back this up? As far as I know, an H1B
VISA does not tie you to a specific company.

~~~
hibikir
As a former H1-B, I might be able to help.

You can change jobs as an H1-B: In fact, I did once, when my first employer
was doing constant rounds of layoffs, and I got antsy. It's not easy, as many
companies won't sponsor H1-Bs at all, but the real kicker is that most H1-Bs,
me included, wanted to stay longer than the 6 year maximum.

We see H1-B as the one way to stay permanently. First you get an H1-B, and
maybe in the middle of it, or at the start of the second one, you get your
company to sponsor you for a Green Card. If you have real qualifications, it's
a very high probability process, but it's very slow. Back when I did it at
least, it was VERY, VERY slow. During the process, you can keep renewing your
H1-B a third, and even a fourth time, past the 6 year maximum, so barring the
company going belly up, or a layoff, you'll eventually be able to stay
forever, and get paid real market rates. But during the process, changing jobs
is very hard, as changing jobs at the wrong time can make you have to start
the process all over again. You might also have had to sign an agreement
paying back the costs incurred if you leave before it's all done + 1 year, and
that can be 15K, easy, so it's a big deterrent to change jobs.

In my case, I had mild salary increases while I was getting the green card.
Now, 3 years later, I make more than double what I made then, in the same
town, because now I can actually negotiate without a sword over my head, and
change jobs if there is a high enough bidder out there.

~~~
ulfw
> get paid real market rates vs > Now, 3 years later, I make more than double
> what I made then, in the same town, because now I can actually negotiate
> without a sword over my head

Yea I think you are contradicting yourself here.

------
emcrazyone
I own a company that specializes in hiring H1Bs and placing them into contract
roles.

The data doesn't look very accurate. For one thing, this data doesn't appear
to represent what companies pay.

I usually get bill rates up around $100/hr to $150/hr depending on skill and
location. Like New York has higher cost of living than Michigan so I can often
pull a higher bill rate.

The payout to the H1B is works out to be $60K to $80K. An Oracle DBA working
in New York will make about $80K which is roughly $38/hour and the company
easily pays $125/hour for 6 month contract.

I have some overhead but it's usually a one time fee such as transferring H1B
from one company to mine, legal paper work to renew, attain, and transfer H1Bs
runs me about $500/piece.

~~~
lawnchair_larry
So you're one of the companies giving H1-B a bad name by abusing it for cheap
labor and taking money out of the foreigner's pockets then?

~~~
gutnor
Presumably he also offers the applicant some sort of stability ?

Without a middleman, the H1B holder is very tied to its employer and has a
difficult time changing job or bouncing back after being laid off. A middleman
could smooth that out, by keeping the employee a bit longer on the payroll
until they find another contract. I know people using those kind of services
in the UK.

Also if you are a permanent employee with good benefits, getting a quarter of
what your company sell you for is not bad.

Anyway, that's a lot of "if", I agree.

~~~
emcrazyone
very true. I offer a lot of benefits over other similar companies. Many times
I am involved in moving a contract because I will give more of the bill rate.

I also offer a family package. You would not believe how many H1Bs I get that
want to leave their L1 status because they want to move for various reasons.
Marriage being the one I get the most.

When a contract ends, I will put H1Bs on internal work for as long as I can
but the liquidity of this area is such that I hardly go past a month or two
for any given candidate.

------
hyperlz
Some interesting stats here too:

[http://visadoor.com/h1bvisa-by-companies-2014](http://visadoor.com/h1bvisa-
by-companies-2014)

[http://visadoor.com/h1bvisa-by-states-2014](http://visadoor.com/h1bvisa-by-
states-2014)

[http://visadoor.com/h1bvisa-by-cities-2014](http://visadoor.com/h1bvisa-by-
cities-2014)

[http://visadoor.com/h1bvisa-by-status-2014](http://visadoor.com/h1bvisa-by-
status-2014)

------
eggoa
If you know the one H1Ber in Alaska, you now know their salary.

~~~
nashashmi
THIS IS WHERE YOU NEED ANONYMITIZATION.

~~~
lsaferite
How do you retain the ability to filter and anonymize a single data point
result?

~~~
nashashmi
you remove the data entirely and lump it into "other". I guess states or
entities with less than 5 occurrences should be categorized as other.

~~~
lsaferite
5 seems fairly arbitrary. If all 5 are almost the same then you are back in
the same boat, no? If all data points for a given filter are substantially the
same you still run into the same issue.

------
k3fernan
Super interesting to see the pay differences between "programmer" vs
"developer" vs "engineer".

With the other titles there is either an inference of management/hierarchy
(manager, lead) or just a different or isolated work (tester, analyst).

Do people have very defined definitions of the differences between programmer
vs developer vs engineer?

I've just used engineer as the generic title.

------
spiralpolitik
The data would be more meaningful if it separated out direct hires (Company X
directly hires the employee) verses proxy hires (Company X contracts Company Y
for employees) as generally the later relationship is a lot more exploitive
than the former in terms of salaries as its much easier to hide the actually
end of day take home salary.

Not sure how you would do that.

------
mh-
OP: the 'administrator' button doesn't load new data, leaves previously
rendered data in place.

~~~
Swizec
That's an unfortunate result of some brackets having zero data and my code not
handling that edge case well :(

Thanks for letting me know!

~~~
Gurkenmaster
The bars are tiny when I select architect/consultant/manager in Arizona.

------
chavesn
Nice work, love clean and simple data apps like this. (Do they have a good
name? E.g., stuff like the NY Times "Upshot" interactive data apps?[1])

Two suggestions:

1\. Make the bars consistently positioned and grouped across filter clicks.
That would make it super easy to compare different cross-sections.

2\. The use of the history API is cool; one tiny nitpick: if the click is
equal to the previous history entry, navigate back instead of pushing it onto
the stack. That will avoid histories filled with A-B-A-B-A-B back and forth
clicks between two pages.

[1]: [http://www.nytimes.com/upshot/](http://www.nytimes.com/upshot/) \-- try
scrolling to "Best of"

------
aninteger
These H1B engineers make more than me.. How do I become an H1B engineer? I was
born in the USA and have the title "Senior Software Engineer".

~~~
serve_yay
They make more than you, in the region of the US where you live? If so, get a
new job. (If you can't just get a new job, well, there's your answer.)

------
bstar77
Does this actually represent the salary of the individual or what a consulting
company is paying for them, or a combination of both?

------
Jugurtha
It would be better to fix the axis so that we get the info by the position of
the hisogram.

Example: When you're at "Engineer", and then you click "Programmer", the
histogram moves to the bottom, giving the illusion they're paid more, when in
fact the labels on the axis also changed.

The same axis for everyone to _really_ bring the difference home.

------
ryanSrich
I wonder how they define "software designer". I see that 17% are making north
of $130k. Does this role identify as a software architect? an API designer? Or
is it referring to product designers, UX designers and such? If it's the
latter that seems much higher than the self reported salaries on sites like
Glassdoor and Salary Fairy.

------
iagooar
What are the typical working conditions in the US tech sector? I mean vacation
days, hours / week, flexible working hours, other perks and benefits?

What would be the most typical conditions? What are the conditions an American
software engineer would say: "I'm not accepting to work for less than this"?

------
thoughtpalette
Interesting to note the "developer" position salary in Illinois is slowly
getting lower year by year.

~~~
pcurve
seems to be the trend in majority of other states as well.

I guess H1B program is working as the design intended; wage suppression.

------
visadoor
A few of you have mentioned [http://www.visadoor.com](http://www.visadoor.com)
below. I am the builder of the site and really did it for my own use.

If you find any bugs or need any features implemented, contact me at the email
on my profile.

------
varunjuice
Has anyone tried to determine if the prevalence of H1B visas results in a
downward pressure on salaries in the tech sector? In theory, it shouldn't
because H1B visas are supposed to be filled when you can't find a citizen or a
resident, but I wonder.

~~~
IndianAstronaut
It may lower salaries down. This is not unique to software. Immigrant
construction workers lower some wages, shipping steel industries abroad lowers
wages and causes unemployment.

The important issue is if it is a net good for the economy and society. Lower
wages in one area can also mean lower prices for the rest.

------
hatred
This is pretty interesting especially for cities which have mainly a single
software giant to know sort of how much an engineer in that company makes.
Like for example Kirkland ( google ). There might be others like Menlo Park
(Facebook ? ) too.

~~~
bzz01
There is no need to guess, data published by Dept of Labor (original source
for this infographic) includes company names, specific position names and
exact salaries.

Glassdoor was including that info in their estimates for a while though, so no
big discoveries here.

------
Eduard
Crass distribution for WV / West Virginia ;-)
[http://swizec.github.io/h1b-software-salaries/#2014-wv-
engin...](http://swizec.github.io/h1b-software-salaries/#2014-wv-engineer)

------
peter303
I wonder if you can distinguish between direct hires and contracted hires
through "body shops". The latter have reputationfor taking a big cut off the
top. or hiring 'L'-class business visas, etc.

~~~
ild
Yes, confirm - worked with Indian body shop; half of their were L1.

------
nsxwolf
What are these $200k+ software engineering jobs, and how do I get one?

~~~
mikeklaas
Live in the bay area; be a really really good engineer. You will make 200k
soon.

~~~
IndianAstronaut
Now the question is how does one become a really good engineer.

------
felixgallo
I would like to see the 'value' taken from the point of view of the employer;
how much is an H1B visa worth in terms of cost savings over a local employee?

~~~
pslam
It is very expensive to hire an H1-B compared to a US resident. The only way
for it to be cheaper would involve fraud: paying a worker less than prevailing
wage, which would require cooking your books, lying to US Immigration, and
getting into a lot of trouble. (As is the case for a few big out-sourcing
companies recently)

Filing fees are high ($5k+ over 6 years), as is the cost in lawyers (probably
similar), auditing, and time consumption. It is impossible to keep an employee
on H1-B indefinitely, so generally they will also go through the Green Card
process, which is also expensive and time consuming.

Generally companies will offer a relocation package, which is also very
expensive when it's international, and have partnerships with banks (having
zero US credit sucks) and other services to get employees settled.

The idea that hiring an H1-B is a cost-saver is utterly bunk, and needs to
stop spreading. (Other than fraud)

~~~
felixgallo
For large institutions that have streamlined and amortized the costs of hiring
H1-Bs, your assertions regarding cost ineffectiveness are not accurate. I say
this through past direct experience working as a hiring manager inside several
in the financial services industry, where the benefits of bringing in H1-Bs to
reduce net cost were a frequent topic of conversation.

------
pugz
I'd be interested to see how this compares to the E-3 visa, which is specific
to workers from Australia. There were 33,000 E-3 visas issued in 2012.

------
facepalm
I wasn't aware that there is a difference between Software Developer and
Software Engineer? What does the latter entail?

~~~
qdog
I'm a Software Development Engineer.

Doesn't really matter what you are called, it's what salary you negotiate for
the most part. Some titles are only bestowed on certain levels of people, but
there are very few of those at all the companies I've worked at (Staff
Engineer at one was a title only bestowed on people who had been promoted to a
certain level and had certain compensation bonuses tied to it).

------
soheil
"The best city for software managers was Vancouver with an average salary of
$183,500"

Is it because it's in Canadian dollars?

~~~
swalsh
even if it was, that's still $145,970

~~~
whyaduck
I'm assuming he was joking - he's referring to Vancouver WA. Canada has
different immigration programs than the United States.

------
simook
Ran into several bugs when switching to a state & field.

------
akgerber
There is a bug in the histogram for Vermont.

------
fsk
Alternatively, you could look at what % raise a former H1-b visa holder
receives when he gets his greencard.

I heard it can be 2x-3x, but I've never seen a formal analysis.

~~~
pslam
It is illegal to pay an H1-B Visa Holder differently to the prevailing wage.
Converting to a Green Card should have no effect on your pay, and if it does,
the employers are committing fraud.

You may have a side-effect of increased pay due to having more positions open
to you. Holding an H1-B restricts you to a specific job description. For
example, if you were a plain ordinary "Software Engineer" with nobody
reporting to you, then you are not normally allowed to move to a role where
you would have reports. This can be overcome with due-process and lawyers etc,
but the basic idea is an H1-B worker is coming to the US to fill a _job role_
not just a _job_.

So, when you convert to holding a Green Card, you can get promoted into
positions which weren't previously open to you. You get the pay increase by
being a better engineer and getting the better job.

~~~
fiatmoney
It's illegal to hire H1-Bs in preference to citizen workers, yet that goes on
all the time.

------
tn13
Proxy hires often do not make that much money. A lot of them do not get paid
leaves, employer paid insurance and many other benefits.

------
jimhefferon
Not looking good for VT.

------
benmathes
FYI: the visualization doesn't load if you're using adblock or uBlock.

~~~
Excluse
Working for me with Chrome+AdBlock (Mac)

------
juggernautq
would be interesting to factor in living cost and rank states by best-to-live-
by-H1Bs.

------
G650
Think about that for a second. About $130,000/year. How much are they worth to
the company? About 10X more. I hope some of these guys realize their worth and
just create their own software.

------
lnkmails
There is a privacy issue in government releasing the H1B salary data publicly.
If you are a H1b worker working at a small startup, your privacy is pretty
much violated. In the interest of long term, I think it is vital that salary
information is available publicly but it should also include citizens' salary
information so employees can negotiate better. I kinda feel sad for a lot of
H1B people and their salaries.

