
Congress will consider proposal to raise H-1B minimum wage to $100,000 - sply
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/01/the-new-plan-to-stop-h-1b-visa-abuse-give-them-a-big-raise/
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geebee
100k is still too low, but it is better than nothing.

A family of four in San Francisco with an income of 100k a year qualifies for
housing assistance. Yes, I know, most families are two income now, but it
doesn't speak well to this severe "shortage" that a critical worker with ultra
valuable skills in short supply still needs direct welfare from the government
to get by.

I'd say 200k for a minimum salary. I know that seems high to people, but
remember, by and large we rely on labor markets to set salary levels. If you
can't hire the experienced lawyer or financial analyst you want for 100k a
year to work in a big, loud open office, we generally say that's the market's
answer. Increase the offer and job conditions or accept that people have found
higher value work to do.

Giving employers the right to control who is and is not allowed to come into
the united states is a really, really big deal. It's a complete end-run around
normal labor markets. If we're going to allow this, it needs to be a slam-dunk
decision - yes, clearly this is a very essential and very well paid worker. To
me, 100k doesn't come close, especially in the expensive areas around silicon
valley (where many of the companies claiming a shortage and lobbying for visas
are located).

~~~
cardine
A very easy fix for this is to tie compensation to cost of living. If the cost
of living is dramatically more expensive in San Francisco than it is in Little
Rock Arkansas, the income requirements should reflect that.

~~~
prostoalex
This is the exact loophole they're trying to close.

The law already requires the employer pay the prevailing wage. The arbitrage
from outsourcing companies (Cognizant, Tata, Infosys) included head-quartering
in cheap areas of Georgia and New Jersey, filing DoL paperwork with wages
prevailing in that HQ area, and then sending their employees on "business
trips" to the actual client place (CA, NY) while not adjusting the wages.

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hospes
Those who abuse H1-B program, will easily circumvent this.

As one owner of the consulting firm explained to me, they'll just use some
kind of system, that says "You get paid $100K as a salary but you give back to
the company $30K for some kind of service that it provides to you", so in the
end they'll end up paying whatever they want.

To stop abuse of H1-B system, they need to limit % of H1-B employees in one
firm.

But in general with increasing quality of collaborative tools, that make
remote work easier, this problem will keep getting worse. Since companies do
not need to hire you when you are abroad, they just need to have contract with
your company abroad that will provide them "services" (which is a code word
for 100 employees working full time for you in offshore office). Most of the
companies already do this and this issue will keep getting worse with
increasing quality of collaborative tools and I am not sure what the solution
is.

~~~
sleepingeights
The Indian H1B mills are deeply entrenched already in the tech industry.

Consider the US intel activities in subverting US citizens rights, no one is
surprised if even NSA and CIA database centers are outsourced to India. The
CIA already runs alot of data in AWS, Azure etc where those companies are
literally dominated by Indians.

A common trick is to move US data offshore to get it cataloged by US spy
agencies. For example, Google, SV, Redmond etc backing up client data in
multiple offshore locations is fair game for NSA.

They will easily find a way to mark around any 'plan' Trump can conceive of.
It is also _highly_ doubtful Trump admin even wants to take them on.

------
hourislate
Several companies have grown to rely on this type of employee (H1B) so they
have some flexibility and don't have to take on permanent employees.

Many companies that hire H1B's are already paying these contracting firms 100k
for a contractor employee who earns 60-80k at the end of the day. So will this
proposal change things? Probably not.

Possible solutions could be regulate contracting firms and don't allow more
than a certain percentage of H1B employees in their workforce pool or H1B
employees can't work for a contracting firm. Reduce the number of H1B's
granted to a much smaller percentage. Any company that hires a H1B employee
must prove every 6 months that their are still no possible Americans that can
do the job.

This program is being exploited at the expense of Americans. It was not set up
as a charity to help poor people come and work in America. It was set up to
bring in talent that was not available. If company truly can't find someone
locally and needs to hire someone from India then they need to sponsor/pay for
that person to become a permanent/citizen of the USA.

~~~
guitarbill
Maybe something like if you sponsor an H1B employee, you have to guarantee
their job for the time of the visa, e.g. 2-3 years? The only way it's going to
work is if the risk vs reward is balanced for everybody, including employers.
For legitimate uses, surely <x> years isn't a big deal. If they aren't sure
they need somebody for <x> years, then hiring an American becomes far more
attractive.

About permanent residency though, the system is set up to make this quite hard
(on purpose?). But AFAIK, H1B is still one of the most reliable ways to
permanent residency. <Edit: Please see the comments, this next sentence is
incorrect and doesn't say what I meant. But I'm leaving it here for
continuity's sake.> So I'm not sure about your point, because currently
companies cannot sponsor people "to become a permanent/citizen of the USA"
easily or at all.

~~~
kinkrtyavimoodh
By 'cannot' do you mean _can't afford to_ or _are not allowed to_? Because
companies can file a green card application (I-140) for someone under the
'Employment Based' category.

~~~
guitarbill
Neither, I mangled my train of though a bit. Let me try again. (Wish HN had
strikethrough.)

Dual intent is a great idea, and H1-B is really useful for companies who want
to tempt highly skilled workers who aren't sure yet if they definitely want to
immigrate. Some of my UK collegues stayed in the US, but about half came back
after a few years. So that's a good reasons not to force companies to
automatically apply for permanent residency, not everybody wants it (probably
the majority though - hard to get numbers on this).

But then if you do want permanent residency, the process takes ages. I'm not
sure there's a good solution to this. One option would be to increase the cost
of the H1-B application, require companies to submit the I-140, and pre-
process it. Then if the visa holder decides to apply for permanent residency
it's already mostly done. I think requiring companies to guarantee a certain
employment time also fixes this though, because that way they're invested and
the visa holder has time and safety to figure out if permanent residency is
what they want.

------
robitaile
This is why some Americans are so pissed. There's a feeling that others are
cutting in front of the line without paying their dues to the country.

H1B mills are gaming the system. What's the corruption rank in the countries
where H1B candidates come from. That has a correlation to faked resumes and
credentials.

~~~
didibus
Most people that are pissed in our modern age are so, because of a feeling.
This really is starting to become an issue. If you don't know that there's
really a problem, please stop being pissed. How many people I see having
strong partisan like opinions on issues they know nothing about, aren't even
affected by, and don't understand the full context of is just staggering.

~~~
mancerayder
_Most people that are pissed in our modern age are so, because of a feeling.
This really is starting to become an issue_

While I'm not advocating or even agreeing with the comment you're replying to,
your statement is as overbroad as it can be. In the case of this issue, it
doesn't take a rocket scientist to see companies (as in companies we've worked
in as tech workers) use the H1B system and form an opinion on it. For many of
us (and that includes those of us who are hiring managers and/or close to
C-level execs) it's readily obvious enough that forming an opinion isn't 'just
a feeling' whatever that means. Feelings are invalid now? And 'most' people?

~~~
didibus
Sure, if you have known information, please share it. And maybe that's enough
info to be sure there's a problem that needs to be addressed, so ya, be pissed
off about it.

But I'm not seeing a lot of that. What have you seen at some of the companies
you've worked at? Can you at least provide one clear case of abuse?

From my end, I work for one of the big tech H1B whales. And the starting
salary in the US for a junior position is already above 100k, so that change
wouldn't affect my company. I also have never seen the H1B abused. I've
interviewed candidates myself, and we pick the strongest we can find purely on
skillset, never because a non citizen is willing to work for less.

Is that the complaint? That US companies should hire US workers even if
they're not as skilled, as long as they can still get the job done, even
though they won't do it as well? Ok, in that case sure, I can see my company
abusing H1B then. But I'm not sure we'd want to impose such strict a rule on
our companies, seems like it would affect their ability to compete. That's
also not the complaint I'm hearing. I'm hearing people are pissed off that we
pick equal or worse qualified non citizens simply because they're willing to
do it for less.

------
drivingmenuts
I should move to India, become a citizen and then H-1B myself back into the
country.

I'd be getting a substantial raise.

~~~
guitarbill
If you're finding getting a raise hard, good luck with that.

~~~
drivingmenuts
ATM, finding a job is hard.

~~~
guitarbill
I hear you buddy. But finding a job that will sponsor a visa is definitely a
subset of all jobs. No point making life harder than it needs to be.

------
coryl
Does anyone know the current average salary listed by the biggest H1B "mills"?
The data is public so should be easily calculable.

~~~
quantumfoam
A helpful resource for H1B salaries:
[http://h1bdata.info](http://h1bdata.info)

