It's a net gain for America to have more skilled tech workers. If that means slightly lower wages for everyone, so be it. Given the number of large tech companies founded by immigrants, I'm not certain wage suppression is a given anyway.
I feel the same way about doctors and other highly paid skilled professions, and immigration as a whole.
Conversely, if the sector grows, it may well be that all workers in it make more. This has been the trend in many, many high tech scenarios.
Or, we can let the skilled workers end up elsewhere, those places develop the next innovations, and soon the high paying jobs are not here, but have moved to those places willing to invest in talent.
The main reason the US has such high salaries is not that we stopped skilled workers coming here - around 50% of Fortune 500 companies were started here by imiigrants.
I, as a US citizen, want the world's best and brightest to come here, so I can learn, have to compete, and become part of improving tech sectors, not backwater xenophobic countries banning workers.
It's historically extremely shortsighted to think that having to compete solely makes wages lower. If that were true, we'd all have lower wages than our ancestors, which is demonstrably untrue.
> The main reason the US has such high salaries is not that we stopped skilled workers coming here - around 50% of Fortune 500 companies were started here by imiigrants
Well, its also not because of immigration, at least not mainly. Europe has plenty of immigration and salaries are much lower.
In my non expert view its the U.S world hegemony and dollar's status as reserve currency that do the trick. U.S can stop immigration tomorrow and still salaries will be very high for decades.
It's closer to 25 percent for immigrants. Your stat includes children of immigrants.
Maybe the US is just a better place for business? With the attraction to immigrants being an effect not a cause. Economic predictions have been saying for decades that the number of software engineering jobs will be increasing much faster than the population. It's supply and demand.
> If that were true, we'd all have lower wages than our ancestors, which is demonstrably untrue.
I got a good laugh out of that…
Every study I’ve heard about says that relative wages have been steadily decreasing compared to earlier generations. This naturally leads to a lower standard of living which, incidentally, get covered over by technological advances.
Not that I blame immigration for this but take issue with the “demonstrably untrue” part.
You can prove that my niece making $15/hr in 2022 is higher than her mother making $5/hr in 1987 for essentially the same job but what’s the relative difference?
>Every study I’ve heard about says that relative wages have been steadily decreasing compared to earlier generations
Cite one. There's ample evidence (Census, BLS, FRED, many more) pointing otherwise. For example, here [1] is FRED inflation adjusted median personal income, which is clearly not at all near your claim. Here's [2] FRED inflation adjusted median household income, also no where near your claim.
There are many relevant factors that make this tricky, and pop econ often presents bad data. For example, wages is not total remuneration (which is tracked by BLS) which is not total cost to employ (also tracked by BLS). Both of those include other factors changing over time, such as more vacation, healthcare perks, regulatory requirement changes (FMLA, OSHA, more). So if you're going to talk about wages, you need to address total benefits. Hint: this factor is extremely relevant.
Also, you need to adjust properly for demographics. On average people make more as they age. So as a population ages or gets younger, median and mean wages can change for the entire population, but it's not an accurate comparison: it is possible for every person at every age to make more than a person in a previous generation at that age, yet for the median to decrease, simply because demographics are changing where in careers the median lies. Hint: this factor is relevant.
You also need to be careful if you're talking household wages, since household makeup also changes over time.
When you consider these and other relevant factors, I've seen nothing that points to people being poorer than previous generations in any widespread or wholesale grouping, at any decile of the income breakdown. And I've spent significant time researching this issue.
In fact, if you correct the first order data I just presented from FRED, the modern person makes even more than the FRED graph: the workforce are skewing younger (as Boomers retire), companies are adding more benefits (both to compete and because of legislative requirements), and households are becoming more single person (i.e. single earner), yet the median household income still grows.
It's no use. I agree with you, but most of the people who want to help H-1Bs see it as reductive and archaic to try and promote the welfare of your own citizens over that of foreigners.
>promote the welfare of your own citizens over that of foreigners
Isolationist countries end up with poorer people, in the same way if you made an isolationist state, county, city, or household, would simply end up making you poorer.
It's a shame more people don't read economics widely enough to understand this.
An "isolationist country" and a "country that ensures that its natural-born citizens are well-provided for before admitting new labor that will compete harder for lower rewards" are not necessarily the same thing.
Do they? The Scandinavian countries have almost no skilled immigration, and had very little unskilled immigration until recently. Sweden still seems like a pretty great place to live.
Software engineers create jobs for software engineers. The reason why you can make 4x more money in SF than in London is because the entire world flocks to SF to work in software. Those H1B workers are making you money, not costing you money.
It’s a balance between siphoning brain away from the rest of the world and maintaining decent wages. Wages for developers are definitely not low, and that’s the truth.
Companies are paying absolute minimum they can. It is only rational.
The problem is with expectations. A lot of H1 workers are used to a much lower quality of life than native workers. US graduate would want to have a 40 hour work-week, separate bedroom, 401k and such. For a foreign worker from a less reach region 401k and medical are not a requirement, sharing a bedroom with 3 other guys is not an issue. Working round a clock is fine as long as you can send money to your family back in the old country. Oh, also in US you can afford a car that will make you look super-successful on social media.
Do you really want to drive down quality of life for everybody.
The majority of H-1 workers (in my experience as a former H-1 worker) went to university in the US and then transition to H-1B. They have the same salary expectations as their American peers and get the same offers.
Maybe this salary injustice exists for H-1Bs being hired from abroad, but it doesn't exist initially for most H-1Bs when entering the job market. Of course 2 years into the job is a different story because H-1Bs have less negotiation power to seek out other jobs and get good retention offers etc
I would seriously doubt that most H1 workers come from US colleges. It is a common knowledge that most H1s go to Tata/Infosys and friends.
Also, I would wonder:
1. How much of those foreign graduates went to college solely for a visa.
2. I would also expect that those graduates have much lower expectations from the life style. Young men don't really need a lot of money and have a lot of time to spend at work.
Tata/Infosys etc are some of the largest single employers of H-1Bs, but collectively it really does seem that the majority of new H-1Bs every year are in fact issued to people already in the country on F-1 student visas.
Go ahead and ask any immigrant who had a H-1B about their path. I am confident you will come to the same conclusion.
I am 100% certain you have a selection bias. Imagine if you worked in Tata/Infosys and started asking around.
From my experience most h1s are imported by vendors. I've seen a lot of really small "consulting companies" who does this. I had heard over and over again that most regular companies are terrified of having to deal with H1s, due to extra cost and lots of uncertainty.
Selection bias or not - I am saying across any employers out there, go ahead and ask folks. Maybe you don't realize how many people in your companies are or were on H-1B and came via this route.
The H-1B program is heavily used by graduates from US institutions.
I would welcome someone actually studying this rigorously. I am confident my observations will hold. There is also no evidence to assume that Indian consulting services occupy the majority of H-1Bs.
They might have the same expectations, but their manager certainly knows that they are visa dependent and can assign a higher workload to them than they would to their peers who have green cards or US citizenship.
(Some of these peers might be their classmates from a US university, who got their green cards near-instantly by virtue of being born in a smaller country).
It is really nice if you actually work on site of company that holds your visa. A lot of H1s work in consulting companies that place them with the clients. These people are second-class citizens in the office, have much lower salary and less benefits. I've seen a lot of people who came to a company from some low-cost of living state - and being posted in California with the salary that is calculated based on that state. Also, those people with their families get tossed across the States really unceremoniously.
