That doesn't seem like a no-brainer. Wouldn't it be harder for skilled Americans to find jobs here if they're competing with immigrants? It's not like there aren't high-skilled jobs in other countries, where those immigrants whom we educate could get jobs.
The subtitle says Our policy toward the world's best and brightest is currently: "Welcome! Enjoy this expensive education. Now go home!" Does that make any sense? But I think it makes even less sense to say to native-born Americans, "Enjoy this expensive education. Now go to Europe to get a job, because we decided to hire an Indian instead".
US companies compete on a global market. High skilled workers increase the competitiveness of those companies which in turn create more jobs. And the large IT companies not only directly contribute to the economy, their employees contribute with taxes to the local towns, a lot of companies thrive in the ecosystems surrounding the companies etc.
Also, why this obsessive focus on indians? I'm an H1B from Sweden and there's many fellow europeans working in the valley and all over US. Judge each individual for their skills instead of lumping huge categories together.
>Wouldn't it be harder for skilled Americans to find jobs here if they're competing with immigrants?
You must have missed a paragraph or two of the article, see below. Wouldn't it be easier for skilled Americans to find jobs if there were more technology companies?
"High-skill immigrants innovate, patent, and start new firms at higher rates than natives. At least one-quarter of the new firms in technology and science fields, from software and semiconductors to biotech, are founded by immigrants. In Silicon Valley, more than half of the high-tech start-ups were founded by immigrants. High skill immigrants especially with degrees in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (aka: STEM) create more jobs and higher wages for Americans."
I'd be interested in seeing the breakdown of work-related vs non-work related immigrants.
Even so... my point above (about the RAND study) is that objective research shows that Americans are avoiding STEM graduate degrees for rational, market-driven reasons. While it's wonderful that high skill immigrants are innovating, patenting, and starting new firms, that may simply reflect the declining appeal of STEM fields to people who have a wider choice of career paths (ie., if we make it easier for smart immigrants to come here as STEM workers than as lawyers, it's not surprising that immigrants show a higher activity in STEM than in law).
The US may be locking itself into a vicious cycle - the appeal of STEM careers declines, so Americans begin to choose other fields. This creates a shortage, which leads to an increased call for more visas. This provides a stopgap measure that prevents the market correction that would might make STEM more appealing (relative to law, medicine, etc), causing even more Americans (well, anyone with choice) to avoid the field, which leads to calls for even more visas...
In many ways, I hate making this argument, because on a personal (moral) level, I feel immensely welcoming to immigrants, especially well educated immigrants who make a wonderful contribution. And as a matter of policy, yeah, it'd be nuts to refuse entry to such a remarkably productive workforce - the US is in trouble economically, and the fact that so many top people still want to come here is one of our best cards! But at the same time, when I set aside my emotions and take a cold, rational look at this, I do think that the emphasis on STEM immigration may very well be deterring young Americans (or, again, anyone here with the ability to choose a profession over STEM) from entering the field. And I believe that this could be dangerous to the US in the long term - sure, it's stupid to turn away our top graduate students, but shouldn't we see it as a crisis that so few of our graduate students in STEM fields are coming up through the ranks of our own educational system?
I hope you can tell I feel a lot of ambivalence about this. I don't ask people to agree with me, I just ask that people recognize that this issue is complex, and absolutely is not a "no-brainer"
It's not the emphasis on STEM immigration that's keeping young Americans from these jobs, it's the piss-poor state of math education in the average US K-12. I was a calculus TA in college and was amazed at the proportion of prospective science majors who couldn't deal with variables and fractions; need I add they had all been educated here? Until that gets fixed (and it will take at least one generation, if it happens), you've got to fill the jobs somehow, you know.
That's a factor, but are you sure it's 100% the piss-poor state of math education? I'm not sure if you've read the RAND study I mentioned... here's a link:
Now, this study doesn't mention anything about immigration systems, it just concludes that the aversion to STEM graduate degrees (particularly PhDs) is market driven.
So to me, there are a few factors here:
- Our K-12 system failing to produce graduates that can go on to advanced study in STEM
- The declining appeal of STEM careers relative to other options available to the best and brightest
- The relationship between the decline of the appeal of STEM fields and the increasing use of visas to fill these positions (for instance, the RAND study makes recommendations for changes to PhD programs... but these programs will be able to resist change if they have the power to bestow visas).
I'm not at all claiming to have a definitive answer here, but I do think you've gone way too far in attributing it to the decline of math education in the US. I would never try to argue that you haven't identified a major factor, but I think your claim that this is the only factor or even the single overwhelming factor is weak, especially in light of the RAND study.
As for filling the jobs... well, I haven't argued that we shouldn't base immigration on job skills, I've argued the opposite! However, I do think we need to consider the possible impact of emphasizing one particular field (STEM) over another, and make sure that we aren't using these visas to the extent that the prevent the market correction that would - slowly as you've pointed out - improve the appeal of STEM careers and bring "Americans" (by which I mean people living here with broad choice of career paths) back into this field.
Of course it's market driven. My point was that the cost structure for a STEM degree for someone who did K-12 in the US is different from someone who went to a good program in, say, Poland, where I'm told that until recently they would skip calculus and directly teach real analysis in high school. So the cost/benefit ratio is high for the US citizen, but that's not an argument against allowing qualified STEM immigration as a stopgap measure until K-12 is fixed. This problem doesn't exist for fields outside of science and tech, where US pre-college education does a much better job.
Unfortunately, we can't know this without analyzing drop-out rates. Anecdotally, I was a PhD student at Berkeley and I personally know grads of IIT and elite european universities who did drop out (including one student who failed even the MS exam). So I'm skeptical, but I don't have the data. I would want to analyze drop out rates, as well as time to completion, and see if they are far better for international students.
I did feel at something of a disadvantage, not because my math education was poor (I was a math major), but because US students specialize later. In college, US students do much more general ed. I spent some time in France as a teenager and was surprised to discover that at age 13 I was going to have to pick a track (letters vs science)... I returned to the US at that point, so I completed my high school in the US.
I think that a broad education can be helpful in STEM fields in ways that are not predictable, but if you're hitting advanced stochastic processes for the first time, and the student next to you did this course already as an undergrad, you're at a disadvantage - but that advantage may be a temporary one, and the benefits of a broader education may well kick in later. Hard to say.
If you were a math major and got into the PhD program, you've made it and I don't think foreign students have any advantage over you. I was rather talking about people who just begin college. What was your experience of the drop-out rate from the introductory math/science classes?
Like I said, I did feel at a bit of a disadvantage. I double majored in English Literature and Math at the undergrad level, which is not something you would typically do in Europe or Asia. Even if you stick to a single major, the US system typically requires a lot of general education coursework (history, art, etc). I studied plenty of math, but European and Asian students typically focus much more intensely on their major subject at the undergraduate level. I had met the prerequisites for some of my grad courses, but it was still new material for me. For many of my fellow students, it was review.
As the percentage of US students continues to dwindle in US based graduate programs, I think that these courses will be increasingly taught assuming a European or Asian style undergraduate experience (ie., earlier specialization) - after all, that's becoming the typical background in these programs. I don't think that the US students necessarily lack the talent or core prerequisites, but they will be more likely to be seeing "graduate level" material for the first time, whereas it may be review for the international students.
To give an example, suppose there's a graduate course in advanced stochastic processes, and prerequisites are calculus based statics and an undergraduate course in introductory stochastic processes. The American took the prerequisites, and also took a lot of coursework outside his major (as required by his university). An international student took far less coursework outside the major and instead used the time to take what in the US would be graduate level courses in stochastic processes. The international student, in this case, would be at a substantial advantage.
The American, though, will probably choose some other path than a PhD in a STEM field - I personally that the RAND study has pretty much identified why that's the case (better pay and prospects in other fields). I think your insight into the difference between US and international students around markets is a good one - if your failure rate is higher, you'd be more inclined to avoid that program, so they are responding differently. That said, I think that the difficulty of gaining admission to professional schools in the US is a also a major factor (medical and law schools make it far more difficult for international students to gain admission than PhD programs in STEM fields, and if we go the "staple a green card to any STEM degree" but don't take comparable actions in other fields, we should understand that this will probably exacerbate the trend away from STEM and toward other fields among people who can choose their profession in the US).
Oh lastly, to answer your question - yes, the dropout rate from STEM undergraduate majors in the US is high (new york times did an article on this recently), and my undergraduate program was no different. But those Americans who make it through often go to professional schools or into finance (though the trend toward finance has reversed somewhat recently), again (I believe) for the reasons specified in the RAND study.
I don't have such a problem with founders moving here. Although I guess they might compete for investor money, I don't see that as such a big problem for our economy as competing with workers for jobs.
Immigration of high-skilled labor increases the average skill level of the workforce, and thus, its productivity. If I immigrate and keep you from getting a top-tier job, you'll get a middle-tier job instead, benefiting your new employer. Worker productivity is the foundation of economic growth.
Immigrants from the low skill tier lower the average skill level of the workforce (in the US), but they are still beneficial [1]. The time a low skill immigrant spends cleaning my bathroom is time I have to devote to my startup.
Trade benefits everyone because of the consumer surplus it creates, not due to some nebulous "raising the average" effect.
[1] For the sake of argument, I'm assuming purely market forces at work. The welfare state substantially complicates this picture. This article argues immigration overall is a net drain on the US, mainly due to redistributionist policies: http://cis.org/immigrant-welfare-use-2011
It's not like there aren't high-skilled jobs in other countries, where those immigrants whom we educate could get jobs.
So it's your desire to consign the Indian would-be immigrant to a life of poverty (i.e., poorer than the bottom 5% of the US [1]) just to make sure your wage stays above $150k/year?
But as long as you are happy with me shipping jobs to India, I guess it's all good.
>So it's your desire to consign the Indian would-be immigrant to a life of poverty just to make sure your wage stays above $150k/year
The reality is that the government will make policies that favour citizens over foreigners. So yes, it may be someone's desire to cosign an Indian would-be immigrant to a life of poverty just to keep their wage stable. We're already doing that by not taking in unlimited immigrants from, say, war-torn Africa.
>But as long as you are happy with me shipping jobs to India, I guess it's all good.
Skilled immigration has nothing to do with offshoring.
Skilled immigration has nothing to do with offshoring.
Sure it does. Both are methods of tapping into the labor pool overseas.
We're already doing that by not taking in unlimited immigrants from, say, war-torn Africa.
Very true. Our unwillingness to take on more refugees has resulted in thousands of people being tortured, raped and murdered. Are you advocating this policy?
Most African cultures have not completed the demographic transition. Until that happens somehow, those cultures will exceed the carrying capacity of any environment, and war over inadequate resources. With unlimited immigration, the billion in Africa would continue moving until America became equally inhospitable.
If anything, our population is already too high, verging on disposable "life is cheap" levels. We haven't learned to make a civilization that values individuals and treats them decently, except when they are scarce enough that resources are going underused (making it clear to everyone that we benefit from their presence).
> Very true. Our unwillingness to take on more refugees has resulted in thousands of people being tortured, raped and murdered. Are you advocating this policy?
We already have tons of refugees in the USA. In New Hampshire for example (a very libertarian state, with not much sympathy for socialist programs), we have a large contingent of Somali refugees. They are not skilled workers. I'm not saying everything has gone smoothly, but they have been made welcome by their new neighbors. I think charity (giving something to people who don't seem to deserve it) is much more palatable here than entitlement (giving something to people who think they do deserve it).
Oh so you are turning this into a charity case. The primary goal shifted to "help the Indian worker" not to "help the American economy".
Ok, let's roll with that. If that is the case here is a proposal: pay each skilled worker turned away and replaced by an American worker a stipend to help them rise above poverty in their country (say $2k/year?) then go and hire an American worker and pay them base salary-stipend.
1. Why give $150,000/year to an immigrant who will send some of that money back to his/her home country? The "no-brainer" is to keep the money here.
2. Skilled workers in India should be able to get above-average pay. (If the situation is really that bad, the ones who are willing to travel elsewhere to get education and jobs should do much better than average.)
Taking that graph at face value, the Indian immigrants could have no jobs at all, and still live better in the US than in India. They wouldn't have to compete with skilled workers here at all.
You're looking at more skilled workers and thinking that they will add to our economy. So you're asking, "What's the absolute value of (say) and Indian worker to our economy?" But I'm thinking it's closer to a zero-sum game - more immigrants will mean less work for native workers - and I'm asking, "What's the difference in value between an Indian worker compared to a native one?"
It would be a disaster if an immigrant helped bring his entire family out of poverty. We better do something to prevent that.
That said, how does it benefit the US if the immigrant keeps his money here?
Skilled workers in India should be able to get above-average pay.
They do. It still puts them well below the US poverty line.
Taking that graph at face value, the Indian immigrants could have no jobs at all, and still live better in the US than in India.
Very true. Most poor Americans, who typically have no job at all, still have a higher standard of living than an upper middle class developer in India. So what?
"What's the difference in value between an Indian worker compared to a native one?"
Wages for developers will be lowered. This will cause quantity demanded to increase, resulting in more software being created. This will increase productivity and benefit consumers. I don't see any reason to believe that all the software we could possibly need is currently being created - do you?
Moving someone else out of poverty would be nice, but would you give up your job to do it? More specifically, do you think that family is entitled to your income? I don't see why the USA should pick skilled workers to move here just to compete with the workers we have, who are already struggling to find jobs in this messed-up economy.
It still puts them well below the US poverty line.
The US poverty line is completely irrelevant to a worker in India. Anyway, it's artificially adjusted to keep 20% of the US population below the line, so it's not useful as an indication of actual poverty.
Most poor Americans, who typically have no job at all, still have a higher standard of living than an upper middle class developer in India. So what?
I answered that in the very next sentence. If it's a simple matter of bringing Indians out of poverty, there's no reason for them to compete with skilled workers here. We could continue to bring random people here from India, which is the opposite of what the article recommends. In fact we should focus on the poorest and least-skilled workers.
I didn't see anything in this discussion about programmers.
More specifically, do you think that family is entitled to your income?
No. Nor am I entitled to a particular job.
I'm only advocating allowing the job to go to the person who will offer the best cost/benefit ratio. I'm not advocating we should make it illegal to give the job to one person or another, you are.
Anyway, it's artificially adjusted to keep 20% of the US population below the line, so it's not useful as an indication of actual poverty.
This is very true, but regardless - the bottom 95'th percentile of India is poorer than the bottom 5'th percentile of the US.
I didn't see anything in this discussion about programmers.
My arguments are not specific to programmers. I would also advocate bringing over Indian cooks and house cleaners, subject to various non-protectionist limitations.
Problem 1 is caused by temporary visas. If I know that I may have to go back to my origin country in a few years, I'm tempted to work a lot, save as much as possible, then go back to my country where this money is probably worth much more due to lower currency value, and use the money plus my international experience to jump-start a higher-level career or business (maybe starting a new offshoring company for extra irony). OTOH if I have a permanent visa, I will invest in a long-term career, form a family (or bring existing family from my country), buy a car, mortgage, burn a ton of money in America's ultra-expensive private healthcare and higher education, etc.
If the argument is that their presence here makes our country richer, then the more smart Indians that there are in India, the richer that country will become.
We can pay the smartest people in the world to work here, or we can pay them to work elsewhere. If they work here, we get the externalities. Hence, no-brainer.
The externalities of adding more workers to an economy at less than full capacity are negative. The public gets to support the $80K native who just got laid off, and the extra corporate profits are shipped off to an overseas subsidiary and the CEO's annual bonus, never to be seen again.
The economy isn't just a single lump. There's a severe shortage of competent technical talent that we're all familiar with.
If someone expects to make 80k and they haven't updated their skills since the 90s, yeah they're gonna get laid off to make room for someone who can hack it. There's still a need for that someone. Artificial scarcity isn't a good thing for the industry.
The subtitle says Our policy toward the world's best and brightest is currently: "Welcome! Enjoy this expensive education. Now go home!" Does that make any sense? But I think it makes even less sense to say to native-born Americans, "Enjoy this expensive education. Now go to Europe to get a job, because we decided to hire an Indian instead".