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New H1-B Visa bill doubles the salary requirements to $130K/yr

timesofindia.indiatimes.com

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Re: New H1-B Visa bill doubles the salary requirements to $130K/yr

#181

Post by mavelikara »

Mvandenbergh wrote: post #166
tomp wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- It takes a "market based" allocation strategy which allows "cash bonuses and similar compensation" to be included. This is a joke. Honest question, why is this a joke?

It relies on the companies own estimate of the value of those bonuses... but bonuses are discretionary and the value of private company stock can be hard to determine. So you could have a salary of $90k, $10k of healthcare benefits, and $30k worth of "assumed" bonuses in the form of options, restricted shares, etc. which: a) you're not certain to get anyway (because they're bonuses) b) might not really be worth $30k

> the value of private company stock can be hard to determine

The IRS uses 409A valuation. These valuations have been high enough to cause huge AMT burden to engineers. Sam Altman etc have written about it; Zoe Lofgren herself has been trying for years to fix it.

Why do you think it is a joke?

Re: New H1-B Visa bill doubles the salary requirements to $130K/yr

#182

Post by bitL »

koolba wrote: post #46
ones_and_zeros wrote: post #25

Here is the summary straight from the horses mouth: https://lofgren.house.gov/uploadedfiles/high_skilled_bill_sx... A few points: - This does not raise the salary requirement to $130k/yr. This only applies to employers that do not want to do the extra paper work for "attestations regarding recruitment and non-displacement of U.S. workers" - It takes a "market based" allocation strategy which allows "cash bonuses and…

> - Startups and small businesses will get 20% of the visas. It'll be interesting to see how this is gamed Probably the old fashioned way: Tata Startup Services, a wholly owned subsidiary of Tata Consulting Services.

But currently they take around 60% of all awarded visas, in the future they will be capped to 20% at most if they went the start up route.

Re: New H1-B Visa bill doubles the salary requirements to $130K/yr

#183

Post by kstrauser »

hocuspocus wrote: post #7

Color me surprised, I commented on many related threads recently but this sounds actually pretty good! $130k is maybe a little high for seed stage startups but given that we're talking about relocating engineers to the most expensive region in the world, I believe it's fair. And the path from F-1 to Green Card will solve companies taking advantage of people on OPT status, at least partially.

Well, and given that the premise of H1-B visas is that "we literally couldn't find a local who could do this", I'm OK with that.

Outside the Bay Area, you're probably not going to pay a frontend website programmer $130K on an H1-B. You're not supposed to, though! You can find plenty of that talent already in the country. If you need specific PhD-level STEM skills that you haven't been able to find locally, you're probably not going to mind paying them $130K because they're likely critical to your business, and that would be their market rate anyway.

Re: New H1-B Visa bill doubles the salary requirements to $130K/yr

#184

Post by itissid »

ones_and_zeros wrote: post #25

Here is the summary straight from the horses mouth: https://lofgren.house.gov/uploadedfiles/high_skilled_bill_sx... A few points: - This does not raise the salary requirement to $130k/yr. This only applies to employers that do not want to do the extra paper work for "attestations regarding recruitment and non-displacement of U.S. workers" - It takes a "market based" allocation strategy which allows "cash bonuses and…

I think the shortest fix for the violation part(Corporate/Ed tech loophole and the Implementation/Consultant loophole) is some boots on the ground for DHS to investigate worksites. If there is enough economic incentive vested in any one area, sooner or later people will game it. And the H1B business is very lucrative. Putting in oversight to such a thing is hard without boots on the ground/human resources. AFAIR Visa program is run entirely on applicant fees making to slapstick to a bill even a harder sell given how much congress frowns upon spending.

Re: New H1-B Visa bill doubles the salary requirements to $130K/yr

#185

Post by mavelikara »

lokithor wrote: post #27
ones_and_zeros wrote: post #25

Here is the summary straight from the horses mouth: https://lofgren.house.gov/uploadedfiles/high_skilled_bill_sx... A few points: - This does not raise the salary requirement to $130k/yr. This only applies to employers that do not want to do the extra paper work for "attestations regarding recruitment and non-displacement of U.S. workers" - It takes a "market based" allocation strategy which allows "cash bonuses and…

Yup. The fact that compensation is included, is useless. Companies give you unvested shares worth tonnes that take > 4 years to fully vest. The attrition rates are so high, the sweat shops can get away with it.

If you get $1,000,000 worth of equity that vests in 100 years, your annual stock compensation is still $10,000.

Re: New H1-B Visa bill doubles the salary requirements to $130K/yr

#186

Post by trollpan2 »

dandare wrote: post #93

A quick calculation: $60,000 in 1989 adjusted for inflation equals $116,132.42 in 2016. This changes the narative a lot.

Well inflation may have increased but as per pew research wages are stagnated for decades (http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/10/09/for-most-wor...) . In that narrative, this increase is unfair to companies outside of SF/NYC area and also unfair to students who came to USA for studies.

Re: New H1-B Visa bill doubles the salary requirements to $130K/yr

#189

Post by Vampires123433 »

Retric wrote: post #134
winter_blue wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've commented on this before, at: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13433540 I'm copying the comment below: --- I'm on an H-1B, and the thing that infuriates me about the dialogue on this is that they are effectively trying to ban skilled immigration, and exclude people like me from coming. If you don't qualify for the family-based or refugee route, employment-based immigration is the only viable pathway. The amo…

H-1B was not setup as a path for graduates to stay in the US. It was intended to allow highly skilled workers in and has been gamed since then to do all kinds of things. That said, I think a permissive immigration policy is in our intrests, but H-1B is a poor basis for such a policy.

This.

F1 students are not American citizens and are not entitled to an immigration pathway through employment.

They are on a student visa with the right to study at an American university.

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