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Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

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Re: Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

#991

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is right. The answer that's best for the economy is to allow more immigration, not less (especially skilled immigration). This move will just make it more dificult for the average company to sponsor H1B workers

Serious question: wouldn’t that be leaving less jobs open for Americans? As an American myself, I want to see my fellow Americans getting good jobs over people from other countries.

Not at all. If you import workers, they might fill a slot for one job, but they are also consumers. They need food, and mattresses and haircuts and everything else it takes to live in America. Immigration helps fill the demand for talented workers, and bringing in those talented workers increases the demand for every other type of good and service.

Re: Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

#992
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The immigration quotas in Canada are simply out of control. Almost every week on this forum I see Canadians whining about low wages in Software.... in a market that's more or less flooded with cheap labor!

Mind sharing some numbers? This is a patently false statement. Wages in Canada might be lower, but that is because they get a number of other social benefits, such as healthcare, that gets paid through taxes taken from said wages.

For Software Engineering pretty much all jobs will have great health coverage included, on top of a higher salary. So when you add the value of the coverage, the wages looks ever lower in comparison.

Re: Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

#993

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The immigration quotas in Canada are simply out of control. Almost every week on this forum I see Canadians whining about low wages in Software.... in a market that's more or less flooded with cheap labor!

Immigration quotas have remained constant at about 1% of the population per year since 1992. Low wages in software compared to the US for sure, but that's in part because Canada has very low income and wealth inequality compared to the US. Most people make a living wage, and there's not a huge spread. The US ranks near the bottom of the world in income inequality [1]. Canada's GINI coefficient was 33.8 in 2018 vs the…

Canada also has lower average wages. That doesn't mean that the average worker is better off; rather it's that it's harder to find high earners.

Re: Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

#994

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"…to lower overall pay rate." What's with this nationalism and view human value? Just because a person was or wasn't born in a certain place, something they had no ability to affect, they have more or less right to a certain job with a certain salary in a certain place? Looking at it from the other perspective of the individual who can get a job, they are probably not lowering their salaries, but rather significantly…

The duty and role of a government is to act in the best interest of their citizens which that government represents. The interests of outsiders are simply not relevant to that - they have their own government to represent their interests, which can and should enact policies that benefit them, and negotiate in international agreements policies that will help their citizens. If it's a win-win situation (which is the ex…

The duty and role of government is to act in the interests of those with power and influence. If a vote has more power and influence than money or connections due to how the government is structured or elected then the government can represent the interests of the people.

However, even voters are not equal in the US with those in Wyoming holding almost 3x the voting power for president compared to California due to the electoral college. Senate votes are an entirely different ballgame where small population states are equal to large states in theory but the vote count behind the senator may be millions vs tens of thousands. Also, the less populated but more numerous red states have led to a tyranny of the minority in the US Senate since 2010. If you are curious about that look at the number of justices Trump has appointed vs Obama, and Obama had 2 full terms: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/07/15/how-trump-c...

The US is not really a functional democracy or represenatative republic at this point. Money and power run most policy: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/04/how-cor... (from 2015).

Lobbying dollars hugely outweigh voter preference in policy: https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/reports/2014...

And if you are a company looking to make a profit lobbying may be the best investment to make over capital or other useful growth moves: https://medium.com/numbers-that-matter/return-on-investment-...

That's right, ROI on lobbying is about 200,000% though 10 years it ago it was closer to 20,000%: https://sunlightfoundation.com/2009/04/09/return-on-lobbying...

There's been an admin change in that time plus the Citizens United decision. Remember there are many questions around where PPP loans went, including millions to the newly appointed USPS leadership plus Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Senate Majority leader, and his wife, Elaine Chao, Secretary of transportation: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/lawmakers-and-transportati...

Trump himself won with a 2.8 million popular vote deficit, similar to Bush in 2000. There are 3 other examples in the mid 1800's. In 2016 the GOP won a minority of votes in the US house yet held a 10% seat majority alongside a lopsided Senate. These are not symbols of a functional republic or election process, or at lest one that reflects the will of the people. From the 2016 election results alone your first statement on the duty and role of government is failed by the US. We are at risk of becoming a failed democracy for similar reasons.

Lobbying and campaign finance operations are destroying the value of voter preference and need to be reigned in through massive overhaul of the campaign and election processes. I'm all for setting a window for campaigning like the UK, assigning a budget from public money that ALL donations go into to remove lobbying issues, as well as an overhaul of the actual voting mechanisms reverting to paper ballots handled entirely by mail and air gapped technology using a ranked choice or first alternative process to determine the popular vote like Maine implemented this year. Connect that to the bill going around for states to pass their electors to the popular vote winner directly and you have the start of a government serving at the will of the people, not lobbyists, a minority, the powerful.

Re: Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

#996
post #664

I estimated the new prevailing wages for NYC/SF/SEA using z-scores and the new %-iles. For NYC: (I II III IV) = (116,003 137,323 160,321 203,405) For SF: (I II III IV) = (138,283 162,157 187,910 236,155) For SEA: (I II III IV) = (128,082 148,708 170,957 212,639) The level for an applicant is determined by their education + experience. Level I is supposed to correspond to an entry-level role requiring specialized skil…

For anyone still interested, the actual levels came out. They're much higher than predicted (as expected).

For NYC: (I II III IV) = (116,251 150,010 183,768 217,526)

https://www.flcdatacenter.com/OesQuickResults.aspx?code=15-1...

For SF: (I II III IV) = Not provided. Some notice seems to imply that any level must be >208k.

https://www.flcdatacenter.com/OesQuickResults.aspx?code=15-1...

For SEA: (I II III IV) = (139,880 167,918 195,936 223,974)

https://www.flcdatacenter.com/OesQuickResults.aspx?area=4266...

Re: Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

#997
post #539

I feel like this thread has a lot of bias coming from bad experiences in the computer science field. While I do understand the bad practices of many tech companies, I think the picture is very different when you look at careers in other STEM fields, such as biology, chemistry, and physics. H1B visas are very important for foreign students in these fields particularly those hoping to pursue careers in academia. H1B vi…

>H1B visas are very important for foreign students in these fields particularly those hoping to pursue careers in academia. I don't care. It's not the US's job to educate the world. Until someone helps me get into university again I don't give a rat's ass about foreign students coming in. Those students are typically in the higher earning income brackets for their countries.

[deleted]

Re: Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

#998

Earlier quoted context omitted.

H1-B holders cant start companies anyway. It’s a temporary migrant worker visa.

If they can start a company and hire a few thousand people then why stop them?

We have that - its an investment Visa (EB-5).

Re: Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

#999
post #725

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because this would make citizenship worthless. Being a citizen means that one is loyal to and has a strong connection to their country.

Loyalty is not a requirement for a citizen in any free country.

It is in the US: "Throughout our nation's history, foreign-born men and women have come to the United States, taken the Oath of Allegiance to become naturalized citizens, and contributed greatly to their new communities and country. The Oath of Allegiance has led to American citizenship for more than 220 years."

https://www.uscis.gov/citizenship/learn-about-citizenship/th...

Now I haven't looked into many other countries, but at least in the EU I know that there's many proxies for loyalty when applying for citizenship. And many countries do not accept dual citizenship, which should make things clear for you hopefully.

Re: Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

#1000
post #725

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because this would make citizenship worthless. Being a citizen means that one is loyal to and has a strong connection to their country.

That's what folks pretend it means. IF you give citizenship to folks born there - or even born there to citizens, etc - then it isn't at all about loyalty. Same with granting asylum seekers citizenship and so on. Same with allowing dual citizenship - are you loyal to two countries? Citizenship is never about loyalty. Citizenship has a lot more to do with the ways you contribute to the country. Folks born in a country…

Citizenship has been diluted in recent decades, but it's not just pretense. And while the US has a rather puzzling loophole around birth and citizenship, that doesn't apply AFAIK in the EU: a child born to foreign parents will have to apply for citizenship just like anyone else. Asylum seekers likewise.

Dual citizenship's typically only allowed in the EU when the other country is also an EU country. Some countries do not even allow that. There's even a citizenship test which is administrated.

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