Earlier quoted context omitted.
> An actual shortage would, by definition, mean that, at least in the short term, no amount of price pressure would meet the need, because of a supply constraint that prevents response to price level changes. There are over a million Arabic speakers in the US, hundreds of thousands of whom are legally able to do the work. I strongly suspect that a number sufficient to handle the city of Detroit's translation needs co…
> There are over a million Arabic speakers in the US, hundreds of thousands of whom are legally able to do the work. I strongly suspect that a number sufficient to handle the city of Detroit's translation needs That's an argument that there is not an actual shortage (which, I suspect, is correct), not that an actual shortage could be addressed by bidding higher with wages (which it could not, by definition .) > What…
In contrast, adrr's suggestion above to "stack rank h1b applicants by salary instead of using a lottery system" would result in a system where H-1B holding immigrants are well-paid and "shortages" result in rising wages over time.
Re: sudden shocks, I agree with you. Market pricing will tend to fix imbalances over time (barring extreme regulation or other distortions), but it does take time. In a truly extraordinary situation such as you suggest where huge swaths of the population are suddenly dead or incapacitated, you'd have a reasonable argument against market pricing. I don't believe the H-1B was ever intended for such catastrophic scenarios, though.