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U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

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Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#401
post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> American's used to be able to support large families of 4+ kids with only 1 working parent. Now you have households with both working and they can't afford to have kids. I'm broadly sympathetic to your viewpoint, but this isn't accurate. Children are fundamentally not expensive. The problem is that couples believe they can't afford to have kids, not that they actually can't afford them.

Typical income is 50k a year and it takes ~250k to raise a kid you are looking at 13,888k a year for the kid, after taxes Children are extremely expensive. I have raised 4. You are broke the entire time and can always spend more on them. In the US you are 1 medical incident from not affording anything and relying on welfare https://www.thestreet.com/personal-finance/cost-to-raise-chi...

You can always spend more on anything. That doesn't mean there's a good reason to do it.

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#402
post #94

I've worked with a few H1-B holders in Silicon Valley and they're awesome. A great improvement would be to allow H1B holders to change jobs easily (maybe after a year). It's too easy for them to get stuck in not great situations. It would be great for everyone if they could move to better fitting jobs, especially for startups who have trouble running H1-B programs. If you are, like me, a software engineer, you should…

A great improvement would be to give them citizenship if they want it. The economic impact of immigrants is not under debate, however your examples are poor choices as I don't think any of those people came to the US on an H1B visa. If anything it's an argument against H1B.

It’s like saying some retaurants are started by immigrants so don’t complain that every kitchen is staffed by undocumented workers

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#403
post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GDP per capita is $59,531. So .1-.3% of that is $60-179. For every man, woman, and child in the United States. $19-58 billion per year. This is value created, money from thin air, you don't have to tax anyone to give $120 to everyone in the United States every single year . If you know something else that good, you should let us all know. Economists and policy makers scrounge around for stuff that's not a tenth as go…

It averages to $X of value per head, sure. Does the median head actually capture value worth anything close to $X?

The U.S. has a funny policy of not redistributing the gains of society.

Why not instigate a universal basic income of say 5% of GDP, or $3k a year.

That gives everyone an incentive to have GDP increase, rather than just the wealthiest.

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#404
post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>To prime your intuition a bit, consider how woman and minorities more than doubled the work force from the 1960s to 1990s with no loss in jobs or lowering of wages. You do realize there hasn't been a raise in real wages since the 70s when you account for inflation right? Coincidentally during that same time period the income gap exploded because the wealthy had plentiful cheap labor and were able to pocket the produ…

Now you have households with both working and they can't afford to have kids This strikes me as ridiculous as a broad-brush, general statement. It's not that Americans can't afford to have kids, it's that they incentivize different things than they did in the past. I don't deny that real wages haven't risen because of the supply of workers and dual-income families, but c'mon. There's been an increase in professional…

I'm sorry but you don't seem to know what kids kost. Rent, childcare, clothing, food plus only one income are in no relation to some electronic toys or a fancy holiday.

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#405
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vegetable and dairy farmers would go out of business, if prices can't be raised due to competition from imports. You'd need tariffs as well, and people would need to put up with significant price increases at the grocery store. There are not many Americans who want their kids to grow up to be farmhands or migrant workers. If you can speak English, you're better off in retail. For immigrants, there is a valuable benef…

Lots of countries contend with this: Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Britain, etc. People adapt. Perhaps we grow to appreciate our food and throw out less waste.

Those countries import a ton of food...

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Qualified supply is nowhere close to matching demand. Ask anyone that has to do recruiting for their teams. Source: personal experience

That's nonsense. As an industry we have an enormous age and gender bias. I know plenty of older folks that are great software engineers and can't find work because nobody will give them a chance to interview. here for some actual facts: https://archives.cjr.org/reports/what_scientist_shortage.php

> I know plenty of older folks that are great software engineers and can't find work because nobody will give them a chance to interview.

maybe tell them about triplebyte

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#407
post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>To prime your intuition a bit, consider how woman and minorities more than doubled the work force from the 1960s to 1990s with no loss in jobs or lowering of wages. You do realize there hasn't been a raise in real wages since the 70s when you account for inflation right? Coincidentally during that same time period the income gap exploded because the wealthy had plentiful cheap labor and were able to pocket the produ…

Now you have households with both working and they can't afford to have kids This strikes me as ridiculous as a broad-brush, general statement. It's not that Americans can't afford to have kids, it's that they incentivize different things than they did in the past. I don't deny that real wages haven't risen because of the supply of workers and dual-income families, but c'mon. There's been an increase in professional…

Could you provide a cost breakdown of the first 10 years of raising a child in, say, SV or NY? I can't follow your thinking here at all. Childcare, from what I hear is immensely expensive, and after a certain age, you need a bigger home. Conversely, staying without kids means you don't spend on any of those things. What have I missed?

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#408
post #94

I've worked with a few H1-B holders in Silicon Valley and they're awesome. A great improvement would be to allow H1B holders to change jobs easily (maybe after a year). It's too easy for them to get stuck in not great situations. It would be great for everyone if they could move to better fitting jobs, especially for startups who have trouble running H1-B programs. If you are, like me, a software engineer, you should…

>To prime your intuition a bit, consider how woman and minorities more than doubled the work force from the 1960s to 1990s with no loss in jobs or lowering of wages. You do realize there hasn't been a raise in real wages since the 70s when you account for inflation right? Coincidentally during that same time period the income gap exploded because the wealthy had plentiful cheap labor and were able to pocket the produ…

> American's used to be able to support large families of 4+ kids with only 1 working parent. Now you have households with both working and they can't afford to have kids.

This statement isn't supported by the Pew Research article you linked to. If real average earnings are constant then a household which now has two breadwinners will double its income and be better off.

Also keep in mind longitudinal effects: native-born Americans have seen their wages rise but this is offset by immigrants who generally have lower-than-average wages - but still higher than in the country they emigrated from. Both groups are better off even though average wages haven't changed.

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#409
post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Typical income is 50k a year and it takes ~250k to raise a kid you are looking at 13,888k a year for the kid, after taxes Children are extremely expensive. I have raised 4. You are broke the entire time and can always spend more on them. In the US you are 1 medical incident from not affording anything and relying on welfare https://www.thestreet.com/personal-finance/cost-to-raise-chi...

You can always spend more on anything. That doesn't mean there's a good reason to do it.

You will notice the children who grow up to be the most productive tend to get the most support from their parents. I guess it depends on how much you want your kids to succeed vs how much you want to keep for yourself.

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#410
post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wealth inequality has increased mostly due to the massive expansion of the global economy, which was a large benefit to capital owners and was a detriment to US labor (whose wages were artifically very high in the post WW2 decades). Global labor competed, capital benefited. Federal Reserve policies since ~1970 have also overwhelmingly favored capital, asset holders, and not workers. The US tax code has gotten more pr…

There's been another major shift as well. This [1] graph is critical. There were more self employed workers in the US in 1948 than there are today. The population since then has increased by more than 220%. And the trend increases the further back you go. I mention 1948 only because that's as far back as FRED's data goes! The US used to be a land largely driven by self employment. We had large numbers of mostly indep…

Regulation has killed small business.
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