> Most Pro-labor people would, I imagine, consider the global labor pool in their analysis.

This is an insanely modern take on "pro-labor" movements, especially in the US. Traditionally, pro-labor has been 100% focused on local labor. If you told your average union member that being "pro-labor" meant closing their factories and offshoring their jobs they'd laugh (or more likely, spit) in your face.

> making US companies using foreign labor adhere to the same labor standards they must adhere to domestically.

There are already rules in place but no real enforcement. Large software companies save a fortune making workers compete with workers from countries that have dramatically lower cost of living, entirely circumventing the market constraints that favor workers.

In hiring the people the H1B was designed for, 100k is nothing.

> Most Pro-labor people would, I imagine, consider the global labor pool in their analysis.

This is a disingenuous argument. Allowing companies to pocket a huge amount of money that would have gone to the people they laid off to hire H1Bs with common skill sets is not pro labor by any measure.

Not completely blind, there is a bill to put a 25% excise tax on offshored labor: https://www.moreno.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/The...

> However non tech/lawyer/doctors have been adversely effected by the fact they've seen no real income gains in 25 years overall.

We may be reaching the breaking point where Americans view any solution to this problem as worth trying. We’re near 2 generations of flat real income for the vast majority of Americans. When your grandparents are the last generation to remember rising living standards, it’s hard to buy that the system is working for you at all.

> Immigration is as pro-capital and anti-labor as you can get, yet somehow the left has been convinced to support it.

"Immigration" as such is a made up concept. The legal and physical barriers created by immigration policy are pro-capital and anti-labor. If people could freely move around the world, you can bet there'd be much more focus on pro-labor policies.

Are "Americans the most skillful propagandists"? Not Russians, not communist, not new age populist dictatorships?

That doesn't mean the teflon president isn't just now blatantly silencing the voices of the opposition (Kimmel and then a general warning) so he definitely wants a place in the competition.

Insofar as a "pro-labour" position exists in practice it has to be anti-globalist. If pro-labour is going to mean something it has to mean trying to get labour a better deal than a free market would offer, otherwise it isn't really taking a position on labour at all. A key part of globalism is it makes it impossible for labour in any given country to avoid being paid the market price for their labour.

Environmentalism is similar. Globalism fixes the amount of pollution globally to the market optimum where presumably an environmentalist wants to control pollution using some other system than markets.

You seem to be arguing that globalism makes the world better off. I agree, but that is because pro-labour and pro-environmentalist ideologies are pretty explicit that they aren't trying to maximise the general welfare. A situation where one soul works very hard and happily for little pay making things for everyone else could be a good outcome for everyone (see also: economic comparative advantage). The pro-labour position would resist that outcome on the basis that the labourer is not making very much money. And the environmentalist would probably be unhappy with the amount of pollution that the hard work generates. The globalist would call it a win.

I'm very much free trade and pro-globalization, but it seems perfectly reasonable to me that a candidate for political office in country X should be most concerned about the overall welfare of the citizens of country X, then next for the non-citizen residents of country X, then non-citizen/non-residents last. We can argue how steep the dropoff should be, but I think most people would believe that the ordering is that one, with some possible ties.

Its arbitrage. You think the low rung indians are happy suresh is making top dollar programming a web app?

I could see that being the case in a scenario where all countries had strong labor protections. However, in practice globalism tends to result in jobs being exported from countries with strong protections to countries with weak protections. In that sense it is anti-labor.

In the case of bringing in workers; those workers are less likely to join unions or demand good working conditions since they are effectively indentured servants. That also is bad for labor.

Exactly this. And the main "equalizing" factor in Germany is taxes, round about 50% of Germany's labor share of GDP for average earners consists of taxes and social security contributions. Which is exactly what the Republican campaign has been all about - minimize taxes and cut spending wherever possible. Yes, you get a vastly more unequal and in many cases just flat out inhumane society. But if you can manage to be part of the "upper" class for a few years it pays so well that it becomes very appealing to a lot of people all over the world.

You’re right — H-1B is dual intent. But my main point still stands: conflating H-1Bs with “immigrants hollowing out the middle class” is misleading. H-1B was designed to address shortfalls in skilled labor by granting temporary work authorization to foreign workers. On paper, it’s a fine idea.

In practice, the program has been abused, by body shops for instance, that we ended up with a new word: insourcing. That’s the real issue, and not immigration per se, but the way a temporary labor program reshaped whole categories of employment. And while politicians sometimes talk about fixing it, I wouldn’t expect much. If anything, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the “dual intent” aspect pared back in the future under the current guy.

Should people on non-dual-intent work visas not be paying those taxes then? Because they do.

It's false because "dual intent" applies explicitly only to non-immigrant visas and the term is referencing the applicants intent. There are no pathways from a non-immigrant visa to citizenship in the US.

Britain tried to impose wage controls after the black death. Results were mixed. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Labourers_1351

That's just the byproduct of the rest of the world coming back online (plus communications & logistics improving).

Look, if you own a company, or are in a leadership position: the entire world is now open to you, both as source of labor and as potential market. The impact of your decisions has exploded, and the potential revenue and value of your company has also exploded.

OTOH, if you're a line-worker at a factory in Detroit: your competition is now most of the population of the world--and they all expect lower salaries than you do.

What's your argument for why you should keep making 10x or 20x what people in China or India make? Do you just naturally deserve it? Do you figure that companies owe it to you because you share a home country? If so, either the company will bounce and move abroad to one of the many countries willing to welcome them with open arms--or they'll be swiftly replaced by a Chinese equivalent which has 1/10th the labor costs. Either way, your extravagant salary is going to dry up.

American labor in the 50s was simply in the right place at the right time. That's no longer true. There's no way to stop the rest of the world from growing and improving in order to maintain the special status of the American worker. They don't really have a choice: they need to skill up. And yes, push for better social safety nets, though their instinct seems to be in the opposite direction.

After WW2, Europe and Asia were rubble, and needed to rebuild. And the systems, structures, and customs that had existed pre-war had fallen apart. They all needed, simultaneously, to rebuild and modernize.

To do that, they needed cars, machinery, home goods, electronics, etc. They had the labor to produce those things, but not the infrastructure. It takes time to build factories, and a skilled labor pool, and a logistics network, and so on.

So where did you go to get the goods & services you needed to rebuild? There was really only one option. The US was exporting cars, factory equipment, heavy machinery, steel, radio, coca cola, etc. They had an intact industrial plant, and had lost (relatively speaking) very few working-age men in the war. That helped them ramp up quickly with internal demand (fed by pent-up war wages).

For reasons laid out above, it wasn't practical to move factories overseas, or outsource parts, or automate. So workers in the areas with factories were in very high demand, and wages went way, way up in those areas. That had knock-on effects: America was just beginning to import oil in large quantities, so American coal & oil was suddenly in high demand. Same with mining, logging, etc. That caused a general boom--specifically favoring labor.

It wasn't because the rest of the world was poor that the American middle class was rich. It was because the rest of the world was developing, and America had a near-monopoly on the means of doing it. What's happened in the meantime is just that the US has lost that monopoly. Now American workers face relatively fair competition. This has been a huge net positive for the world, with cheaper goods and higher wages pretty much across the board...except for American workers.

Home ownership rate is higher now than it ever was in the post-war period, actually. It peaked in 2008, and has fallen since then...still higher than the 50s and 60s.

Also, did you ever spend any time in those post-war homes? Most of us would be appalled at the idea of living in a bare-bones 1000 sqft box (with more than 2x as many children per average family).

The US population is 4 per cent of the entire world's, which means that the vast majority of talented humans is born abroad.

If you can snatch them, they will build SpaceX or Google for you. If not, well, they will do so either elsewhere, or not at all. (South Africa does not seem to be a good place to start business, and neither is Russia.)

Can you gain prosperity by employing three mediocre people instead of one talented one? Maybe, but you won't get a new vibrant sector like Silicon Valley this way.

Europe, where I live, is a lot more gung-ho on mediocrity and forced equality, and we seem to be the ones with clearly stagnating living standards, not you.

Much the same as in a strike when workers get mad at scabs. The person right there in front of you is looking out for their own best interests and in those circumstances that is to your detriment. Capital uses immigrant labor partly for simple price reasons and partly because those workers interests really are different from the locals and their lack of local connection makes them a viable slow motion scab workforce.

No one cares about GDP anymore. It's a fake number.

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Dollars are relevant as claims on real resources, whose quantity and variation in quality would be unchanged.

Production of the staples of middle class life, like homes in decent neighborhoods and seats in decent schools, is limited more by the use of middle class political power to restrict it than by a lack of capital or demand. More money for consumption might help with already-cheap consumer goods, but it only drives inflation in the core class markers.

If someone sees visa fraud, it should be reported. There are programs to try to combat it, though this is a "UCIS doesn't have the resources to audit every company."

So... if you see it, report it. https://www.uscis.gov/scams-fraud-and-misconduct/report-frau...

And there are actions on it when it is caught.

https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/two-executives-plead...

Ignoring visa fraud is one of the ways that it becomes established and in turn makes it harder for the companies that are following the rules to be successful.

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I think perhaps part of the point being made is that the ratio should not be the same. We should be bringing in higher-than-average and exceptional talent via these visas. If we're just mirroring the skills and talent level of the native workforce, we should be drawing from the native workforce.

I don't buy the argument that there's a big shortage of talent for these jobs in the US, especially in a job market like there is right now.

Having said that, I do know quite a few people who have been in the US on H-1B visas, and many of them are exceptionally skilled. I think those are the kinds of people we should be granting H-1B visas. I also know quite a few H-1B holders who I wouldn't ever want to work with again, and there are too many people in that group. Not saying there aren't plenty of US citizens I wouldn't want to work with ever again, but that's a separate issue.

But isn't the point of H1B to bring in exceptional talent? Not create indentured servants of foreign workers?

> A very large majority of all software engineers are mediocre

I think my HN karma right now would be over 1,000,000 if it wasn't for all the downvotes each time I've said this same thing. I ballpark 95.87% of all SWEs are mediocre-to-less-than-that. I have 30 years of experience behind me to back this up :)

This "10x engineer" jazz is really just someone who is good-to-very-good compared to the rest of the crew

Mediocre means average. Most people will fit into average. If most H1B are average programmers the ratio wouldn't be equal just based on cultural differences / language and other baseline factors added.

They also make hidden job postings and then say "look, no one applied except for H1B applicants!"

H1B requires paying prevailing market wages.

You can argue that they can fight the inflation impact that way.

But I think you’re implying paying less than market rate which is simply not true.

If they’re bribing USCIS to get around this rule. That’s a different discussion.

FAANG offers sub market salaries? American citizens turn their nose at FAANG jobs because of the low pay?

What?

> If a company has to sponsor you for an H1B though you'll be locked to one employer, and that lack of options is what means they don't need to give you market rates.

You're not locked into one employer on an H1B. Once you are here it is possible to switch jobs relatively easily since you do not need to go through the lottery again.

> as far as I know employment law leaves them quite free to offer a lower salary

"The H-1B employer must pay its H-1B worker(s) at least the “required” wage which is the higher of the prevailing wage or the employer’s actual wage (in-house wage) for similarly employed workers."

https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/62g-h1b-require...

The basic mechanics you're assuming are wrong - H1B is not locked to an employer, it can be easily transferred between employers. H1B is tied to having AN employer, but employees are free to switch between employers to get market rates and they do.

That would be highly illegal: it'd be discrimination on the basis of race (which is protected under the law) rather than on the basis of immigration status (which is not protected).

It appears that you have a strong case of discrimination. You should consider filing a lawsuit.

This is precisely what HR and hiring managers at FAANG companies are instructed and trained to avoid.

The casual racism against white people that we normalize is sick. I understand the current situation and the past, but it doesn't make it right.

The Southern states that I'm aware of which have "strong economies" got that way by slashing worker and environmental protections. I don't think that's actually a compelling counterexample.

"the states with the lowest gini co-efficient are the ones that are the least diverse" seems a better fit.

There used to be a much stronger push for education in the US. Perhaps if companies could not "just hire from overseas" or "just outsource" there would be a longer term growth strategy that would focus more on the education of the US population (not just training for this or that job).

It did seem in the past that there was much more of an all-hands-on-deck attitude towards education throughout US corporate activities, more broadly focused on the general fields the various companies valued the most. I suspect this fall off is very real, but don't actually know if that is just my impression or if there is a concrete effect from modern economic structures.

It's an important enough question it should definitely be studied and taken into account in policy.

However I can't agree with your conclusion that "Immigration helps the countries [sic] top-line metrics, but it rarely helps the citizens inside the country". That requires meta studies that I have never seen to prove it is so. I could cautiously accept that "some types of immigration rarely help corresponding sections of the local population" much more than such a blanket judgement. Overall, it is just not true that economics is zero sum. It doesn't have to be. An entire people can in fact flourish.

I don't think you have to show that the talent couldn't have been trained in the USA (or rather, it couldn't have been trained into USA workers), but that the talent wasn't trained in the USA so bringing in an outside worker is the only way to hire for the position.

You can't really expect a company hiring PhD's in a niche field to show that they couldn't have spent 7 years training an American for the work.

> Immigration helps the countries top-line metrics, but it rarely helps the citizens inside the country.

What study does one "have to do" to support _this_ claim?

> show that the talent couldn't have been trained in the US

The admin has been cutting billions in funding to universities which makes this argument easier.

Need an expert in arithmetic combinatorics? Well Terry Tao lost his grants so now you've got to look elsewhere.

> An H1b software engineer median is ~$120k.

> Using other official sources, the median pay for US software engineers overall is... ~$120k.

So, it seems that if we remove H1b workers and assume that the demand would have stayed the same, then domestic salaries should have been higher. Assuming, of course, that companies won’t simply offshore.

Interesting. I think this gets at guywithhat’s sibling comment:

> you'd have to do a study to show that the talent couldn't have been trained in the US, and that an increased supply of workers didn't drag down salaries, either short or long-term.

If the median H1B for software is exactly the same as the overall median, it makes you wonder if the median would be different if the H1B was not an option available to employers.

The problem you will have selling this to this crowd is we have been in the meetings. We know that 'we're going to use a consulting team on this' means lower wages. We know that 'we going to outsource this' to a company full of H1Bs is being done... to lower costs.

Maybe at FAANGs what you say is true. But at every place I've been when H1Bs ended up added (normally via consultancy or outsourcing) it was always to cut costs. And the only costs we were cutting was staff.

If h1bs are statistically a lot more centered in higher income urban areas, while overall populations of a given profession are more evenly distributed across the country...

Then that $120,000 salary median can still represent a 50% undercut of similar Urban salaries for a profession.

I'm going to contend that that is the case. But I don't have time to chase down the statistics

Median salary for a software engineer according to BLS is over that - around $133k.

K, but if these are experts that literally do not exist in the US, why are the salaries not higher than median? It wasn't meant to fill junior level positions.

This program was meant to allow talent that is not available in the US, so that gaps could be filled with experts from overseas.

> An H1b software engineer median is ~$120k.

Base salary, not total comp, the first year

> Praha

This is a pet peeve of mine, but there is an english name for that city and it's Prague.

There is no point in using the local spelling because it adds no clarity, is less obvious to pronounce for any reader and the locals are not really gonna thank you for doing this either. Just seems like a form of light cultural white-knighting to me.

You are not even consistent because Warsaw is not how locals spell that.

If the local market for American DBAs is $180k, then hiring H1B DBAs at $110k does depress wages.

I don't know much about the other cities you mentioned, but there's no way you could get top developers from Warsaw for $50-60k in 2025. You may be hard pressed to find them even if you 2x that. As a point of reference, a nice family apartment costs around $1M here now. Times they are a-changin.

You are not taking into account section 174, It takes you 15 years to depreciate foreign salary vs first year (post the BBB).

Hyderabad is not that cheap for the top 10%, probably closer 90-100k base.

Honestly, even Germany is probably better bang-for-the-buck than Hyderabad, but Hyderabad has the volume and the offices.

I guess all those management meetings where we brought on teams staffed by H1Bs in order to cut costs, when our only costs were wages, didn't make sense.

Funny things is the agencies/consultancies/outsource companies all solds us on it would cut costs when the only thing changed was labor. But apparently they could cut costs without cutting labor costs? How does that work?

Care to provide a google sheets outlining why it doesn’t work?

I’m sorry but I don’t follow. What bearing does the 25th percentile H1B wage have on suppressing wages in a particular role or specialty?

I am specifically talking about tech, I personally knew many H1B folks that worked insane hours literally so that they were seen as ultra productive and wouldn't get cut.

You would need to get another job, unlike a citizen. It need not be said how that's a significant barrier to resisting your employer, no?

> In 2021, the median wage of an H-1B worker was $108,000, compared to $45,760 for U.S. workers in general.

This compares medians across to huge populations. I have seen many H1Bs making less and working more.

(Backing this up... though as I write this, the site with the source data is down - https://flag.dol.gov/programs/prevailingwages ... so using one that uses that data... https://flcprevailingwage.com )

Software Developer (15-1252). Eau Claire County. Bachelors degree. 0 experience.

The prevailing wage is Level 1 Wage:$36.54 / Hour - $76,003 / Year

Change it to San Francisco County.

Level 1 Wage:$65.24 / Hour - $135,699 / Year

And so, as noted... it is location dependent.

<< the most you could say is that they are slightly reducing income of high-income earners

First, I would like you to reconsider 'high income' and putting $120k in that category. It was a good chunk of change. In this year of our lord 2025, it is not. It is, for my region anyway, barely acceptable middle class income.

Pretty much. All this did is now create a thousand talents program for India.

H1B visa abuse by consultancies and mass recruiters is a real issue, but this now incentivized companies like Google, Meta, Microsoft, Pfizer, Cheveron etc to expand their Indian offices.

Edit: can't reply

> Was there any reason for them not to? It's cheaper than H1B anyways.

Spending an additional $10-15k in visa filing fees isn't that big of a deal for an employer who's already paying around 25-35% in withholding and benefits, but at $100K that makes it enough that if you needed to sponsor 10 people on an H1B, you now hit the monetary amount to avail GCC tax rebates and subsidies in most of Eastern Europe and India, where they will give you an additional $10-20k in tax credits and subsidies per head.

Basically, opening a new office abroad just to save on $10-15k of filing fees per employees wasn't worth it, but now that it'll be $100k per employee, the math just shifted.

> Why is this parasitic organization allowed to incorporate?

VC now, not a director anymore. But help me find a new grad with 3-4 years of exploit development and OS internals experience in the US. I can't.

On the other hand, I can in Tel Aviv. There's a reason the entire cybersecurity industry has shifted outside the US.

Large sectors of the US tech scene just lack ANY domestic know-how.