A better perspective is that the median H1B holder created $100k+ worth of value for some US company. Salaries are lower than the value you create, or else your employer would stop paying you.

There could be some rare edge case where you are undercut by a direct competitor, but overall America is much richer with H1Bs that without them.

▲

toomuchtodo 4 days ago | parent [-]

Value for who? Certainly not the majority of Americans. Depressed wages increase profits, which go to shareholders. Most Americans do not benefit from the H-1B grift. I’ll even argue it hurts US citizens by importing immigrants who aren’t necessary from a labor supply perspective (for those on the visa who are not exceptional talent), who compete for housing with citizens when there is a shortage of millions of housing units.

A few select tech and financial services companies, and their shareholders, benefit the most from the program.

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/03/04/what-we-k...

https://www.pewresearch.org/?attachment_id=201754

▲

charliea0 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

I hire a programmer to code my app, SuperConnect++. I charge $0.99 to download the app. People buy the app if it's worth more than $0.99 to them.

If 150,000 people buy the app, then I have ~$150,000 of revenue. I can pay a programmer $100,000 a year and have $50,000 left over. 150,000 people benefited from the app.

Now say I have to pay an additional $100,000 visa fee for my programmer. My cost of $200,000 is less than my revenue of $150,000. I don't build the app. I don't get $50,000. 150,000 people who would have bought the app don't benefit from it. The biggest loss is to the Americans who don't get to buy the app.

There are other possibilities, maybe I increase the price to $1.99 or I hire an American. We can see that those are both bad. The former extracts $150,000 extra dollars from American consumers. Since unemployment is low for Americans and an American programmer can't have two jobs at once, the later just means that some other project that the American programmer would have worked on is not completed.

▲

toomuchtodo 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

Unemployment for tech workers is not currently low, and it is taking months, or even years to find a new role, therefore this argument doesn’t hold water. Wages > consumer excess and profits. The world will go on if you don’t build the app, and perhaps someone else will. The evidence is clear this visa is abused at scale, and this action has been overdue.

https://www.epi.org/blog/tech-and-outsourcing-companies-cont...

https://www.epi.org/publication/new-evidence-widespread-wage...

▲

charliea0 4 days ago | parent [-]

The unemployment rate in the information-technology job market is 4.5%?

▲

toomuchtodo 4 days ago | parent [-]

Over 650k tech layoffs have occurred in the last 4 years. Companies have tried as hard as they can to offshore and use visa labor to avoid hiring US citizen workers. This doesn’t account for new job creation needed for workers entering the workforce. Corporations are also hiding jobs from US citizens (citations which you can find in my other recent comments).

https://layoffs.fyi/

Ask HN: Has anyone else been unemployed for over two years? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45306539 - September 2025

Ask HN: Recent unemployed CS grad what do I do? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43211153 - March 2025

https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/state-of-the-tech...

https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/04/it_job_market_july/

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/job-market-report-c...

https://www.axios.com/2025/07/06/unemployment-job-market-edu...

https://old.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/1kcc40j/what_happ...

https://apnews.com/article/college-graduates-job-market-unem...

▲

charliea0 4 days ago | parent [-]

Given all of that, the unemployment rate is still only 4.5%.

	▲	toomuchtodo 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		Sounds like the metric is unreliable and cannot be trusted as input for policy, based on the evidence and ground truth. U-6 (the most inclusive unemployment rate) is 8.1 as of this comment, the highest it’s been in the last five years: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/U6RATE So, start cutting labor visas until the unemployment rate improves. The domestic labor clearly exists.

▲

charliea0 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

To make this concrete, suppose that Elon Musk never immigrated to the US. SpaceX and Tesla are never founded, or are founded in some other country.

The American electric car market is never kickstarted, none of the American employees of SpaceX or Tesla are hired, there is no space renaissance.

Keeping out Elon Musk is somewhat good for United Launch Alliance and for Ford, but it's worse for all the Americans who have to buy worse cars and pay more for satellite internet.

▲

sokoloff 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

To make this concrete, Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning founded Tesla Motors. Musk later invested and, most certainly, made it vastly more successful than the two founders were on track to do, but Tesla Motors was already founded without requiring Musk's immigration to the US.

	▲	charliea0 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		That's a very fair point. :)

▲

kashunstva 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> suppose that Elon Musk never immigrated to the US

That’s certainly one version of how events may have been different - a sort of “It’s a Wonderful Life” scenario. (Though comparing Elon Musk to the kind and ethical George Bailey would be quite a stretch!) But it’s not inconceivable that other possibilities would have emerged.

▲

ipaddr 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Those 150,000 spend a dollar on a different app. You are taking 150,000 away from another business.

▲

liquid_thyme 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> who compete for housing with citizens when there is a shortage of millions of housing units.

Are they underpaid, or are they swimming in cash to buy up all the expensive housing? Make up your mind.

▲

toomuchtodo 4 days ago | parent [-]

It can be both. Median price of a home is $400k. Homebuyers need household income of ~$117k to afford typical home in U.S. Their income from ther visa enables their buying power to compete against citizens. About 300k H-1B visa holders own homes in the US per FWD.US. Other comments in this thread speak to the wage suppression and lower wages.

https://www.bankrate.com/real-estate/home-affordability-in-c...

	▲	liquid_thyme 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		There is shortage of everything now. Maybe immigrants needing gas is raising gas prices too. (OK, i know you didn't say that, but its a joke :P) We could go back and forth posting links that contradict each other, or recognize that scapegoating immigrants isn't productive. https://www.uschamber.com/economy/the-state-of-housing-in-am... "The shortage of housing can be attributed to a range of regulatory and policy failures. These include burdensome permitting processes, outdated zoning regulations that dictate everything from lot sizes to parking requirements, complex legal frameworks, price controls, and restrictive financial regulations."