Ted Cruz Wants Minimum H-1B Wage of $110,000 (computerworld.com)

dcblogs writes: U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, has morphed from a vocal supporter of the H-1B program to a leading critic of it. He has done so in a new H-1B reform bill (PDF) that sets a minimum wage of $110,000 for H-1B workers. By raising the cost of temporary visa workers, Cruz is hoping to discourage their use. Cruz also wants to eliminate Optional Practical Training Program (OPT). The co-sponsor of this bill, The American Jobs First Act of 2015, is U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), who called the OPT program "a backdoor method for replacing American workers."

Comments

I support this.

[generic_screenname]

If a company truly needs expertise that just simply cannot be found in the US, then a six figure salary is probably a bargain. Of course, this will never pass. I can dream, though.

Re:I support this.

[acoustix]

Instead of dreaming, perhaps you need to look in the mirror and see why corporations would rather employ Joe Unknown from the other side of the world than you. If you have value, you will always get a job over someone trying the H-1B route. Presumably you have limited skills and no experience. And "web" isn't a skill, bad luck.

Tell that to the former senior engineers at Texas Instruments who were laid off while making $150k while their Indian replacements were paid $50k.

Minimum Wage Not as Important as Layoff Provision

[Maltheus]

The bill also calls for:

that within 730 daysâ"two yearsâ"of âoean employee strike, an employer lockout, layoffs, furloughs, or other types of involuntary employee terminations other than for-cause dismissals,â a company cannot bring aboard any H-1B labor

I think this is an even bigger deal than the $110k provision.

Re:Ha!

[larryjoe]

Silicon Valley tech companies that hire H-1Bs won't care much. Very few of their H-1B employees make less than $110K anyway. If the definition of "wage" includes not just base salary but also bonus (actual awarded amount) and stock (actual value, not some notional future value), then it's likely that all of their H-1B employees already meet this requirement.

Here are the numbers for 2015:

Rank H1B Visa Sponsor Number of LCA * Average Salary
1 Infosys 23,816 $76,794
2 Tata Consultancy Services 14,096 $67,673
3 Wipro 8,365 $69,936

I suppose that these workers might have received some significant additional compensation above their salary, but my guess is that the probability is pretty close to zero.

These top three companies received 46,277 visas, which is over half of the total visa issued. Their average salaries are way below $110k.

If the speculation that companies above abuse H1B visas by importing low-wage earners is true, then the $110k wage limit would eliminate those visa uses. Of course, that assumes that the changes forces companies to actually pay that much. I can easily think of many ways to circumvent the $110k limit, including paying that amount and deducting most of it back (a la indentured servitude).

But the key point is that the abuse is predicated on saving money for the ultimate users of the companies' services. Kill off the financial incentive, and the problem completely disappears.

There is actually a reasonable case for some companies to need something like an H1B. There are actually quite a few US companies that pay decent H1B wages. Instituting a minimum financial threshold allows separation of these arguably more legitimate cases from the arguably job killing cases.

13 Google 3,059 $125,596
18 Amazon 1,600 $113,163
19 Qualcomm Technologies 1,585 $111,816
21 Apple 1,464 $133,593
24 Oracle America 1,073 $119,506
40 Facebook 780 $133,535
50 Ebay 664 $121,691
55 Yahoo! 619 $132,752
59 Paypal 576 $124,616
63 VM Ware 535 $121,203
70 Cisco Systems 494 $121,899
74 Salesforce.Com 483 $124,063
96 Linkedin 382 $139,634