The Gish Gallop of the HRC bashers

[PatrickforO]

43. My state's UI division tracks wages for skilled H1B workers.

Since I'm an economist, I got the raw data set so that I could perform analysis on the relative economic impact of bringing in an H1B worker versus hiring an American worker. What I found was that in IT and engineering occupations, the H1B people were paid an average wage that fell between the 25th percentile and median wage. So, the wages they are paid are not extremely low.

However, and it is a BIG however, H1B workers simply aren't as good for the local economy as American workers. The reason? Remittance. The average H1B worker sends 10% of their income back to their family in their home country. This money, in effect, leaves our community and is exported. What this means roughly is that, all else being equal, 100 H1B people will produce the same demand for local goods and services as approximately 90 American workers.

Now, the capitalist overlords don't care much about local jobs. At all. But the have to pay ICE between $2,500 and $5,000 per H1B visa to bring a worker over. This is on top of whatever foreign staffing company they use for outreach. This is why it is important for communities to have strong leadership that ensures there are plenty of high skilled people in the training pipeline so companies won't HAVE to recruit H1B people.

All that said, one does wonder why many companies (who shall remain nameless in this post) make it a point to fill some positions with H1B people even though there are American workers in their local area with those skills. It ain't supposed to happen that way. I guess they call that corruption or corporate welfare

Now I know this doesn't have much to do with Secretary Clinton, but I replied to your post to clarify that the wages paid aren't all that low, particularly positions requiring a highly skilled and degreed person.