The "Wage Level" Mirage: H-1B proposal could help outsourcers and hurt US talent
39 comments
·September 25, 2025d_sem
827a
We issue 85,000 H1-B visas every year. Last year, there were 442,000 applications.
Its supply and demand. If you think any of these changes will cause fewer than 85,000 H1-B applications, then that is a good reason to believe that these changes might negatively impact the United States as a migration destination. However, with that added context and framing, I hope you'll agree that it won't; there's still going to be a smaller, but growing, number of people applying for the H1-B every year.
Increasing the number of H1-B visas has very little support from both sides of the isle. The 65,000+20,000 number was set, if you can believe it, 35 years ago. There were one or two temporary increases, but since 2005 its stayed at that 85,000 number.
claw-el
I believe the main ‘change’ of this $100,000 fee is the composition of labor. A doctor applies for H1B too and various other non-tech job applies for H1B too. Startups and hospitals have a much higher chance to not willing to pay for the fee and we will just end up with less ‘doctors’ in the 85,000 H1B visa approvals.
colechristensen
We shouldn't be arguing yes or no, but instead "how much".
Charging a yearly fee to offset how H1-B is abused for cheap labor instead of high performers makes sense. Making that fee $100,000 with arbitrary waivers for friends of the administration is absurd.
groceryheist
The huge fee won't solve the cheap labor problem, only shift the equilibrium. The USA Tech job market faces increasing competition from Canada and Eastern and Southern European countries with lower wages but competitive talent better than available from generalist outsourcing. The new policy accelerates this trend as companies will seek to transplant workers from the USA into other countries. This is bad for American workers whose status as the geographic center of the organization declines.
In my view, the real problem with the H1-B program stems from the sponsorship system which ties each employee to a particular company and role. Unable to leave their position without threatening their residency, they are more willing to demand abuse (e.g., long working hours, poor leadership, subpar compensation) than the labor market requires.
An improvement to the program would make it easier for people to change job. Perhaps the government could permit highly skilled individuals to qualify personally for the visa so long as they sustain employment in their field.
lazyasciiart
> Perhaps the government could permit highly skilled individuals to qualify personally for the visa so long as they sustain employment in their field.
That is kind of how it works: when I was on a H1B I did look at switching jobs and had an offer from a company who would sponsor me. They need to file a Labor Condition Application to show that the position qualified for a H1B worker, but you can start working as soon as the LCA is approved if you already have the visa, while the I129 is processed.
hshdhdhj4444
I don’t understand the logic behind why companies will be willing to pay an Indian $160k to work for them in the U.S. but will not be willing to pay the exact same Indian $50k to work from India.
This may have an effect at the margins where the company is contractually or due to some rare product specific reason required to have the person be within the U.S. But the vast majority of H1Bs are working for major tech companies that have massive campuses all over the world.
lazyasciiart
It’s the same logic as RTO.
amluto
Or maybe… make H-1B labor not be cheap. Give H-1B visa holders the same ability to change jobs and negotiate wages effectively that citizens and permanent residents have and give some teeth to the rules that sponsors may not underlay them.
Detrytus
The problem is: if you do that, then you need to create a big government agency that will interview the potential candidates, evaluating their value on the job market, in order to grant them a visa. Right now that job is done by their sponsoring employer, but if you give people ability to change jobs freely then employers lose any incentive to do so.
Ericson2314
Is the theoretical most efficient and foolproof wage-based merit immigration system just...auctioning off visas?
Fine with me, if so!
groceryheist
Only if visas can only be paid through earned income or returns on investments made with such. Otherwise you're mixing people who bring value by contributing labor with people who contribute capital. Both can be nice, but should we treat them the same or independently?
ronsor
I feel like a big concern could be resolved by creating a new type of visa for students who studied in the US and now want to work there, rather than a general foreign professional visa.
toxicdevil
Students have access to OPT (1y) and STEM OPT (2y) on the same visa to work after their degree. If they go for a higher degree then they can get OPT again. Grad students from US universities also get a separate quota in the H1B cap.
All of this should to a little extent alleviate some of the concerns.
The weighted system should still work since the candidate pool (from within the US) is likely mostly students on OPT. They should have comparable salaries, unless they are hired by rotten companies.
OptionOfT
But for students there is the O-1 visa?
jpalawaga
way too hard to get. see here: https://www.reddit.com/r/USCIS/comments/13uk5yb/o1_visa_peti...
studying here is no guarantee you'll get to stay, even if you did a phd.
jacobgkau
That anecdote is a sample size of 1, and the OP of that thread did end up getting the visa, despite their company's partner's lawyers' "belief" that their application would be "on the weaker side."
glimshe
Damned if you do, damned if you don't. I've heard people here asking for curbs on H1Bs for years because of not only abuses, but also engineers who come with a ton of experience as entry-level hires. I know this very well, I was one of these engineers. I was a senior software developer from overseas hired on H1B at the same level/pay of US college hires. I'm a citizen now.
Now that Trump is trying to do something about it, I start seeing a flood of negative posts. We need to decide what we want.
jemmyw
Well different people on this very site want very different things. So you can't really ask us to decide what we want. Probably most folks commenting here want to be paid a good wage, but their view on H1B visas is then going to depend on their own situation. I personally live outside the US and contract for a US company, I hope that whatever happens doesn't interfere with my work or my relationship with that company.
_fizz_buzz_
Probably not the same people.
etchalon
I want someone to rid my house of ants.
I would prefer they not burn down my house to do it.
andrewflnr
What part of this being a bad execution of the idea is confusing or contradictory? What "we want" is for the governance of our country, including but not limited to H1B reform, to not be a shambolic disaster.
I was prepared to accept this as one of the handful of semi-useful things Trump did, and I might still personally benefit, but the details quickly disabused me of the idea that it was actually good.
Terr_
> What part of this being a bad execution of the idea is confusing or contradictory?
And even then, "bad idea" is what you get after the extreme charity of assuming the Trump administration is fundamentally lawful.
It's even worse if you believe they're bunch of crooks that will use the "special exception" clause to extort/bribe companies into corrupt favors. For example, granting access to snoop without a court-order, biasing their moderation policies, silencing voices or messages the administration finds inconvenient, etc.
DaveZale
Good points, but maybe international outsourcing is the way to go in some areas. This is how it was sold "a few years ago" in some circles. Specifically, one argument ran that you could have people working around the clock globally, while respecting their own local circadian rhythms. Seemed great in theory.
lazyasciiart
It’s great in theory but it leads to maddening conversations where you get one half-useful sentence response every 24 hours.
Our_Benefactors
The ol “I’m rubber you’re glue” argument.
By the way, this is total bullshit pushed by people who are upset that the loss of H1B labor will mean that they have to pay labor more.
If the offshoring was a comparable product and cheaper, they would have already done it. But guess what - everyone already knows outsourcing leads to a lower quality product!
bdangubic
There are multi-multi-multi billion dollar companies that no longer have SWEs in the US outside of gigs requiring clearance. you should chatgpt-that-shit and check how many off-shore employees are actually current employed by US companies and then see whether it “leads to lower quality”
kentm
Which ones specifically?
temptemptemp111
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gubbler
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stricdder
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femiagbabiaka
What the fuck?
stricdder
At this point in time Israel has not yet learned how to be multicultural. And I think we are going to be part of the throes of that transformation, which must take place. Israel is not going to be the monolithic society they once were in the last century. Whites are going to be at the centre of that. It’s a huge transformation for Israel to make. They are now going into a multicultural mode and Whites will be resented because of our leading role.
temptemptemp111
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One of America's greatest assets is its brand as a place worth immigrating too. Much of the social capital is gained by high performing international hires who leverage the H-1B visa. We want methods for highly educated people to make the US their home. limiting this is short sighted and negatively impact the health of the country.