Comment by latj | Hacker News Reader

Comment by latj | Hacker News Reader

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Ok, we've heard your proposition. Now make some arguments. Now show some evidence.

For example, mean pay for a software developer in state of California is $119,970 according to Bureau of Labor Statistics [1]. What is the minimum wage required for a H1B software developer in California [2]? What is the actual mean pay?

My instinct is that you are correct and H1B visas are not driving down salaries- but thats just a guess, I have no idea. But your arguments so far are "dont be a bigot" and "its all public information".

If its public information, have you seen it? If so, share it with us. If not, how are you sure you are correct?

If you are just venting, then vent away my friend.

Otherwise, it is ineffective to fight bigotry by telling people they are bigots. Share data from a trusted source, give sound analysis, and hope for the best.

Good luck.

1. http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151132.htm

2. I would have dug this up myself but its actually a bit of work to compile as a meaningful look at this issue requires looking at many geographical areas and professions.

To sidestep the argument, why is it bad to push wages down? American born babies push wages down too, so do local university graduates. Should those things be restricted too?

If all American workers earn less, then cost of living drops too and it's not much of a problem.

> "What is the minimum wage required for a H1B software developer in California [2]? What is the actual mean pay?"

How many years of experience (0,5,10,15,20?)? What is the education level required (PhD vs bachelors/masters)? It's not as simple as "H1B software developer in California" nor are the salaries. They vary between companies (eg., Netflix pays more than Google)

In any case, here you go: http://h1bdata.info/ You can check what your H1B colleagues make based on their job title.

Edit: To x0x0, I'm not going to parse out data for each and every company, I have a day job you see :) I've worked for four companies (public and private), and I see that the wages are comparable to local workers (of those who chose to share their wages) and the established market rate by the state dept. of labor for the said job title. Somewhat anecdotal? Yes. It is definitely better than a blanket "H1B drives down wages".

iow, you continue to assert without proof that h1b immigration doesn't constrain or reduce wages.

See my EDIT above. I am no economist to parse all this information, but in my experience and people I know the wage argument for "genuine" H1B applicants is hyperbole.

So you claim, absent any supporting data, that adding 500k skilled employees (85k times 6 years), not even including other types of visas doesn't affect labor markets? That requires either solid proof or, well, motivated reasoning.

3.6m software engineers in the US; if even half of h1b holders are devs that's a sizeable increase. Even under modest demand elasticity assumptions you can back of napkin estimate a large influence

http://www.computerworld.com/article/2483690/it-careers/indi...

Replying to x0x0:

Wait a minute, I re-read my initial statement, this is what I said:

> "I am replying to those who make claims that H1B workers are being paid below market rate, hence driving down salaries."

I mention specifically about H1B workers are not being paid below market rate. So the salaries of H1B workers is not the cause of the driving down the wages.

To your argument, will an abundant supply of labor cause the salaries to go down or stagnate? Yes.

You admit you arent an expert and you dont have time to understand the data. Yet you have already drawn a conclusion.

I am not an expert. I also do not have time to understand the data. That is why all I am comfortable saying is, my gut instinct is that H1B visa's dont drive down salaries (more than adding more workers affects salaries) but I dont know for certain.

The next best thing we can do is look in the literature for someone who has done this analysis. I like scholar.google.com.

If we dont even have time for that, I guess its just not that important and we just go through life not knowing, hopeful that the day will come when we will see a reddit link to a blog post about a behind-paywall news article summarizing an academic analysis.

C'est la vie.

The reality is that these numbers don't prove anything. If H1B visas are constraining wages (and they most certainly are), everybody's wages will be constrained. The line of reasoning is so silly that basic supply-demand argument will prove it wrong: if there are more workers, there will certainly be a downward pressure in salaries, it doesn't matter the origin of the work force. Saying otherwise is just unreasonable without proof.

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