Comment by gopalv | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gopalv | Hacker News Reader

There are probably some Indians who are celebrating this ... a minimum 100k wage + a cost of living adjustment every 3 years.

If this is like the 2015 bill, that also includes the requirement to sign them up for stock options, similar to a US employee.

However, the rule does have a corner case which allows bonuses to be part of the 100k, so the employers might continue to pay low salaries all year round, with a dangled 40-50k bonus at the end of the year.

Because the tech industry is something with a fairly long lag between demand & supply, the best case scenario is that the wages go up all around & hopefully that is spent in the US, instead of hoarded for a princely return to India.

The worst case scenario for a cost increase is that more work moves overseas, taking the spending side-effects & tax revenue away from the US IRS, while the corporate profits are unaffected, just total revenue cuts down.

> hopefully that is spent in the US, instead of hoarded for a princely return to India.

Did you notice the anti-equality implications of what you said there? It's roughly equivalent to:

"I hope that when poor people get rich, they eventually give their money back to the rightfully rich people and don't keep it for themselves or use it to support their poor family or to develop their poor economy."

Do you apply that idea generally to any poor people or just Indians?

> Because the tech industry is something with a fairly long lag between demand & supply, the best case scenario is that the wages go up all around & hopefully that is spent in the US, instead of hoarded for a princely return to India.

For that, employment based immigration needs to be addressed. Ideally, one should be able to self-petition to immigrate after a few years legally working in the USA.

> with a dangled 40-50k bonus at the end of the year.

There is nothing wrong with this, unless they are "fired" a week before their bonus kicks in.

I would really like to see a "minimum guaranteed salary" (guaranteed to the government, not the employee). Basically, if a company employs an H1-B, they sign a contract with the government, such that that H1-B will cost the employer $X.

e.g. If they promise to pay at minimum $120K, but then fire the employee before paying them $60K. Then, at the end of they year, the company is fined 60K, or has to replace that candidate with another H1-B to fill that 60K void.

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