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Comment by israrkhan | Hacker News Reader

This would result in most H1B allocations on east/west coast, where salaries (and cost of living) are relatively higher. I think this is already the case, but enforcing it by salary will result in a wider gap. Companies operating in low "cost of living" areas, will not be able to get skilled workers on H1Bs.

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There is already a “prevailing wage” thing you have to meet, that varies by region, so it could be done as percentage above the prevailing wage.

I"m not sure this should be a consideration. If that midwest company cannot compete, it should not exist. That is tghe essence of capitalism. You should not subsidize it by making it not compete fairly for H1B applicants.

It’s a bit of an odd argument to make against a state sanctioned limit to labor that it should be driven by pure capitalism/free market principles.

The premise of the article was to use a capitalist supply and demand metric (salary) as a way to fairly allow merit based immigration. I think that strategy makes a lot of sense, and was making the point that our hypothetical midwest company should not be allowed to scuttle the non-gameable merit-based proposal in favor of something more political and squishy. Our hypothetical midwest company can either pay enough wage to get the employees it needs, or it can't, and if it can't, capitalism has a solution for that. (creative destruction)

The problem I have with this argument is that salaries don't have to be comparable to be competitive, because cost of living is different across the country. I make a fair amount less working in Ohio then if I moved to California, but I would also pay a lot more to live there.

So, making hiring these employees based on salary only means that places with a higher cost of living will be able to hire these employees for more typical rates, where-as companies in lower cost of living areas will have to pay well above average for the same employee. If actual salary wasn't a requirement, then midwest companies could still be competitive even while offering lower salaries.

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