H-1B is supposed to be for highly skilled employees. You don't pay highly skilled employees less than average.
The median for "Application Developer" is $77K with a low of $48.5K.
The simplest way to solve the H1B problem is to scrap it and allow open immigration for skilled professionals from the top 20 most developed countries. The reality is that someone from India will accept much lower wages and poorer conditions than someone born in Australia, Sweden or Switzerland.
People on H1-B live in the US and maintain a good standard of living as per the city they are in and hence end up demanding for the same market salary as locals. This has been proven every-time people brought up cheap labor issue.
The likely issue (for American jobs) here is when whole IT/Software teams shift to India or China through outsourcing companies and American workers are laid off as cost measures. This happens a lot in non-tech companies very easily where they want to stay ahead in tech but not take the ownership of it.
Which 20 "developed" countries? Why would they come to US? If they could they already would as US pays much more than even "developed" countries. Australia has 23 million people (almost half of California) and almost zero IT. Sweden, Switzerland: Really?
Not everyone's ideal destination is US. It's funny how most Americans think the world is falling over their head to move to a country where gun nuts have the right to mow down people but you don't have the right to get medical for it.
An H-1B requires application of specialized knowledge and a bachelor's degree or the equivalent of work experience. So it's all a matter of perspective, but the highly skilled formulation talks about the skills required to do the job, not the competency within that specialization. Beyond that, I agree though, that visa status is a despicable reason to pay people less than what they're worth
What? They are taxed the same. In fact, they are taxed more. They pay for Social Security and Medicare even if they never get to use them. They also have to pay state unemployment insurance but they cannot claim the benefits from it. Not to mention the food stamp program etc.
I am confused with your wording and the use of double negatives, are you saying they shouldn't be charged for things they won't use?
your statement about social welfare is reality for Indian h1bs. They will never be able to get a green card, and yet pay all the taxes for them. 8% of your salary is pretty steep for something you can't touch, ever.