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H1Bs are supposed to be used only if you can't find domestic talent. So it makes sense that something scarce would be expensive.

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But it’s recursive. If something is that scarce, all the comps will already be high. It doesn’t seem necessary that marginal labor should be required to come in at the 95th percentile.

Exactly why h1bs we’re never intended to be used for marginal labor.

“Marginal” here means “the next increment from what is currently exchanged”; it's a standard term in economics.

You seem to be using it in a very different sense.

Normally, those high comps would motivate people into earning the credentials for taking that career path. But you can't address local scarcity in this way when the law incentives you to instead import cheap labor from abroad.

On the other hand, people willing to work for half of what they should earn are also scarce.

I'm not sure which of these two situations occurs most often with H1Bs.

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