Isn't that the point? I thought H1-Bs were supposed to only be used when the skill set required could not be found locally. This does not match up with entry-level positions unless there are no programmers in the area.
I'm not sure the US should have as a goal keeping every foreign grad here.
Put another way, the government is basically forcing companies to adopt stack ranking for certain classes of employees.
You do not need to commute 2h for reasonable housing -- I lived in Brooklyn (which, for me, was a very comfortable 25m door-to-door commute), and was very happy there.
NYC actually has neighborhoods that are affordable, often only a few blocks away from expensive ones.
This does not seem to be true. https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/FactSheet62/whdfs62Q... says:
Cash bonuses and similar compensation may be counted
or credited toward the $60,000 only if payment is
assured.
Really ? Surely it can't be that expensive ?
130k is totally decent, however it is also not rare. For entry level job to big companies/good startups, the market price is between 110k-120k, and it usually takes 2 years or so to bump up your salary to 130k level(one raise is good enough), assuming you are a reasonable(above average but maybe not excellent) engineer.
So, no, I completely disagree with this 'barely living salary' bullshit, it makes us software engineers look like spoiled ungrateful whiny babies. Not GOOD!
I may be out of touch, or perhaps everyone else has adjusted their expectations downward to account for how expensive everything is, or think that long commutes are normal.
Maybe I'm just in a bad mood today.
But saying 130k is 'barely-living', if not bad wording, is close to insulting, and helps little in the conversation.
Anyway, swap out dining/partying for cooking good food at home, add in rainy-day/retirement savings as well as saving for kid's college (even if you don't have kids yet). So, you know, you're actually following standard financial advice.
I mean, sure you can sacrifice quite a bit (don't save, eat crap, waste your time commuting, live in a shoebox) to get by on less, but at some financial point you (and your family) will just be treading water over the long term at best in order to work in SF/NYC. Especially considering that $130k is total compensation (ie. including bonuses that you might not even get, or in a form that is actually worth the face value).
TL/DR: COL in SF is bonkers.
$130K is not "barely a living wage". It's a very good salary in the Bay Area and 1.5 times the average wage in SF.
$130k is a very good salary if you moved to SF a couple of decades ago and bought a house then.
argument fails. you can rent, max out your 401k, and enjoy all the frivolousness you want on a 130k salary. downpayment? yeah not gonna happen. better off than 95% of the population? immediately gonna happen.
SF is one of the most expensive cities in the US. The very fact you live there means you're well off. People with the mean (or median) US wage, couldn't even fathom living within the city limits.
It's kind of like someone who lives in Beverley Hills saying "I make $500K per year, but I'm only middle class since I can't afford an average home in Beverley Hills". Well no shit, the homes there are tens of millions of dollars.
Big expensive cities (like NYC) usually have inexpensive areas inside them. SF basically has the Tenderloin, and rents there are still nuts.
Edited to add: BTW, aside from the fact that Beverly Hills has less expensive neighborhoods within city limits (south of Wilshire? I forget) there are other even less expensive areas practically next door (just go downhill to where nobody has a view).
You can live well and have savings as a single guy on $130k in both those areas.
Co-habitation (2+ people per Bedroom), long commutes, and no savings.
This provision came into existence in 2015. There are rumors that Trump administration might rescind this provision.
I am also assuming you want to live in something larger than a matchbox, and don't want a commute over 30m.
Taxes in CA are a bit higher than elsewhere in the US as well, but at least there you're getting a halfway decent safety net. Rents are high only due to the suppression of the housing supply.
In very high COL places like NYC and SFBA $130k is barely a living wage unless you can put up with a 2h commute.
OTOH, in low COL markets (eg. KC) this eliminates H1-Bs from consideration for most entry-level positions.
For many markets in the middle (an example doesn't come to mind, perhaps Los Angeles?) where $130k+ is a decent salary for an entry-level position this new minimum works.
What's really needed to make H1-B work on a national scale for a broad range of professions while still limiting abuse is something like a COL adjustment, or scaling the minimum with some formula like 75% of the median salary, or the 30th percentile, or something similar.
Edited to add: I am assuming that no more than 30% of your salary is spent on rent, you save 10% of your salary, that you are working in downtown San Francisco, that your commute is under 30m door to door via public transportation, and you live in a 2-bedroom apartment.
Also: https://smartasset.com/mortgage/what-is-the-cost-of-living-i...