It's the government's responsibility to train people and H1b failure is government's responsibility. Most companies dont even pay tax, do you really expect them to hire ONLY Americans?

Why would they when they can hire/outsource their work for half the cost.

Most big business have at least half their profits from outside the US. I remember IBM Global surpassing US profits when I used to work for IBM.

Cracking down on H1b is a bandaid over brain cancer. Fix the rot in education system, make education free, invest in tech else the big Businesses have no obligation to stay in US and pay more to do the same job (H1b or locals)

I cannot debate this. However given our current situation and seeing our progress the rightful way would be for the government to invest more into education. Saudades is not going to help us. Being more pragmatic and planning accordingly will be much more beneficial

I suggest the opposite. The reason college tuition is so high is because the government backs those loans. Remove the government backing of loans thus lessening the availability of capitol to the educational system and I think you will find it will become vastly more affordable.

I am talking about playgroup!! And 75k is the least costly PLAYGROUP, playgroup is before starting nursery :P

Oh my God, 10k $ per year! That is way too costly, Indian colleges have reached 1/3 or your school's fees, my counterparts at private institutions were paying 1/3 and I have heard that people now in college are paying as far as 1/2 of what you have mentioned, so it is catching up.

This is patently false. Which nullifies the rest of your suggestion.

More data here: https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/types/loans/subsidized-unsubsid...

e.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/05/opinion/sunday/the-real-r...

Which is at least partially based on public perception of the company.

> It's the government's responsibility to train people

That's... a weird thing to say. I like to think of myself as an adult. I chose the discipline to study, got loans (yes), graduated, and paid them off. The university I went to was private. At no time did the government tell me what to do.

It is the peoples responsibility to go into programs that will get the decent jobs. If those programs are full, they can ask for new colleges or universities to be made. Or, they can study themselves.

I've hired a number of self-taught programmers. They're not much different from people with university degrees.

How is it not already? The tech industry in particular has made sure it is.

An industry grows when it has supply and demand. There's nearly infinite demand for IT, the way I see it - everything is turning into information. The primary supply for IT is people. Immigration will increase the size of the industry and increase the number of places available for American students as well.

This is more true of software than of any other industry, because software is built mostly with human capital which can cross borders fairly easily.

It is exactly the opposite. Capital crosses borders much more easily than human capital. There are all kinds of impediments for human capital moving (visas, lack of money for travel, ties to families and friends). That is why, if it becomes even harder (because of travel restrictions), that tech companies will move.

If a company of 5 Indian software engineers is booted out of the US, they can get together anywhere else in the world and still develop a product to the same standard. By contrast, other workers have "stickier" skills that tie you to a specific country. An Indian aerospace engineer may find it hard to find work in India, for example.

In Silicon Valley an engineer with 0.5 years of experience makes $100,000/year.

Gee, I wonder why businesses want to employ foreigners and why foreigners want to work for US companies. Hmmmmm

>In Silicon Valley an engineer with 0.5 years of experience makes $100,000/year.

Come on, you've got to compare like with like. In Montana, the median is ~$60,000, and in Georgia ~$80,000. [0] and [1]

Here in Poland, I can find decent enough programmers who'll accept $2k/month salary. Their English will be poor, and typically they'll be based in the middle of nowhere.

If I want to hire someone good in the capital city, Warsaw, I'll need to look at paying a minimum of $4-$5,000/month -> ~$50 - ~$60,000/year.

(I've no idea what it costs to live in Montana; I'd hazard a guess that combined with a (freelancer's) 19% flat tax rate + $300/mo social security, your savings will grow faster here than there)

One other area of confusion can be salaries quoted before and after tax. I know it's common to use after tax figures in Poland, and I'm not sure if your $24k is after tax; the figures you read about jobs in the US are definitely before tax.

[0] https://www.sokanu.com/careers/computer-programmer/salary/Mo...

[1] https://www.sokanu.com/careers/computer-programmer/salary/Ge...

Do you work at Google by any chance? I'd say a gross salary of $5000 is close to the ceiling pay for a developer in Poland, in Krakow/Wroclaw even $4000 is more than most employers would pay, not to mention your "middle of nowhere" [0] [1] And if you're looking for a remote worker what difference does their location make?

Sources(in Polish):

[0] http://gazetapraca.pl/gazetapraca/1,120733,16021624,Wysokie_...

[1] http://www.pulshr.pl/wynagrodzenia/place-w-polsce-2016-19-br...

Caveat is that everybody who's good is a self emplpyed freelancer working for US companies. So statistics don't capture them. I'd wager the average for those is around 5000/month.

Freelancer flat rate tax in slovenia is 4% if you make under 100k. That part is nice but makes all my friends unambitious. Always found that part unfortunate.

Yeah, and it's difficult to know who reports stuff accurately, whether that takes into account people living in backwaters vs. fancy offices in Ljubljana etc. etc. etc.

For what it's worth, some Slovenians seem to be reporting healthy salaries here, although as you say, there's a good number of self employed there (and workers in Ljubljana definitely affect the average... or the other way around, you know what I mean):

http://www.averagesalarysurvey.com/slovenia

You do that, and I'm really happy that you do; I've had far too many confusing situations caused by people quoting netto instead, it's definitely common enough that it's something I look out for.

I don't understand why you're favouring a race to the bottom in terms of salary in terms of benefits to a business. It makes our talent go elsewhere.

Sure cost of living in SV is higher, but saving 5% of 100k is a lot more $$$ than 15% of 24k. And you're exposes to better opportunities.

By banning competition, the H-1B person's wage and the employer's profits go down and the product price increases.

How much depends on the relative elasticities.

Isn't this richer people banning much poorer people (immigrants) from competing with them?

I'm not a utilitarian.

44% of unicorn startups in Silicon Valley employ H1b or were started by them. And a lot of them Iran too(which was strangely banned by Trump)

I've known a few Iranian engineers and both of them were excellent. They didn't talk about politics either, the ones that come over here at least obviously don't have anything against the US.

And a lot of bright and hardworking people are losing out on visas so that large chop shops can make better profits

  H1B applicants have to be paid prevailing wage

Then there must be a shortage, here's your H1.

If that "prevailing wage" were $100k, there wouldn't be a shortage.