H1B Debacle Discussion

I believe there is a very straightforward solution available: set a floor on H1B salaries.

The pros of skilled immigration are self-evident, just look at the names of the contributors to literally any research paper of note. America is about 4.5% of the world population, it would be foolish to squander the advantage of being one of the primary destinations the remaining top contenders from the other 95% of the world pool.

The major con of H1B immigration comes from when American workers are excluded by those who are simply willing/able to work for a lower wage. This drives down wages for Americans and excludes otherwise willing and competent members from the workforce.

Solution: add a floor on H1B salaries at something like 1.5x average American salary for the field. When it comes to importing the best and brightest from around the world, that function would remain completely unaffected. Those people can and should be making 1.5x average anyway, and they almost invariably already are. And by making it a floor rather than a penalty across the board, we're not even disincentivizing hiring the best and brightest, we're just only incentivizing hiring the best and brightest. When it comes to hiring your bread and butter workforce, keep it American until you run out of Americans to hire, and then pay a premium for those abroad.