[ZeroGravitas]

I think one of the Dem senators had proposed a plan that had the floor relative to the location and the job, so in this case you'd have to offer 150-200% of what an Ethiopian translator in Alabama would recieve, before you'd be allowed to hire someone via a Visa. That general principal seems reasonable to me, and less Silicon Valley centric than just a flat floor at whatever they think is reasonable for a software dev.

Though obviously a single number is less work.

[coredog64]

No doubt that would open the door to all manner of skullduggery. Infosys then opens a new operation in West Armpit, Alabama and their employees now make 150% of the going rate for Java developers there in West Armpit. It is just a weird quirk that said employees wind up doing lots of travel...

[LordKano]

All of a sudden TechInfoSys opens up a new branch in West Armpit to support the operations of their San Francisco main office and West Armpit is where all of the new developer/analysts are to be employed...

[rtkwe]

There's a few fixes to that too. Make the pay scaling regional or put in provisions that increase the floor based on percentage travel or where the visa job would work.

[Paul-ish]

This is how laws get really complicated. Wouldn't a more complex solution end up costing more (to the companies you are trying to help) than a simple solution?

[rtkwe]

It depends on what you're trying to do. Outwardly H1-Bs are supposed to be about bringing in talent that can't be filled with a US worker which should fetch a premium. To that end having just a blanket floor doesn't really make sense because a premium wage in Small Town, USA is a rounding error to large corporations in Big Tech Hub, USA. But you can't make the sliding scale too location sensitive because then you just open a new way to game the system with having big contractor sweat boxes all operating out of the middle of North Dakota or somewhere with market so tiny prices. I don't think a simple law could ever really run H1-B if the goal is 'bring in premium talent' for hard to fill positions especially in tech positions where location is becoming less and less critical.

[ambrood]

You realise H1B's are location specific right? All these "fixes" everyone keeps bringing up are actually a part of the law as it stands.

[raincom]

Floor relative to the location and the job--is very easy to abuse. You can abuse both location and job via indirection: indirection through layers of contracting companies. Similar strategy is used now to abuse: Some Mega corp contacts out to TCS, which further contracts out to some mom and pop consulting co, and so on.