[elastic_church]

> If you want to hire, say, an interpreter of a specific foreign language to work on a community in rural Alabama temporarily, a $100,000 minimum wage would be absurd.

Thats the POINT. Today it would be absurd, but a successful multipronged plan to bring both manufacturing as well as constricting supply of people with specialized skills, would raise the salary demands of the whole US population.

The H1B salary part of the system hasn't been modified since 1989. $60,000 in 1989 is equivalent to $120,000 in today's dollars. Does that influence your opinion at all?

Congress created a rationale back then, the industry merely used the tools available since then. Congress' rationale did not change, they are both adjusting for inflation as well as responding to the direction the industry actually went. The industry's adaptation is incongruent with the will of Congress.

In 1989 salary increases were still keeping up with the cost of housing. Or were still expecting to. For example. And a protectionist America really could do that again.