[johncolanduoni]

Okay, that's fine as long as they are available and willing to move for something like $100,000. Doesn't have to be super close; requiring $100,000 to hire a foreign citizen when the market wage is $75,000 seems pretty reasonable to me.

But you don't appear to have data to back up that particular number for all jobs with no specialization whatsoever, and as far as I can tell the administration doesn't either.

[Retric]

Let's suppose you want someone to just watch a parking lot which takes zero skills and I advertise for minimum wage and don't find anyone. Then you show up and say I need an H-1B, yes it's the night shift, but as unskilled labor that's a minim wage job...

That's the point of around a six figure wage floor. It prevents people from understating the requirements then bringing in a H-1B. I could just Advertise for a secretarial job, then only accept people that happen to speak Farsi.

[johncolanduoni]

You're trying to solve a problem that doesn't even exist in the current H1B system. Where are all the H1B parking attendants? Do you really think "parking attendant, needs to speak random language for no discernible reason" is something USCIS can't filter? If it was that easy, Tata would just list all their IT jobs as requiring a Hindi/Bengali/etc. speaker and not need to bother with any of the crony capitalism. Also if the ceiling was specific to groups of jobs, you could enumerate the list of acceptable jobs and not put parking attendants on the list. Then you couldn't sneak one in for even $100k.

Why would the optimum H1B wage floor for every industry that suffers from a lack of local talent just happen to be the one that makes sense for tech? And why would it make sense for it to be the same everywhere when wages and living expenses vary so much with location? You're proposing actively ignoring the market wage, not taking it into account.

[Retric]

I am going to step back for some context:

The H-1B program is a tiny fraction of the overall workforce and if you want it to stick around you need to justify it. Saying industry X needs workers for wage Y, falls on deaf ears. No, it really does not because for the most part it get's by without them as there is just not a lot of H1B workers in any industry.

Having said that, at the societal level we can talk about gaps that a H-1B program can fill in the short term. If there is a sudden demand for people in machine learning then giving the US access to a wider talent pool has value. But, at the social level each industry needs to compete with every other industry or your talking about soviet style planned economies which don't work.

How do you separate companies wanting cheaper workers from gaps society is better off fulfilling? Well wage is by far the strongest indicator. If the oil drilling industry goes though a boom and can pay 200k for people working oil jacks for a few years then they should get most of the H1B pool as they may need it more than every other industry combined.

However, as the demand is met internally wages will fall then some other industry may have a larger demand.

Now the US is a horribly corrupt society with groups with a lot of power use it to get more power. Thus, the actual H1B program looks very different from what I described. But, again I am only saying there is a justification for an H1B program with a very strong salary floor not anything like our current system.

PS: Anyway, understating the requirements and advertising a job that's below market rates is one the main problems with the H1B system that's most often gamed. I have seen more than one advertisement for a junior job title with 5 years of experience and a masters degree. Lying on a form is easy, lying with money is harder.