[justlearning]

another perspective as someone who frequented edison(indian food - oak tree road!) and lived near by - there's a swarm of small bodyshops, who pay bit more than market rate.My experience is that this "market rate" as per stats is what newcomers get for the first couple of years. (these newcomers are typically not well todo back home.)As these 'new' H1 hires gain market experience, they either negotiate or move on to some other small bodyshop. The big corps like Oracle don't pay as much for similar roles. As the o.p rightly discovered, most commute to NYC (go to edison station at 7.30am). (I don't know if this may have lead few banks to move their dev/it operations to NJ:) ). I know of some companies that didn't pay med insurance for more than 2 years. Few years ago, a top guy of a similar bodyshop was sent to prison for 'buy a green card' scheme he employed using employment immigration loop holes. Every year there are few companies that are in news for the wrong reasons. From what I saw, the non-passionate-just-work-for-pay guy who has worked in the US jumps to start a bodyshop after he has gotten his GC(greencard). It's very lucrative and luring on paper (you get n number of guys working on several clients and you make x over each guy - think 'pimping') I hope it has changed in the recent years.

But this is changing. As more Indians are aware of better opportunities back home (and with the next gen Indian being more affluent than earlier generation), lot of them stay back. It's only the crude who go on and take the bait from the companies.

fwiw, adding to yummyfajitas- it's not only the social separation of state/ethinicity; there's also an abstract eliteness that goes with bank-dev and non-bank - doesn't matter if you are with akamai in piscataway(neighbouring edison). :)