this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2025
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He’s right
Hes completely wrong. https://www.h1bdata.org/
A random example using data from this link:
Apple Inc. employs 4116 H1B holders for "Software Develolment Applications" with an average salary of $136,794
Looking at Glassdoor the average salary for that position (from 6630 salaries in the US) is $215,000 - $330,000
dropdown menus?! explain to me!
I dont know why Bernie has flipped and is now parroting the immigrants stealing jobs meme. We dont have to guess we can easily look at the h1b rates and see they aren't replacing Americans with low wages. The h1b wages are very high across the different industries and these industries havent had wage drops due to h1b workers coming over.
that is not what sanders is saying
How is saying "replacing good paying american jobs with low wage indentured servants from abroad" not exactly that? I agree with Bernie on the servant part because of the visa restrictions but they're paid well enough and they're skilled enough that I dont feel sorry for them as they've got plenty of prospects for where to live.
Because the h1b visas are designed to lock in the person by sponsoring the h1b. So the company can basically pay you less than what the job is worth and you can't say shit about it or they pull your h1b sponsorship and you get ejected from the country. It's %100 indentured servitude.
Yeah I sort of agree with the lockin part but I wouldnt use the harsh term indentured servitude became theyre coming over with the expectation its a working visa not a permanent visa.
But that wasn't tbe part i cared about. I care that the stats show the companies are still paying high salaries and the average pay for the non h1b workers is still going up because the demand for skilled workers is still high. Bernie is completely wrong to claim otherwise and he should know better.
Can you define indentured servitude for me
That's the issue. Their salaries are usually 50% of what they're worth to citizens. If a company has to pay a citizen 300k but can get an h1b for 150k then they're gonna go for the h1b even if they're the weaker candidate. It drives down salaries.
I think the problem you're running into is that your definition of "low wage" isn't in reference to their applied fields. I don't think it's right to assume that people are going to compare a pilot's low wage to someone doing manual labor.
The point he is making is that corporations aren't hiring people under h1b because there's a lack of skilled labour. They're hiring people under h1b because they help drive down labour costs, or they don't want to absorb the cost of training new skilled labour.
If it were really because there was a lack of skilled labour, and demand was so high, then there shouldn't be a gap in pay between H1b and local skilled labour. If we want the best and brightest from everywhere, why are we paying the best and brightest lower than the industry standard?
The site you linked very explicitly disagrees with you. Compare those h1b salaries with average salaries at the companies/positions they're working for.
Nobody has ever claimed they get paid minimum wage or something. Doesn't change the fact that they are cheaper than non-h1b workers virtually 100% of the time.