Understanding Immigration –Thinking Globally
Problems arising from immigration cannot be solved by a solely domestic agenda. The debate is back in the headlines as Congress tries once again to reach some consensus on reform (it even spilled over into the Miss Universe beauty pageant!). In Chris Robertson’s recent post, he correctly describes the diverging issues between low-income immigration and the growing trend of outsourced and imported skilled labor. The problem for middle class American workers is the increasing number of professionals abroad who are willing to do comparable work for less pay. American labor, so the story goes, is no longer competitive in the growing marker. As Robertson points out, part of this is due to a lack of trained professionals (especially in science-related fields) available in America. Yet education alone cannot address the wage disparities between Americans and workers in developing countries –not when the costs of living in developing countries is so much lower than it is in America. That fact is that without addressing problems in the global market, skilled immigration and outsourcing will continue to put pressure on middle class opportunities in America.
For labor unions across the country, this pressure is not new. According to the U.S census bureau, the percentage of unionized workers in this country has dropped from about 20% to 12% since 1983. It is common knowledge that everything from sneakers to cars is manufactured abroad.
In the last five years, this trend in the service sector has been the topic of many editorial pages. Yet, this type of immigration is not new. Politicians, artists, lawyers of marked talent have traveled to the United States and made it their home since the country’s inception. In an increasingly global world, travel and communication have reached a point where geographic barriers are no longer the obstacle they once were. This has at least two effects. Firstly, the entire world can experience the way that others live. They can come to appreciate the disparities in wealth but all the potential available abroad. Second, it can make it easier for businesses to export parts of their operation in order to cut costs. Much like the growing disparity between classes in the United States, global disparity has a habit of reproducing itself. Developing countries face many obstacles to developing vibrant economies that can support its population.
It is tough to imagine that preventing talented and educated workers from working for U.S. companies or coming to U.S is a long-term solution to this problem. Furthermore, targeting individuals as the source of the problem is not really looking at the whole picture. In a world with such divergent economies, it is both natural admirable for people to work to create a better situation for themselves and their families. Shutting them out of the U.S economy is unlikely to have the positive effect on the economy that some predict. Instead, creating a world economy that helps developing nations become more stable and able to provide for their citizens is more likely to reduce the pressure on the American market.
I challenge economists who promote immigration to respond to this proposal.
I think low skilled immigration in this country should be indexed, so that the numbers of low skilled immigrants allowed in is zero if the wages of low skilled workers are flat or declining. If those wages rise, the index kicks in and low skilled workers are allowed. This has to be a national index with a time lag so that Americans have time to move to find the jobs.
I think low skilled workers have been hammered by immigration. The so-called liberal economists, while jabbering on and on ineffectively about 'anti-poverty' proposals, have been very EFFECTIVE advocates for the polices that hammer our low wage workforce. Great show, folks.
June 4, 2007 9:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
One of the disparities that is not being addressed is the inability of people to freely move to low cost of living countries to buy property and live there. If retirees could purchase homes in low cost of living countries, continue to draw their social security checks and pension checks from their former American jobs, that would partially offset the effect of people coming here for better paying jobs. A similar dynamic already occurs within the US, with retirees moving to other states where the cost of property and cost of living are lower.
The "migration" of people within the US looking for better jobs or lower living costs has been accepted for many years. I have to wonder if a similar "migration" between nations would be the best approach to our undocumented worker "problem" here. One thing I feel certain about is that continuing as we are, with minor tweaks to the system, is not going to solve that problem. And, a "guest worker" program, which sets up a dual standard for wages, workplace protections, unionization, and rights of workers is not a solution to anything other than bigger corporate profits.
Hoppy in Sacramento
June 4, 2007 9:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think you refute your own case when you argue it globally. The cheap, off-the-books labor represented by illegal Mexican immigrants is basically just a kind of inside outsourcing without the moving costs. Besides low wages, an employer is relieved of, say, health insurance or social security obligations if his worker is not a citizen just as when his worker is in another country.
The answer that “creating a world economy that helps developing nations become more stable…” does not address the here and now problem of reduced jobs (for citizens), lowered wages, and imported poverty, except in some distant future utopian one-world scenario. No solution will follow from expanding NAFTA to some kind of WFTA. We operate as a sovereign country, as individual society, established to protect and promote the welfare of its citizens.
Promoting immigration aimed towards creating new citizens is one thing, but a large alien worker population undermines that. If it is in the national interest to import low-cost labor with some guest worker program, wouldn’t government jobs be a natural place to start, saving taxpayer money? But it would be ridiculous to even think about legalizing aliens to work government jobs. Why are other jobs fair game?
Importing workers, just like sweat-shop outsourcing, contributes to two underclass groups, the aliens who are exploited and the unemployeed or low wage workers. Allowing this labor pressure to continue by legalizing and expanding it will not solve the economic problems of the U.S. worker, the Mexican worker or the world in any way. It will only legitimize the illegal profit gain that has been and still is condoned.
June 4, 2007 10:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
In addition to somewhat agreeing with the previous comments, I'll point out that "brain-draining" other countries isn't exactly a good thing for any attempts by those other countries to build their economies. And, enabling large numbers of "imports" from one country provides a profit incentive to those countries to keep sending us people because of the money that their "exports" send home. That encourages corruption both here and there. And, if things like computer programming move offshore, teaching and studying computer programming will eventually move offshore as well, leaving us dependent on India or other countries for computer programming. Not exactly a good thing.
June 4, 2007 12:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, tons of illegals work government jobs. Mostly through contractors, of course. I think some were even building parts of a border fence near San Diego.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
June 4, 2007 12:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hoppy, the "disparity" you mentioned is being addressed - largely by the governments of poor countries as well as developers. I think most of Latin America's commercial class is salivating over the pending retirement of baby-boomers. Costa Rica may be the only country that has reduced its incentives to expats because it has become a seller's market - a very popular place to retire. Recently, in Mexico, 20 year mortgages have surfaced, and a US citizen can own property in fee simple anywhere in Mexico outside the restricted zone (31 miles from the sea coast, and 63 miles from the international borders.) This is the age of the pensioner's visa - if you can document a 500USD monthly income, you qualify. There's a lot of competition going on right now for the expat dollar. Panama is hot right now, with Honduras and Nicaragua right behind.
But, if you want to die Marlin fishing, the trust deed deal on the Mexican coast is a good way to go. The deed is solid, and your children can inherit it. But you can't restrict rank and file Mexicans from your beach front property - that was the point of Cardenas' ejido policy - the coast was considered a national asset and access to the coast was guaranteed to all. It's comparable to the California Coastal Commission, in fact (which has also caused a lot of coastal property owners severe headaches.)
<>Neoboho
June 4, 2007 12:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just what we need - another dilettante with ABSOLUTELY NO BACKGROUND IN SCIENCE OR ENGINEERING perpetuating the mythology of a "lack of trained professionals (especially in science-related fields) available in America". Those of us who do have such training and are now being forced out of jobs through outsourcing, the H1-B program and age discrimination beg to differ.
Skilled technical workers are not being imported to address a shortage of qualified, willing American workers. This practice is being used by employers to displace qualified American workers with lower-paid workers who are unlikely or unable to demand better pay or better working conditions because they don't have the same freedom to change employers as citizens do.
It's not a question of the false dichotomy you outlined of "preventing talented and educated workers from working for U.S. companies" or having jobs for Americans. It's a matter of making sure that qualified Americans are not discriminated against or pitted against offshore labor in an ufair competition that they cannot win.
Employers importing foreign labor through the H1-B program are not engaging in some altruistic exercise to better the world. Their purpose is not only cynical and self-serving, it exploits the foreign workers as much as it discriminates against American workers. The only winners are the "haves" and "have mores".
Read the following before you continue to insult the intelligence and REAL LIFE EXPERIENCE of the large numbers of technically and scientifically educated and trained Americans who are losing their livlihoods because of the importation of indentured foreign labor with the full cooperation of the United States government:
Abuse of H1-B Program Documented by Portland Press Hearld
Debunking the Myth of a Desperate Software Labor Shortage"
High-skill guest worker visas are currently hurting rather than helping keep jobs at home
You should also familiarize yourself with the material at the Programmer's Guild Blog
June 4, 2007 12:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think that it is important to distinguish here between undocumented low-wage workers and skilled outsourcing or importing of skilled labor. They really are two separate issues with vastly different implications which Chris Robertson aptly points out in this his entry.
I am curious to hear how the system of skilled labor exchange leads to corruption. While, I can imagine that entering into immigration bureaucracy can be scurrilous, I am unaware of the corruption you mention.
Also, I know that the vast majority of computer programmers from India working for US companies are already trained in India. India has very fine educational facilities already training its own workforce. I do not think this has led MIT or Berkeley to close its doors yet. As to the protection of domestic workers, it is my experience that this is already happening. Anyone who has been through the experience of trying to get a VISA knows that unless you have a specific specialty or a very advanced degree, you are unlikely to be able to get an HB1. I would love to hear proposals that would make this more strict without cutting off, as I mention, the important contributions that skilled foreign labor has always made to this country.
June 4, 2007 12:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Paceliner, I am simply going to have to disagree with you on your characterization of the entire HB1 program from my own experience. Furthermore, I have to add that some technical and scientific industries do face shortages - not the least of which is doctors and nurses in rural and secluded areas. While certain industries may be adversely effected, I did not intend to argue that skilled labor immigration was only useful on that front. I think it has intrinsic value beyond simply meeting the shortages in some industries.
June 4, 2007 12:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're completely uninformed about the H1-B issue with respect to computer programmers. Until you get some experience in the field I suggest you defer to those of us who are living the reality of the situation. Whether MIT or Berkeley have closed their doors is irrelevant. It's a matter of rigging the labor market against qualified American workers. Only an academic with no real-world knowledge of the situation could think that such an absurd metric would be a cogent argument.
FYI, the bulk of H1-B programmers being imported into the US do not have unique specialties, and in fact, the Indian-owned IT outsourcing firms that are among the largest users of the H1-B program are known to have inflated the resumes of their workers. Wake up - these programs are being exploited in a manner that is contrary to their original intent for the express purpose of boosting profits by undercutting qualified American labor through the practice of exploiting foreign guest workers.
June 4, 2007 12:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're own experience as what exactly? Are you a programmer,network engineer or database administrator? Have you applied for an IT job in the past few years?
Do you know more than Dr. Matloff, a professor of computer science at UC Davis who has made an extensive study of these issues or Dr. Hira who authored the other study I cited?
What evidence do you have that specifically contradicts not my characterization of the H1-B program, but theirs?
If industries face shortages of workers (that can be confirmed independently) then the solution is to make those jobs more attractive by raising compensation or improving working conditions so that doemstic workers will be attracted. A guest worker program should only used if all other measures fail. This is clearly not the case in my field (IT). I will not comment on doctors or nurses since I do not work in those fields but I would challenge those who make this argument to demonstrate with independently verifiable evidence (i.e., not merely assertion) that the claimed shortages actually exist and that the imported foreign labor does not displace qualified domestic labor and, in fact, does work in the geographic areas where the shortages are claimed to be.
June 4, 2007 12:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mercedes - the problem with your advocating for H1-B is that the program is a scam and it reduces your crediblity to close to zero to support it. Basically - as is well documented - it is used to support the offshore outsourcing of jobs held by Americans. The large majority of H1-B visas go to INDIAN software companies, who bring employees here to learn the jobs of American workers, then they are shipped back to India with the job. There is no intention in these cases of going for a green card.
Here is an excerpt from an epi report, link
http://www.sharedprosperity.org/bp187.html,
(When you respond I hope you use DATA and SPECIFICS, I am really tired of generalities when finally the data and studies are out there and available. There is really no excuse for not dealing with the truth. Note that this information has been suppressed and/or uncollected, because the govt is in the business of making it easier for business interests to make their otherwise unsupportable case.)
From the EPI report:
Supporters of an expansion of the H-1B program argue that the work visas serve a critical role in the economy, particularly in the high-technology sector. Supporters typically make two claims. First, they claim that there is a systemic shortage of U.S. scientists and engineers, and the only way to fill the gap between domestic demand and supply of high-skill workers is by importing guest-workers through the H-1B program. They argue that, without a large increase in the H-1B program, they will be forced to outsource the jobs by hiring foreign scientists and engineers in their home countries. Second, they claim that the H-1B program serves as the gateway to immigration for the "best and brightest" foreigners, arguing that capturing the best and brightest is contingent on an expansion of the H-1B program.
But neither claim is supported by analysis of actual program operation. Rather than preventing the outsourcing of jobs, the H-1B program acts in just the opposite way, by accelerating the outsourcing of high-wage, high-skill jobs to low-cost countries. The largest users of the H-1B program are offshore outsourcing firms, whose business model depends on moving as much work overseas as possible. And these firms do not use the program as a bridge to immigration, for they sponsor very few of their workers for green cards. For example, in 2006, Wipro Technologies applied for 19,450 H-1B positions but only for 69 green cards, a 0.004 green card to H-1B application ratio. H-1B program links to immigration are increasingly tenuous, and more importantly, the H-1B proponents are providing policy makers a false choice: increase the H-1B program or risk losing the best and brightest foreign workers. There are many much better and more effective policy mechanisms to encourage the best and brightest to immigrate to the United States. The H-1B program does not have to be the gateway to immigration for the best and brightest.
What causes the gap between the promise and reality? The H-1B program does not live up to the promises of its supporters because of fundamental flaws in program design in three key areas (outlined below).
Three fundamental design flaws
1. No labor market test
The most significant design flaw is the absence of a labor market test. The U.S. Department of Labor recently expressed the practical implications of this fact in a straightforward manner when it stated that "H-1B workers may be hired even when a qualified U.S. worker wants the job, and a U.S. worker can be displaced from the job in favor of the foreign worker."2 Simply put, an employer does not have to test the labor market before hiring a foreign worker on an H-1B.3
What is most remarkable about the H-1B policy discussion is how many journalists and politicians believe such a labor market test exists. For example, news stories over the past year in the Los Angeles Times, San Diego Union Tribune, Wall Street Journal (in a front page story at the height of last year's immigration debate) have all mistakenly claimed the program has a labor market test. Prominent political leaders have also promulgated this fallacy. For example, a San Francisco Chronicle story highlighted the political battle over the H-1B program last year. Senators John McCain and Edward Kennedy, co-sponsors of the immigration bill that passed the U.S. Senate, reportedly countered criticism of the H-1B program by saying their bill included requirements that employers search for U.S. workers first.4 But their bill included no such provisions. The misconceptions seem to be widespread within Congress. Below are excerpts from two recent letters sent by U.S. Senators, one a republican and one a democrat, in response to constituents who wrote, expressing concerns about the H-1B program's effects on the U.S. workforce:5
Sen. Norm Coleman:
While the continued viability of the H-1B visa program is vital, I fully support the important rules governing the issuance of H-1B visas to protect U.S. workers. An employer wishing to hire an H-1B nonimmigrant must demonstrate that there is an insufficient number of U.S. workers qualified for the position and must show that the business has not laid off a U.S. worker 90 days prior to or after hiring any H-1B worker. Employers must also show they have attempted to recruit U.S. workers and that the admission of foreign workers will not adversely affect the job opportunities, wages, and working conditions of U.S. workers.
Sen. Barak Obama:
The intent is that H1-B visas only be issued if qualified American workers are unable to take the jobs in question….I fully agree that H1-B hires should be a last recourse as a matter of labor policy.
The rules referenced in Coleman's letter simply don't exist for the vast majority of H-1B employers. And the intent that Obama's letter asserts is not met in practice.
The absence of a labor market test has been identified as a critical weakness by numerous government reviews of the program. For example, in assessing the H-1B program's effectiveness, the Bush administration's Office of Management and Budget found that it contributed to the program's serious vulnerability to fraud and abuse.6
Coupled with other program design flaws, the labor market test flaw creates incentives for employers to prefer foreign workers to American ones, and in some cases to actively displace American workers with H-1Bs.
2. Prevailing wage is not market wage
The H-1B program's primary safeguard for U.S. as well as H-1B workers is the requirement that an H-1B worker be paid the prevailing wage. The prevailing wage guidelines are set by Congress and employer compliance is administered by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) through its foreign labor certification office. The purpose of the prevailing wage is to ensure that H-1B workers are not being paid below-market wages. The reservation wages for many foreign workers are lower than those for U.S. workers, so absent such a requirement, employers could have a significant financial incentive to hire a foreign worker over an American one. And U.S. workers employed in similar occupations could have their wages depressed and working conditions worsened as they compete with workers willing to take lower wages and work in sub-standard conditions. The essence of the regulation is to ensure that the H-1B is not used as a "cheap labor" program.
While the regulations governing the prevailing wage appear to be reasonable on paper, in practice they are ineffective. The implementation of the prevailing wage regulations is riddled with loopholes, enabling firms to pay below-market wages. How do we know this? Employers say so. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) conducted interviews of H-1B employers and reported that, "Some employers said that they hired H-1B workers in part because these workers would often accept lower salaries than similarly qualified U.S. workers; however, these employers said they never paid H-1B workers less than the required wage."7
Another case highlights the attractiveness of using the H-1B and L-1 programs for labor arbitrage. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), the leading India-based offshore outsourcing firm, has the vast majority of its personnel in the U.S. on either H-1B or L-1 visas.8 TCS Vice President Phiroz Vandrevala described, in an interview with and India-based Businessworld magazine, how his company derives competitive advantages by paying its visa holders below-market wages:
"Our wage per employee is 20-25 percent lesser than U.S. wage for a simlar employee," Vandrevala said. "Typically, for a TCS employee with five years experience, the annual cost to the company is $60,000-70,000, while a local American employee might cost $80,000-100,000. This (labour arbitrage) is a fact of doing work onsite. It's a fact that Indian IT companies have an advantage here and there's nothing wrong in that….The issue is that of getting workers in the U.S. on wages far lower than local wage rate."9
And one need only scan a few H-1B applications that have been "certified" by the U.S. DOL as meeting the prevailing wage to understand the massive gap between the legally constructed "prevailing" and a "market-based" wage. TCS was certified by the DOL to hire 10 computer programmers at $8.22 an hour, and Infosys was certified to hire 100 programmers at $9.15 per hour. It is impossible to believe that the market wage for the "best and brightest" computer programmers is $8.22 per hour. It is important to note that the issue in these cases is not one of enforcement or abuse. These applications comply with the law, illustrating that the prevailing wage regulations can be easily met without paying market wages. But are these simply exceptional cases?
The aggregate data for computing professionals lend support to the argument that the practice of paying H-1Bs below-market wages is quite common. According to the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Service's (USCIS) most recent annual report10 to Congress, the median wage in FY2005 for new H-1B computing professionals was $50,000, far below the median for U.S. computing professionals. The median wage for new H-1Bs is even lower than the salary an entry-level bachelor's degree graduate would command. So, half of the 52,352 H-1B computing professionals admitted in FY2005 earned less than entry-level wages. And even at the 75th percentile, new H-1B computing professionals earned just $60,000, a far cry from the impression left by Microsoft's Bill Gates that most H-1B workers are paid $100,000 or more.11
Some of the problems with implementing the prevailing wage surface because of the limited oversight that Congress has granted to the U.S. DOL, something that has been noted in numerous government reports. For example, the DOL's own Office of Inspector General has described the labor certification process, the primary means of safeguarding the labor market, as simply a "rubber stamp" of the employer's application. The review process is completely automated, with no person reviewing applications, and the employer is not required to submit any supporting documentation. Based on the process, the GAO concluded that, "…as the [H-1B] program currently operates, the goals of preventing abuse of the program and providing efficient services to employers and workers are not being achieved. Limited by the law, Labor's review of the [labor certification process] is perfunctory and adds little assurance that labor conditions employers attest to actually exist."12
3. Deficient oversight
Deficient oversight permeates nearly all aspects of the H-1B program, not just the front-end of the process described above. This leads to a program with pages of regulations that are essentially ineffective and toothless.
Oversight is particularly lacking once an H-1B is issued. H-1B employers are never scrutinized except in the rare case that an investigation is triggered by an H-1B worker whistleblower.13 When investigated, violations of the H-1B program are found in more than 80% of the cases, a much higher percentage than other programs. The most common violations found were instances where employers did not pay H-1B workers what they were legally required. So, even when employers attest to pay a particular wage, they have little worry that anyone might audit them to ensure that actual wages match the wages on the applications.
It is also important to note that H-1B employees have particularly strong disincentives to blow the whistle on their employer. Because the employer holds the visa, an H-1B worker who gets terminated is out of status (they would have to leave the country) in the eyes of the USCIS. With cases against employers often taking five or more years to adjudicate, it is no wonder that few violations are ever brought to the attention of the DOL.
Another area with little oversight is controls on H-1B-dependent firms. H-1B-dependent employers are generally defined as firms with more than 15% of their U.S. workforce on H-1B visas. Congress was concerned about reports that some employers were almost exclusively hiring H-1B workers, so they attempted to rein in this practice by requiring H-1B dependent firms to attest to three additional things:
* Recruitment & hiring: the employer made a good faith effort to recruit and hire U.S. workers for the position;
* Displacement: the employer will not displace and did not displace any similarly employed U.S. workers within 90 days prior to or after the date of filing any H-1B visa petition; and,
* Secondary displacement: before placing the H-1B employee with another employer, the current employer will inquire whether or not the other employer has displaced or intends to displace a similarly employed U.S. worker within 90 days before or after the new placement of the H-1B worker.
But these additional attestations are irrelevant if firms are never investigated or audited, and few, if any, are.
Based on their public statements, many of the leading offshore outsourcing firms fit into the H-1B-dependent category. With even a cursory inquiry it should be obvious to the DOL that some of these firms could be in violation of these regulations. For instance, in many cases these firms' business models are designed specifically to cause secondary displacement. Many offshore outsourcing firms are taking over existing jobs and processes. And it seems that many of them are not making a good faith effort to recruit U.S. workers. Searches of the "job opening" sections of their Web sites yield few, if any, openings in the United States. This is in spite of their rapid H-1B workforce growth.
June 4, 2007 2:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
CamilleRoy - you give me a lot to think about and I agree with you completely that the HB1 program is flawed. I disagreed with the characterization of it above. I never intended to advocate for the status quo but merely to suggest that the solution needs to come from a global vantage point.
Thanks for the information - I learned a lot!
June 4, 2007 2:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Where are you getting the salary figures (or the implication thereof) for US IT workers? Entry level workers in IT most definitely will not make 50K+ in most jobs, assuming we are talking about BS degreed entrants, not PhDs. It's been my experience that most entry level (American citizen) IT personnel should expect a salary somewhere in the 35K-45K range. Maybe in a few high cost of living areas like CA or NYC it will be substantially more, but out in the hinterlands it won't be.
June 4, 2007 2:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Absolutely, destor, more than many people realize. I've witnessed school buses full of illegal workers loading and unloading at the back of job sites (non-government but run by contractors who also do gov work). Look at the Katrina rebuilding to see how that was openly organized. Also, note how the government was not saving money with those workers though KBR and Bechtel were profiteering nicely, thank you. Anyway, my point was that we would not think of opening these jobs legally to foreign workers with attendant benefits and all.
June 4, 2007 2:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your post is way, way, way too long. Ridiculously long. Just might want to edit it down next time.
June 4, 2007 2:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm no economist, but I don't think this will work for a fairly obvious reason. We take in about 800,000 legal immigrants every year and about 400,000 illegal (or irregular) immigrants. The vast majority of the irregular immigrants are low skilled individuals who compete with domestic low skilled workers. The people who come here legally tend to be higher skilled. So, setting up an immigration regulatory system that assumes outlawing immigration will in fact reduce the movement of competitive low skilled workers is to assume the impossible.
It is the wage disparities that draw them here in the first place. Even if such a system would reduce immigration, it would only increase the wage disparities and thus the appeal of irregular immigration.
June 4, 2007 2:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mercedes,
Immigration to the US is part of a strategy that helps developing countries "become more stable and able to provide for their citizens." Other countries have labor surpluses, we have labor shortages (arguably), and so the movement of people can help both countries.
What do you mean when you say that the solution needs to come from a "global vantage point." I seriously doubt we'll see a new global institution designed to manage the international movement of people, especially one that substitutes a "global" point of view for that of the nation state.
What we need is for states to realize that it is in their best (national) interest to manage migration in conjunction with each other. The difference may seem subtle, but I think it makes the case.
If you haven't read it, you might check out the 2005 report of the Global Commission on International Migration. You can find it here:
http://www.gcim.org/en/finalreport.html
June 4, 2007 3:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
The information camilleroy provided is the text of one of the links I provided you with, had you actually bothered to read it. Information like this and in Dr. Matloff's report is what I based my "characterization" of the H1-B program on.
June 4, 2007 4:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
The source of the salary information was specified:
By the way, the author of the text included in the long post above is Ron Hira, assistant professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology. The article was published by the Economic Policy Institute.
Here's the link
June 4, 2007 4:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Please give your characterization of the program, based on your experience. Thanks.
As for doctors and nurses, if there is a shortage, one would think a program to provide incentive for American doctors and nurses to move to these areas would at least help. I would also like to point out that the competition for medical school is fierce from highly talented candidates (google average GPAs and MCAT scores) and there is plenty of talent available right here if med schools would accept more students (yes, perhaps education would be better).
Also, this blog might benefit from greater *diversity* if you will. While I understand Professor Warren wants to help her law students, I doubt lawyers (or future lawyers, as it is) would be too happy if engineers and doctors were giving their opinions on legal issues outside of their fields. I'm not saying get rid of all of the students on this blog--or any of them--but on specialized topics it might help to have someone who knows the area, or who at least has done substantial reading on the topic. I'm not an engineer, but even I found plenty of ommissions from the past couple of blog entries on this topic just from what I read in the newspaper. As you're in school, I'm guessing you might not have the time to research topics much outside of law.
(Also, Indian universities have been criticized for having huge differences in the quality of their engineers and whether their degrees are quite what they say they are).
June 4, 2007 5:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
OK, I assume "new" means new to the US, but presumably with some years experience in their own country. I thought you were saying that American college graduates (with just a BS) were making those salaries right out of college, which I found very dubious except maybe in a very high cost of living areas. And if all we're talking about here are fairly low level "code monkeys" not high level analysts and designers then that 50K at least compares pretty well with American IT salaries.
June 4, 2007 6:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Most lucrative degrees for 2007 grads
By Jeanne Sahadi
CNN Money.com senior writer
June 4, 2007 7:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
An alternate solution
One uses one's freedom of choice and stops reading when one feels like it. Or skims. Or whatever. Or one responds to the parts of essay one thinks are irrelevant. Or not.
Basically what I'm saying is that while authors may want to take the attention span of readers into account, that responsibility is theirs, and given the choice between truncated writings which take the choice out of the readers' hands and essays which express the range of a writer's thoughts, I prefer the latter. The Reader's Digest was never my favorite publication.
aMike
June 5, 2007 6:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
While we may have to think globally, we have to act locally. Arguments of this kind remind me of those nested Russian dolls.
One could logically argue that it would be appropriate to restrict migration of labor within this federation of states for the same reasons. Perish the thought we let workers from Iowa migrate to Massachusetts and drive down wages in the information economy there. Perish (maybe literally) the thought that health workers trained in the cities decide to stay there, rather than return to practice their arts in rural or small town environments.
aMike
June 5, 2007 6:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
Quasi off post, but maybe not. The population of the United States in the last 50 years has about doubled. I've been trying to find information about the growth (or lack thereof) of both institutions for training doctors and nurses (how many new medical schools or nursing schools) and growth in the size of student bodies in medicine and nursing. I suspect these haven't grown proportionately. Does anyone have any information about this? I seem to remember reading that the population of nursing students actually shrunk in the 1980s as more well paying positions opened to women.
In other words, is there a possibility that the "shortage" in medical personnel is at least partly contrived, and that a cartel situation exists which keeps the available supply of doctors and nurses artificially low to keep salaries artificially high? (I'll take off my conspiracy hat now). :-)
aMike
June 5, 2007 6:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
There was an article about the powers that be getting it wrong about how many doctors would be needed. I read the same thing about nursing, but I believe if that was ever true it was awhile ago and now there are plenty of people wanting to be nurses, but there aren't enough schools. An anecdote: an acquaintance wanted to be a nurse, but at my university at least there was a limitation on the numbers who could be in the nursing school.
There are plenty of qualified Americans for these positions. Importing them doesn't make sense to me.
June 5, 2007 6:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
Corvid
Not a bad start, but wouldn't it be a better idea to let unskilled American workers' wages continue to rise by continuing to bar unskilled immigrants? Why open the gates just as hard-working Americans at lower end of the scale are beginning to catch up?
June 5, 2007 6:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
Corvid
Excellent comment paceliner. I also find it useful to throw in the factor of capital investment.
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Education is important, but the high-paying, high-skill jobs have to be there on the other side of the diploma. These days, however, the capital investment that should be here is either going overseas or--effectively--going into foreign education systems as American employers play the wage-differential game and get cheaper, more docile labor from Third World countries.
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We pretend these problems are artifacts of trade and immigration, but it's all about labor arbitrage. Granted, way too many of our top people are going into finance rather than they sciences, but we're encouraging it.
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If we REALLY valued education and talent, the capital would be there to encourage Americans to pursue degrees and careers in science and engineering. Money would be flooding into scholarship programs and companies would be bidding up salaries for qualified and talented AMERICAN workers as well as foreigners.
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But this just ain't the case, is it? In the vast majority of instances, American employers are utterly indifferent to the talent of a particular H1-B worker; they're just looking for a basic skill set, docility, obligation and no wage pressures.
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Again, it's all about LABOR ARBITRAGE. The sooner we start talk about this, the real issue, and dump the nonsense about immigration and free trade, the sooner we'll have an informed debate.
June 5, 2007 7:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
That's kind of what I thought. I remember that Ronald Reagan's argument for overthrowing the government of Grenada was that there were some American medical students studying there (students who couldn't find a spot in an American Medical School). It would be a great if TPM could recruit an expert on medical education to write occasionally.
I also remember there was a bit of a ruckus when Brown University investigated offering a MD in 1972. I'm not sure how many more medical schools have been started in the interim.
aMike
June 5, 2007 7:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
No, Berkeley and MIT have not closed their doors, and likely never will. However, we need to look at the demographics of those attending graduate classes at such institutions. A close friend of mine recruits for a technology company that has a niche on Wall Street. He is a frequent visitor to such campuses and keeps abreast of the stats, especially as they relate to foreign students, which present H1-B challenges during recruitment. He told me of visiting MIT's Masters in Financial Engineering program and finding one US national out of a class of 90 graduates for the 2006 term. One of 90!
Now there are the REALISTS who claim that the education angle is a myth, and I do not doubt that in some spaces that may be true. But when it comes to H1-B's which have become to restrictive as to only be offered to candidates with the most advanced degrees from the most selective universities, it seems that there is indeed a lack of likewise degreed US nationals. I've pointedly asked my friend why he doesn't hire citizens, and he has told me he would like nothing better--if only to avoid having to deal with visas. Which brings us back to education being at the root of at least one corner of the debate.
The more I read about immigration the more I come to appreciate the complexity and nuance of it. As Montagnes points out, low skill and high skill are different problems. I would go one farther and say that within each broad category there are many additional unique constituencies: computer programmers vs medical professionals, migrants feild worker vs restaurant worker.
Painting with broad brushes gets us nowhere near workable solutions. It in fact fans the fames of xenophobia and classism. I applaud Merceded Montagne for kicking off a more nuanced approach that looks at the big picture. I'm not sure that all of her proposals and insights necessarily protect jobs, but I am sure that the status quo and reactionary measures certainly will not solve the problem.
We may need to adapt to a global labor pool. No amount of development will bring cost of living across the globe into parity any time soon. And while there is no symmetry, there is opportunity for business to leverage the wage arbitrage.
What I know is that clocks can never be turned back, and those that try suffer unexpected consequences. Perhaps a fuller study that targets segments would serve us well. That and enforcing current labor laws.
June 5, 2007 8:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
I assume these involve higher level degrees, otherwise the figures are simply wrong, possibly skewed by only querying major corporations in expsense areas.
June 5, 2007 9:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
It seems to me the middle class isn't so much being squeezed (Lou Dobb's phrase I believe,) as it is being pulled down.
I think the "Service Economy" moniker is bogus. That what we really are entering is an "owner Economy," where there are two classes - owners and workers. If you aren't an owner you are s*rewed.
Stockholder owner that is, or owner of your own business, or part owner in the case of privately held corporations, and yes homeowner helps as well.
There are many exceptions - not every job is going to be outsourced or undercut, but I think a lot of the middle class jobs are, and so I suppose another way to view what I think is to say we are progressing to a two class system from a three class system.
Haves and Have Nots = Owners and non-owners.
The dog eat dog nature of our economic system is doing this. We are all getting Walmarted to death basically, those of us who are non-owners that is. Even if you are a business owner you are probably getting Walmarted to death actually. But then you have no choice but to Walmart others. It's like a belt-tightening trickle down.
If you manage to aquire capital you can open a business - a hamburger stand even or a Starbucks. That is service economy. But what about the folks who can't save any capital? Dragged down me thinks.
This is all anecdotal but I think the Warmarting is bound to have consequences and catch up to those of us who are not the owners at some point, and when that happens, it may catch up to the owners as well.
I am a home owner, but am still paying mostly interest at year 5 of home ownership. I own my own internet business. But I get Walmarted as well and I am pursuing a teaching credential to stay afloat. I don't believe teachers will lose their jobs during my lifetime anyways. My neighbor who does floors and counters - granite and what have you - construction trade - I don't know if he can become a teacher and so I don't know if he has as many options as I do.
I am for diversity. But I also think that population is a big factor in environmental degradation. Environmental non-profits don't say this as it is politically incorrect to say it but it is fundamentally true that we should look at immigration control if nothing else, from a population control perspective. (Because even the low skilled, undocumented immigrants will have children who get a good education here and who become skilled and documented.)
But who benefits from a larger population? Corporate stockholders because more teeth = more toothpaste sold. Governments because of more taxes = higher salaries and larger staffs. Politicians because of more voters. Real estate developers because of more houses. Economists because of higher GDP. The list goes on. Only the environment and the middle class lose.
I'm no know-it-all by any means but it seems to be this way, that you can only make it in America if you are an owner. I suppose one solution would be for the middle class to move to lower economy countries and become owners there as everything is relative.
Will the Walmarting catch up to the stockholders in America in turn as well, or will we just have an owner / non-owner two class system in America?
Now of course I'm speaking in non-technical terms and also from a whining angle. I probably sshouldn't complain and whine if there is any truth to the law of attraction : ) (positive thinking.) Obviously the system works for some people. I have a few relatives who seem to have done well in sales, one who is not many years out of college and is a nephew of mine. And I know I can make my life work if I have a positive attitude. And I am doing so in just being realistic and mid-career switching to teaching math which is in demand and I also am a good fit/enjoy it. (although many of the students are incredibly disrespectful these days, unless it's always been like that.)
I do think there is a lot of truth to the wisdom of the need to be an owner to make it nowadays though. And it's always been true in a capitalist economy. It just seems to be increasingly true unless that is just whining on my part.
And of course most stockholders don't have a clue as to what the company's they are part owners of are doing in terms of ethics. I sure hope that changes. You can buy socially responsible and environmentally responsible investments of course, although I think it is still just a niche - not mainstream investing.
Getting back to my neighbor the granite and tile tradesman putting in rock floors and counter tops, he told me Hilton recently renovated a 300 room hotel, but used rock (bathroom counter tops perhaps I'm not sure which parts of the hotel room) that was pre-fabricated in China with workers who are paid 16 cents per hour. Shipped all the way to the US - which of course burns a lot of oil to get here and increases global warming during the oceanic shipping trip. And before Hilton used to use local construction tradesmen. Is Hilton's stock performing so badly that they need to cut costs in this way?
Now my neighbor does get customers who are owners - stockholders and business owners. But he claims he is increasingly nickled and dimed because of construction managers and developers (owners) going with the immigrants to make a larger profit.
Meanwhile housing ownership in the state I live in is high. So if you weren't a homeowner 5 or 6 years ago you may not ever be able to afford too buy a home in this state if you are a tradesman or middle class. Hence the increasing divide, speaking anecdotally and without any hard data - of owners and non-owners (haves and have nots.)
Although part of me is a bit conservative with free market economics, the other part of me seems to agree with Lou Dobbs to the T. But with the additional opinion/viewpoint that we should have a no-growth plan in terms of total population of the US. Having an economy that is dependent on population growth is just not sustainable in the long term.
I am an owner to a certain degree and therefore consider myself to be a member of the ownership class. I'd be more of an owner if I hadn't married an immigrant. : ) She has yet to obtain a j.o.b. and it's been 10 years. But word to the wise young folks who don't have the advantage of having ivy league degrees on their resumes - save your money, invest it in ethical investment money market funds and/or start your own business and/or buy a house or condo as soon as possible, even if it's in a different area and you rent it out, as I do believe there is something to increasing divide between the "ownership class" and "non-ownership class." One way to view your business if you start one is to of course cater to owners. As owners are the only ones who can afford services in a "service economy." On the one hand that is overstating the blatantly obvious. Ask any salesperson and they'll tell you they've known all along they need to get to the owner to make a sale. But on the other hand such overstating of the obvious can be useful in cutting through the myths of what is working what is not. I live in a microcosm - a ski / lake resort town surrounded by national forest, sort of an island in the sky I call it. It is very common for people to say "but there are no jobs in ...." Of course there aren't many high paying jobs here, but are ownership opportunities catering to owners here. Tourism is very big among the ownership class. So I think some people just don't get it that the way to make it in the ownership economy is to simply cater to owners. If I weren't pursuing a teaching career I would probably attempt to cater to cabin owners (actually the "cabins" of the vacation home owners are much larger and fancier than the homes of the the locals in many cases but I'll refer to them as cabins for the sake of clarification : ) in a few different ways, neither requiring much brain power. Or I'd try real estate (selling ownership.) Or I'd join the chamber of commerce and find out first hand how many local business owners need my services.
Continuing my tangent, if I were to wrap all of this into a coherent summary, I'd ask, in terms of public policy which is TPM's primary aim, why are we so worried about teaching more math without considering teaching business and economics instead. Which might be one reason why I chose my LoginID this time (I change if I feel obsessed/addicted to a thread to get a break in between sometimes, but I never go back to using an old LoginID at the same time I've started using a new one - only one at a time) as NumLock is we may be on a number lock. Policies to promote more math and science in education, withouot considering teaching something that uses numbers in a meaningful way. Of course I myself will always try to put as much econ and business in my math courses as possible. But is it a national or state policy, and might we do well to require all high school and/or college students to take one business and one economics class with the overall goal of teaching them the iimportance of being an owner in a capitalist system?
We could also question what is going on in the Small Business Administration and Minority Business Development within the SBA these days. I haven't heard anyone worry about this since the Katrina days. I personally would rather see a half a trillion dollars spent on defaulted SBA loans for businesses that tried and failed then see it spent on George Bush's war. The way out of poverty is of course to try to become an owner, and in many cases catering to owners. SBA loans support ownership and they should be risking the support of ownership by have nots (non owners.) However, in my one year stint working in that field two decades ago, even the minority business loans require ownership to qualify - if you can't secure the loan with assets you don't qualify. What could we have done putting half a trillion in defaulted loans risked to have nots who applied for the small business loans and failed, who didn't have any assets to secure the loan? Probably a lot of successes to go along with the failures.
At any rate since I'm getting a teaching credential now for me I can take from these thoughts the bit about the need for promoting business and economics education to everybody - not just to potential haves. It is harder to make it in a system if you don't understand the system.
Sorry for the tangent Mercedes. Perhaps someone would like to tie what I just said into the immigration conversation. I suppose it might go something like immigrants becoming owners - either here or back in their homeland ideally, which would help in the developing of their homeland's economy if they return with some capital and start a business and become an owner.
June 5, 2007 11:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
I hate it when people refer to illegal immigration as if it were the same as legal immigration; it is not, never was and never will be. Just what part of the social and economic problems, starting with law breaking, associated with illegal immigration do these people not understand.
June 5, 2007 12:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
For what it's worth, there is a significant shortage of MFE's (financial engineers) in the banking sector. Most of the best university programs are heavy foreign students. These folks are used on Wall Street to design new securitized instruments and develop systems for tracking them. I have peers who would like nothing better than to hire US nationals for these roles, but they cannot find them when they go to MIT, Duke, et al, to recruit. These end up as H1B's, and not because we're trying to save a buck--in fact the jobs are very competitive and there is no wage difference between citizen and visa-holder.
What makes the situation worse is that H1B has a six year life before the visa is no longer renewable. We can go for the greencard, but that's a whole other headache and the employee very often bugs out to get another degree (thereby getting a new student visa and resetting the H1B clock). This is a disruptive influence on the business as it breaks continuity and pulls some high value human assets away from being productive.
I'm not saying that banking establishes the rule in the debate, but I think there may be similar exceptions in other sectors.
June 5, 2007 12:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've been prowling around the MIT website trying to find out more about Financial Engineering, simply to see what it is. I'm not having much luck. As far as I can tell, there is no Masters program in Financial Engineering. There is a Laboratory for Financial Engineering, but it doesn't seem to offer degrees...it looks to do contract research and planning models, some of which, like the Financial Technology Option, are co-sponsored by outside firms like Merrill Lynch. Can you point me to where I can find more information on Financial Engineering as a discipline?
With regard to international students at MIT, your friend's experience doesn't seem to be entirely typical of the school as a whole. There are 6126 Graduate Students in the institution as a whole, of whom 2,408 are international students. Nearly 1/2 of these are from Asia. My guess is that the large proportion of graduate students relates most to underdeveloped systems of higher education in the countries of origin.
aMike
June 5, 2007 12:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Those numbers are for bachelor's degrees.
Now we have TWO sources of information which says that the starting salaries of computer scientists is, on average, $50K. One comes from US Citizenship & Immigration Service (USCIS) and the other from National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). Unless you can produce some actual evidence of that amount being less, then you are clearly and plainly wrong in your assumption.
June 5, 2007 12:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're right that it's not the same, but you're wrong about the effects. Illegal immigrants contribute more than they take. We'd have more social and economic problems without them. The challenge now is to regularize their movement so that both we and they can realize greater benefits of their migration.
June 5, 2007 1:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Re: Now we have TWO sources of information which says that the starting salaries of computer scientists is, on average, $50K
Computer "scientists"? Then you are talking PhDs not people with BS degrees.
Here's a question for you: do you work in the field? If not, you really do not know what you are talking about about. I was in IT (with just a bachelors) for 14 years and never did make it to a 50K salary (I lived in Michigan, Ohio and Florida; graduated college in 1992). Again, I suspect the articles you cite have exaggerated starting salaries because they have sampled graduates from Ivy League schools who went to work for large corporations in places like NYC, Seattle and Silicon Valley with outrageous costs of living. Most IT grads though end up working for small and mid-size companies (and generally not in IT companies per se, but rather in IT departments in other companies) scattered all around the country and the jobs just don't pay that much for entry level (heck, they may not even pay that well for people with five or ten years experience). I got just 24K at entry level (bumped up to 28K after 90 days). I doubt anyone would be paid quite that low today, but I also very much doubt that there's been very much wage inflation in IT since 1993, especially not with outsourcing, the H1b visa flood, and the 2001 recession.
June 5, 2007 2:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
With all due respect, you have consistently insisted that only those who have worked in the IT field are capable of having a valid opinion, especially an opinion that counters your own. I have 20 years of experience in IT and I do not agree with you on many of your points. As for the dangers of offshoring and H1B's, these issues mostly reside on the large company side of the ledger. I don't wish to imply that they have no effect on you--clearly that is not the case and for that I am truly sorry. However, these discussions do focus on policy and as such are abstracted from how they may impact the individual. Not that we should discard the impact on individuals, rather progressive policy seeks to positively impact as many individuals as possible. It's like full employment, which is not exactly 100%.
Where I do agree with you is on the point of averages--especially average income. Averages can obscure the reality of the majority if the distribution is not noted. In Financial services the average IT salary starts at $80K (compliments of our friends at Mercer--i'd cite it, but it will cost you $15K). Not surprisingly this is a heavily coastal number. My father runs a network integration company in rural Pennsylvania and his average payroll is $35. Quite a difference. So if NYC and SF are at $80 and Titusville, Kansas is $30, it makes the average $50K salary meaningless.
One other point to raise the hackles, many of the reports previously cited, do not make any distinction between non-consulting and consulting companies applying for H1B's. This is a disservice to the reader (and I suspect intentional in some cases) since the difference between how the visa recipient is used is stark. A bank in NY expects a six year, or longer, term of employment when applying for an H1B. Since these visas are really assigned to recipient and not the sponsor, they are portable; meaning if I don't pay Ashock a fair wage, he'll up and leave to someone who will and take his visa with him. This versus the consulting body shops which use visa recipients to seed the client relationship before outsourcing the engagement to Mumbai. Six years versus six months with the above lesson on averages equals a skewed view of what's really going on.
June 5, 2007 4:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't agree and I've been looking very closely at the issue for a good while now. Moreover, Reagan’s amnesty bill got us the current twelve million illegals we have now and if we allow this twelve million amnesty which is what the current legislation is about, then IMO within five years 200 million will flood in and that will be a social and economic disaster for Americans. I am still a citizen of America not some globalist pie in the sky dance around the may pole fool, and I want what is best for an vast majority of Americans…and that does not mean I dislike Mexicans.
I’ll tell you something else, the majority of rank and file Democrats and Republicans do not what the Illegals here and it’s going to be political suicide to try and gull them, this is not an issue phony push polls are going to resolve or win the day on. This is political dynamite the likes of which has not been seen before, it’s a bridge too damned far.
June 5, 2007 7:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Seems like the math is a little off here. Twelve million (which is an estimate--there is no reliable way to count persons entering outside the system) in 20 years comes out to about 600,000 a year. 200 million in five years would amount to 40 million per year. The entire population of Mexico is a bit over 103,000,000. So 93 millions would have to come from elsewhere...and Mexico would be empty land.
In this discussion, "illegal" is an adjective. Turning it into a noun dehumanizes the subject, and I find that a bit distasteful. Call them "illegal aliens" if you must, which is the proper legal definition though it sounds like green people from mars. Better, call them migrant workers without papers. It takes more keystrokes, but it allows them to keep their humanity.
aMike
June 5, 2007 8:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
You know amike I like a lot of your views, but on this one I believe you're wrong and wrong headed as well...sorry.
They are illegals plain and simple.
Were I a poor Mexican I'd likely be one as well, but I'd still be an illegal in violation of our immigration laws.
This is not about dehumanizing, so please don’t play that knee jerk card. It's about not becoming a third world nation and about not adding to our poor, our uninsured, our welfare recipients and too numerous criminal population who we are not willing or perhaps even unable to help as it is. My numbers are not off, highest estimates put the number a couple of million beyond 12 million.
June 5, 2007 9:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
What is it about then, BVZ? I think you'll have a hard time proving that the Reagan bill is the cause of the current number of illegal aliens in this country. Almost no one seriously believes that. Causes are much simpler--wage disparities and economic opportunities.
So, I ask you again, what is it about? As I noted in another comment, we take in about 800,000 legal immigrants every year and about 400,000 illegal immigrants. Would you have this problem if we took in 1.2 million legal immigrants but drew them from the same ranks of people who are now entering legally and illegally?
In other words, what if in the past, say, 20 years, all the illegal immigration to the US had been legal. Would you be satisfied under those conditions? Or would you still "not want them here."
If you would not be satisfied, then you might want to reexamine your motivating beliefs.
June 6, 2007 7:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
No dumbass, that is the name of the major for the Bachelor of Science. Quit playing stupid and dense. If you don't know was a BS in computer science is, then that makes me question whether YOU actually worked in the field.
Yes, I currently work as a Java software engineer and have for the last two years. Prior to that, I was a software test engineer for Microsoft's Windows Serviceability on a year contract. Prior to that, I owned my own web business for two years selling specialized computer parts. Prior to that, I did technical support for various companies over a two year period.
So yes, I do work in the field and yes, I do know what I'm talking about.
Well, I got my bachelors in computer science just recently in 2002. So, I can say that the numbers used ARE accurate for both me AND my friends, who are also recent graduates.
Further, with two years of experience, the pay averages I've seen are around $80K. So, if you were stuck with just $50K, then you left too soon.
Unless you actually have evidence, your doubts are anecdotal at best, and therefore worthless for this discussion.
June 6, 2007 9:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
What can I say? It's the only head I've got. My knees may jerk occasionally, but I stand by what I said.
aMike
June 6, 2007 10:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
Deleted, double post
aMike
June 6, 2007 10:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
When it comes to doctors, we have more than enough specialists, but probably not enough primary care docs and famiy docs. (The pay for people who talk to patients and listen to them [what somecall 'thinking medicine' is much lower than for doctors who perform invasive procedures. For someone graduating from medical school with a heavy load of debt, it can be very to make it in private practice as a primary care physician.
As for nurses, the problem is that our hospitals have become so chaotic--and so error-ridden--that many nurses are unwilling to work in them. The stress is too great. They will either take private duty jobs, or go to work in another country. I know one young woman who was a nurse in a very prestigious NYC hospital, and left to nurse in Bermuda. After
about 8 years, she missed N.Y., and came back.
After 6 months, she said "I'm going back. Health care here is too crazy."
June 6, 2007 5:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think this may be true in a general sense, but maybe not in a specific sense, either by specialty or by region. Southeastern Massachusetts (New Bedford-Fall River) is not quite in the middle of nowhere, but a friend of mine's wife is on a three month-waiting list locally just for an evaluation for knee surgery. And sometimes the level of specialty.... I suppose one needs a specialist in hand surgery if there is something particularly peculiar about the fracture, but otherwise I'd think any old bone doctor would serve as well...maybe even a general care practitioner could put on the splint on the broken finger.
I wonder if there needs to be a nation-wide clearinghouse, and a system whereby specialists fly to the patients, do their thing, and move on. Couldn't work any worse. ;-)
aMike
June 6, 2007 6:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Reece, here are a few differences:
* legal immigrants do not, as a whole, depress wages; I personally know an illegal immigrant who has a job as Assistant Manager of a national pizza chain in a Spanish speaking neighborhood (obviously not a job no American citizen/legal resident would want)
* government is responsible for providing basic services for the population, illegal immigrants put downward pressure on the system and the government has ceased to respond in any meaningful way so if you live somewhere where the burden is heavier the standard of living suffers for everyone
* if the current legislation passes, and this is just a best guess, those who get a Z Visa can find better jobs thus leaving their current jobs open for the next illegal immigrant who is desperate to leave their country of birth for better opportunity
Reece, I am married to a Mexican (I'm embarrassed that I even have to disclose that for fear of being labeled a racist - how sad is that?). For me it's not about the people, it's about the sheer number of people. I live in Southern California and we are choking on the effects of what basically amounts to an open border policy.
I've spent a lot of time in Florence, Kentucky for business. All the service workers I've seen there are white. Maybe I'd be less passionate about this issue if my state was not suffering so much from this problem and if the immigrants who come here illegally were settled more evenly throughout our country. Maybe.
June 6, 2007 8:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Kate,
Meh, I live in Texas. Plenty of illegals here. They don't bother me. I'm originally from one of the whitest places in the country. My hometown is something like 94% white (with 150,000 people). I don't know why this is relevant, but as long as we're sharing stories . . . You kind of bring up a good point though I think unintentionally. Why is it that white people in Florence, Kentucky and my home town still work for maid services and McDonald's and so on? Well, for one thing in towns that are over 90% white (Florence clocks in at 92%), someone has to do the jobs, and that fact belies the idea of a single labor market. There isn't a labor market in the United States. There are labor markets. The markets aren't always connected. Migrant workers in Californian tomato orchards (or whatever you grow out there) probably don't depress wages for the rest of the country.
What's the minimum wage in California? I'm not sure that there is good reason to think that people who work for minimum wage would have higher wages if all the illegal immigrants vanished. That case simply hasn't been made to me.
In any case, living in California probably skews your perception. In college, I had a friend who was getting a masters degree in poultry science, but he was learning Spanish so that he could communicate with the employees in the Tyson chicken plant where he hoped to be hired. And this was about 6 years ago. The distribution is probably more even than you realize, though, of course, border states will have more and northern states will have fewer. Again, I don't really see the problem with the distribution. /shrug.
As for legal immigrants and wages, that was not the purpose of my question to BVZ. He stated that his main problem was that they came here illegally and that he "doesn't want them here." I seem to hear this a lot--that is is somehow really, really offensive that people come here illegally. In reality, that is often a cover for bigotry. I asked my question to BVZ in order to see if his views were genuine or based on bigotry. If one's problem with illegal immigration is simply that it is illegal, but one would still be bothered if all the same people came here legally, there's probably something else going on, i.e. a distaste for the people who came and not simply the manner in which they came.
Again, as I stated above, illegal immigrants contribute at least as much as they take from the system. Many use fake social security numbers and pay the associated taxes. Every year the federal government ends up with money paid into social security for which the government cannot really account. The economic benefits are also significant for there really are jobs that Americans don't want to do. Important work gets done, though often at unfortunately illegal prices. There is also, arguably, an important foreign policy aspect here since draining developing countries of excess labor can ease pressures and aid in their development. Hell, remittances alone account for more than all the aid we send to foreign countries each year.
I seriously doubt that Southern California is "choking" on the number of immigrants, but I'd like to hear what you meant.
As for the current bill before Congress, it's certainly not the best possible solution. The reality is that this country still needs low skilled labor and we often get it from immigrants. A bill that is geared to bring in high skilled labor isn't going to meet the needs of the country. In any case, we certainly don't know what effects it will have on the employment opportunities for currently illegal immigrants. I just don't see a non-English speaking Mexican farm boy as the next CEO of Google.
I could be wrong, and I'll guess we'll see.
June 7, 2007 1:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
It seems a lot of folks are forgetting that uninvited immigrants have babies once they are here. And those babies have babies a few decades (in some cases a decade and a half) later. Often times more than two babies.
Dare I mention some having babies to get on a government payroll.
If we had a *negative* population growth I wouldn't be concerned. I believe immigration control is a subset of population control. And that population control is an important factor in all of our environmental issues.
June 7, 2007 11:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't believe that it is the government's job to control population growth. In fact, I find that to be contrary to a lot of my deeply held beliefs about the role of government. So, it doesn't really bother me that people have children.
June 7, 2007 12:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Then who's job is it to control the Country's population? I don't like the sounds of allowing the free market to be in control of the population, where immigration slows down naturally when living conditions are poor enough in America to the point that no one would want to come here invited or uninvited, as they'd be better off staying put in the country they are desparate to get out of.
Not to mention natural resources are limited. But to an idealist I suppose natural resources are unlimited? And the environment doesn't suffer from unlimited population growth of one species?
June 7, 2007 3:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Perhaps we should sterilize them as they cross the border. What are your thoughts on blue eyes?
June 7, 2007 4:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
There isn't a market for population control. "Population control" is sterile way to cover up what you're really talking about which is governmental restrictions on family and individual procreative decisions. I'm not going to sign up for that.
June 8, 2007 12:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
Re: No dumbass, that is the name of the major for the Bachelor of Science.
Resporting to profanity and insults with people who disagree with you is generally proof that you cannot support your point. Not to mention, it also shows that you are poorly brought up and a person that most of us are happy not to meet in real life.
(By the way the job title "scientist" is almost always reserved for people with PhDs, except perhaps in the social sciences where it may apply to persons with a Masters. It is almost never used for BS degree work.)
June 10, 2007 6:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Citation and name dropping doesn't substitute for careful reading. He said "entry level" while your citation says "new H-1B computing professionals.." "by the way".
August 18, 2007 1:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sympathize with your cause but suspect your shoulder must hurt like hell. That's no microchip there.
August 18, 2007 1:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
That's a better answer. Have you or anyone else citing the EPI report read the following data sources cited by that report?
Consider the words in bold below when relying on them as supports for the propositions in the EPI report:
Endnotes1. There are other important reforms to the employment-based green card system that also need to be addressed but they are beyond the scope of this paper.
2. http://www.dol.gov/_sec/stratplan/strat_plan_2006-2011.htm
3. There is one category of firms, so called H-1B dependent employers, which are subject to additional regulations including a form of a labor market test. I will discuss problems with the implementation of these additional regulations later in the oversight section.
4. Carolyn Lochhead. Senate guest worker plan survives attack Boxer, Alabama Republican fail to kill provision, but number of visas is reduced. San Francisco Chronicle, Wednesday, May 17, 2006
5. These letters were circulated on an Internet listserv managed by Prof. Norm Matlof of U.C. Davis.
6. http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/expectmore/detail.10002378.2005.html
7. GAO. H-1B Foreign Workers: Better Tracking Needed to Help Determine H-1B Program's Effects on U.S. Workforce. GAO-03-883, September 2003, p. 4 (www.gao.gov/new.items/d03883.pdf).
8. Patrick Thibodeau. H-1B backers want bigger increase in cap. ComputerWorld, November 29, 2004.
9. Shelley Singh. U.S.visas are not a TCS-specific issue. Businessworld (India) magazine, June 2003.
10. U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Service. Characteristics of Specialty Occupations (H-1B): Fiscal Year 2005. November 2006.
11. Washington Post columnist David Broder wrote last year that Mr. Gates told him that H-1B jobs at Microsoft start at $100,000. Mr. Gates repeated the same figure during his testimony before the Senate a few weeks ago. (anectdotal, or representative?)
12. GAO. H-1B Foreign Workers: Better Controls Needed to Help Employers and Protect Workers. GAO/HEHS-00-157, p. 34. September 2000.
13. Although there are other ways that an investigation could be triggered, the restrictions on those events make them moot.
14. Brian Grow. A mainframe-size visa loophole: more companies are using L-1 visas to bring in low-wage foreign info-tech workers—and replace Americans. BusinessWeek, March 6, 2003.
15. U.S. Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General. Review of Vulnerabilities and Potential Abuses of the L-1 Visa Program. OIG-06-22, January 2006.
16. Author's analysis of U.S. Department of Labor's Foreign Labor Certification, FY06 H-1B LCA Data (www.flcdatacenter.com, retrieved March 1, 2007)
17. NASSCOM List of Top 20 Exporters retrieved March 1, 2007 from: http://www.rediff.com/money/2006/jun/27tcs.htm.
18. Infosys Technologies, "Fact Sheet—Consolidated Financial data—3Q, 2006-07" (p.5). Accessed from http://www.infosys.com/investor/Q3results2006-2007.asp on March 22, 2007.
19. Infosys Technologies, Form 20-F, Annual Report, (pp. 10-11) Accessed from (http://www.infosys.com/investor/Reports.asp) on March 22, 2007.
20. Peter Elstrom. Work visas may work against the U.S.: Indian outsourcers file the most applications for temporary H-1B visas. Are they using them to train staff for jobs abroad?" www.BusinessWeek.com. February 8, 2007.
21. For example, the IEEE-USA, which represents the policy interests of 220,000 U.S. electrical and electronics engineers, has called for H-1B and L-1 visa reform. (what kind of reform specifically did they call for?)
August 18, 2007 1:55 AM | Reply | Permalink