100% of H-1B Employers Offer Average Market Wages —78% Offer More

David J. BierThe Economic Policy Institute (EPI) releaseda  report last week that purports to show that “H-1B employers undercut local wages.” Employers usethe H-1B program to hire temporary foreign workers in specialty occupations. EPI writes, “By setting two of the four wage levels below the median—and thereby not requiring that firms pay market wages to H-1B workers—the DOL [Department of Labor] has in effect made wage arbitrage a feature of the H-1B program.” This post explains why this is mistaken.The median wage for an entire occupation is not the “market” wage for a specific worker. EPI confuses the median wage —the statistical midpoint in the entire range of market wages—for the singular “market wage.” A market wage is just whatever an employer would pay a worker in an open market—which depends entirely on the characteristics of the job and the productivity of the worker. Some employees receiv e offers above the median because they have more skills, more experience, or more significant job duties and so are more productive and valuable to the company than most other workers, while others receive wage offers below the median for the opposite reason.As the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)has detailed, wages in skilled occupations can vary dramatically within an occupational category —a fact that EPI acknowledges but fails to explain. BLS explains that these pay differences are a result of differing credentials, experiences and skills, i...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs