DOL Said Its H-1B Wage Rule Should Cost Many Employers $0 But It Imposed Billions in Costs Anyway

David J. BierThe Department of Labor (DOL) releaseda  rule last week that raised the “prevailing wage”—the minimum wage that employers must pay to H-1B and other foreign workers. In justifying the rule, DOL claimed that most employers were paying more than the current prevailing wage, so raising it shouldn’t affect them. Indeed, DOL said that the prevailing wage should appro ximate the wages that many H-1B employers were already paying to their workers. But it then went ahead and imposed prevailing wage rates that are far higher than the wages that H-1B workers are now receiving.DOL summarizesits logic for raising the prevailing wage as follows:the Department ’s data show that many of the largest users of the H–1B program pay in many cases wages well over 20 percent in excess of the prevailing wage rate set by the Department for the workers in question.… Employers must pay the higher of the actual wage they pay to similarly employed workers or the prevailing wage rate set by the Department. Both possible wage rates generally should approximate the going wage for workers with similar qualifications and performing the same types of job duties in a given labor market as H–1B workers. It is therefore a reasonable assumption that … the wage rates they produce would, at least in many cases, be similar.Where the Department ’s otherwise applicable wage rate is significantly below the rates actually being paid by employers in a given labor market, it gives rise...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs