The H-1B Prevailing Wage is Substantially Below the Median Wage of U.S. Workers ... $25,000 less in Silicon Valley

The H-1B Prevailing Wage is Substantially Below the Median Wage of U.S. Workers

While several bills, such as the "SKIL Act of 2006," aim to nearly double the annual H-1B quota, all such bills provide for the legal displacement of U.S. workers by underpaid foreign workers under a flawed prevailing wage provision. The H-1B "prevailing wage" is a sham that allows employers to pay H-1B workers 25% below market wages while claiming full compliance with the law.

Sacramento, CA (PRWEB) July 6, 2006 -- The Programmers Guild, an organization advocating for US-based computer professionals, finds that the prevailing wage protections in pending immigration legislation, such as the "SKIL Bill," authorize corporations to pay foreign tech workers $25,000 below the wage paid to average U.S. workers in the same professions.

The General Accountability Office (GAO) reports that the Department of Labor (DOL) had approved thousands of H-1B applications, in spite of clear prevailing wage violations within the applications. But GAO did not consider whether the prevailing wages themselves were flawed. Had GAO evaluated the DOL's prevailing wages against actual U.S. wages, the number of violations might have exceeded one hundred thousand.

In the Silicon Valley, California region, the median wage in 2004 for the occupation "computer programmer" was $83,500. This median represents the wages for U.S. workers with average skills and experience. But of the 9721 LCAs (Labor Condition Applications) for H-1B computer programmer in the region in fiscal year 2005, 2877 (29%) were for a salary of $57,000 or less, and fully 8193 (84%) paid less than the median wage of $83,500. ..