To: H-1B/L-1/offshoring e-newsletter Mon May 6 15:04:35 PDT 2013 The other day, I mentioned that Robert Hoffman, one of the top industry lobbyists, had written a blog criticizing (a better description would be "ridiculing") the recent EPI paper by Salzman, Kuehn and Lowell. I said I would later comment on Hoffman's assertions. The blog is at http://blog.itic.org/blog/step-right-up-and-see-the-fancy-and-flawed-epi-data I will focus on just one of Hoffman's claims, as it epitomizes how PR people are so deft at distortion. Hoffman says, ************************************************************************* The EPI report also suggests that temporary visas have created downward pressure on wages for U.S. workers. This finding contradicts a wide range of studies, including 2011 Government Accountability Office (GAO) data that made apples to apples comparisons of skilled talent and found that H-1B professionals earn comparable and, in some cases, higher wages than U.S. professionals of similar age and experience. For example, the GAO found that the median salary of H-1B electrical engineers, ages 20-39, was $80,000, but for U.S. workers, the median salary was $75,000. ************************************************************************* Whoa! This is definitely not "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you Zuckerberg." :-) What Hoffman is HIDING from his readers--it's a safe bet that he made sure everyone on the Hill got copies of his blog--is that the GAO stated a disclaimer about the figures Hoffman cited above, saying: "[We] did not present analysis of wage rates by occupation within different geographic areas or within education levels because of small sample size constraints in the analysis of CPS data." As the industry lobbyists are fond of pointing out, correctly, the H-1Bs are more likely to have a master's degree or PhD than Americans. Advanced degrees command a salary premium, e.g. about $10,000-15,000 for a master's, more for a PhD. So, roughly speaking, THOSE GAO NUMBERS SHOW THAT H-1BS WITH MASTER'S DEGREES ARE BEING PAID THE SAME AS AMERICANS WITH ONLY BACHELOR'S DEGREES. In other words: THE GAO REPORT SHOWS THAT THE H-1BS ARE UNDERPAID. So Hoffman's characterization of the GAO data as "apples to apples comparison" is just plain false. This is an excellent example of the distortions the industry lobbyists make so effectively. If you are a consumer of their literature, keep this example in mind at all times, as it succinctly exemplifies how misleading their claims can be. Now, if Hoffman were in the present conversation, he would say, "Hey, if the Americans don't pursue graduate work, don't blame the employers for hiring H-1Bs with grad degrees." But as I've explained before, H-1B is the CAUSE of the relatively smaller number of Americans pursuing graduate work, not the SOLUTION, because the influx of foreign students at the graduate level has cut down the salary premium accrued by earning those degrees, not worth the time spent, e.g. 5 years for a PhD. In plain English, it just doesn't pay to go to grad school in engineering. This was shown in the congressionally-commissioned NRC study, in the work of UC Berkeley economists Brown and Linden, in the NIH study, and was even implied in the House testimony by Texas Instruments. It is worth adding that in the pre-H-1B days, most major tech employers would pay for part-time master's study by engineers. That's rare now. By the way, the full GAO report is at http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d1126.pdf and my e-newsletter review of it is at http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/Archive/GAO11.txt The data Hoffman cites, and the GAO disclaimer that he hid from you, are on p.43. Norm Archived at http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/Archive/HoffmanDistortion.txt