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U.S. should import more skilled workers
Commentator Will Wilkinson
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TEXT OF COMMENTARY
Scott Jagow: A new report says that within seven years, the U.S. needs hundreds of thousands of new graduates in math and science fields. That's to keep up with the rest of the world.
But commentator Will Wilkinson says an advanced degree in science won't necessarily protect Americans from cut-throat competition.
Will Wilkinson: If you're a highly-skilled worker, America needs you. But if you've got a foreign passport, we probably won't let you in.
The U.S. issues only 65,000 H-1B visas for skilled workers each year and that's not very many. Senators McCain and Obama have both said they would support raising the cap. They acknowledge we need more skilled workers, and they're right. Yes, it would be good for innovation and growth and it would bring down the prices of goods created by skilled workers, but here's another reason you might not have thought of: Wage inequality.
Increases in wage inequality over the past few decades is primarily a story of the supply and demand of skilled labor together with the effects of technological innovation. Wage increases tend to track improvements in the productivity of labor and gains in productivity tend to be driven by innovations that help workers do more in less time. But in recent decades, technical innovation has increased the productivity of more highly-educated workers faster than it has for less-educated workers. These growing inequalities in productivity have helped create growing inequalities in wages.
But that's not the whole story. The American system of higher education produces skilled workers too slowly to keep up with the demand. This scarcity in the supply bids up the wages of the well-educated even more, further widening the wage gap. If we raised visa quotas on skilled labor, that would help bring supply in line with demand and reduce the wage gap between more and less skilled workers.
These days, almost everybody but their beneficiaries think agricultural subsidies are a lousy idea. They benefit a few already relatively wealthy American farmers and agribusiness firms to the detriment of poor farmers around the world. But H-1B visa restrictions are subsidies that benefit relatively rich domestic workers over their poorer foreign peers, and so it turns out many of us liberal-minded college grads are enjoying our own protectionist boost.
In this case, it seems the moral outrage is... well, we seem to be keeping it to ourselves.
Jagow: Will Wilkinson is a research fellow at the Cato Institute.
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I worked for an internet startup targeting ip-addresses with billions of selective banner ads. Most of the others in this skilled market were Chinese citizens. However, their presence did not depress my wage. Instead, the market for statistical design strategists is quickly becoming more specialized. The more foreign skilled workers, the more the skilled market specializes and the higher the wages rise. If specialization runs faster than the supply of skilled foreign workers, skilled workers actually benefit with higher wages. If specialization does not keep up, then, of course, the wages of skilled workers would fall. So far it appears that companies are getting more and more picky about getting exactly the right background (e.g. specialist in Bayesian decision trees with experience in marketing). It looks like wages of at least some highly skilled workers will actually benefit from the specialization make possible by more foreign skilled workers.
It is all about cheap [foreign] labor
and "HOW NOT THE HIRE AN AMERICAN WORKER" !
Want more?
then you need to watch this video:
www.youtube.com/programmersguild
and why aren't the presidential candidates, most in congress discussing the above?
OOOH.. Oh I know. Too busy selling out American workers to the cheap labor lobby.
For some music:
www.madnamerica.com
I've got to say the most horrifying part of the article was not the baseless arguments resulting in the importation of cheap labor to reduce salaries for skilled workers, it was that Obama and McCain are behind increasing the H1-B cap! Now who am I going to vote for?
I amy beyond sick of the so-called "experts" that NPR dredges up for this kind of "informed opinion." Characters who, six months ago, told us that the economy was strong because "home ownership" was at an all-time high. Do you know the meaning of the term "ownership?" To a sentient person, it would mean debt-free. "Borrower-ship" is not ownership, dumbass.
We have been cursed with Marketplace bozos who claim that federal and state examiners would not improve securities honesty, corporate competence, or workplace safety. The argument was that CEOs are paid millions to do these jobs, so low paid examiners would have no chance of knowing the business better than their highly paid corporate opponents. Bull! If you can find a CEO who knows anything about the day-to-day operation of the company he is mismanaging, you'll have found a corporate unicorn.
Now, the next Marketplace dimbulb claims that driving down the salaries of the few middle class tech jobs will be good for low income workers by adding company to their misery. Where do you find these nitwits? Our education system has been devalued, mismanaged, and kidnapped by the superstitious right and the inbred inherited rich and you want to make up for that crime by importing more illegal labor? Perfect. Brilliant. Why not by Nero a new fiddle while you're at it?
Here's an idea. Only accept business commentary from people who have actually held a job (not in phantasy fields like "business mismanagement, economics, or marketing, but go for engineering and customer service experts), created a successful business from scratch, or someone who actually "turned around" a business without scorching the earth under its employees.
Personally, I don't want to hear another word from one of your inbred trust fund brats. In fact, possessing a trust fund should be solid evidence of unfamiliarity and incompetence in the real world.
I think you've got it mixed up, Will. I liked the little dig at liberals at the end of your commentary. Actually, I didn't, and I'm going to tell you why. I'm one of those educated liberals who happens to like a little "protectionism", and there's no hypocrisy with me. I'd like to see some for less skilled workers as well. It's conservatives who are hypocrites in this regard. They want less "protectionism", but they are not outraged over the limits on HB-1 visas. Your little dig was way off mark.
Mr. Wilkinson's initial premise seems to be "Pay Inequality" as though no matter what your skills, capability, work ethic, etc. You should be paid the same as everyone else. And then he goes on to suggest a way to create that situation by seeking out good paying jobs and finding a way to destroy their value through the political process.
I don't consider myself a protectionist because globalization does increase the overall wealth of our nation. Unfortunately the system is set up so that a vast majority of that wealth goes to a small group at the very top. We need to change that but not through draconian taxes on the rich or artificial job market adjustments using H1 Visas. Corporate America has long complained that they can't find the skilled workers they need..." Let me finish that sentence for them "At the price they are comfortable paying."
I would suggest we not increase the H1 Visa limits because it will not only impact the current work force but create a disincentive for students to invest in the difficult fields of study which are the math and sciences.
We also need to find a way to tax imports directly and funnel the proceeds into infrastructure that will give American workers the ability to compete and thrive in the global market. Improvements in: Education, Transportation, Information Technology and Property Rights are all areas that would improve the Standard of Living for all Americans and not just the few at the top.
Mr. Wilkinson's cause would be better served if he focused on how to lift up the standard of living of those he feels are on the back side of wage inequality instead of focusing on how to harm those that he feels are flourishing unjustly.
Cato is asking you to agree to your own impoverishment.
These weaklings are peddling fear and corporate protectionism. "Else they will compete against us" -- so Cato's idea is to just quit, concluding we have already lost.
Read between the lines, Cato is saying you should step aside, encourage the non-immigrant to take your job, hyper-inflate your housing costs, raise your kids and sleep with your spouse.
Cato, "Too many nations are already prosperous -- we can't allow any more of that."
My questions to Congressman Lungren, pending a response, are here:
http://www.programmersguild.org/docs/congressman_lungren_7july2008.html
Perhaps Will would like to give a shot at responding.
If I understand "research fellow" Will's reason for wanting to increase the H-1b visa, it is to reduce the "wage inequity between skilled and unskilled workers in the USA - by intentionally driving down the wages of skilled workers? Well first of all IT wages have been dropping for the past 8 years, adjusted for inflation. LCA filings for H-1b workers are on average $55,000 per year - is that the wage ceiling that CATO is trying to set for U.S. professional workers - by manipulating the "free market" supply/demand forces (within the USA) that would set wages. IF tech wages started to rise again, THEN more students would enter the profession.
My Congressman Lungren wants to raise the H-1b Cap due to a labor shortage. I've challenged his office to NAME ONE job that is unfilled in this district due to the current H-1b cap. So far no response. NOT ONE!!! Check the classified ads in your area - how many tech jobs are listed? What is the salary? Are there ANY "entry-level" for new grads?
- Kim Berry, president www.programmersguild.org
The real story is that the proliferation of H1B visas, outsourcing, hostility to organized labor and other practices have decoupled wage gains from productivity. In Scottish MP Ian Welsh's analysis: (http://firedoglake.com/2008/07/13/there-was-a-class-war-the-rich-won-it/) "There Was a Class War. The Rich Won It", facts and graphs show that increased productivity has not been returned to the workers as higher wages.
Why do you let people lie to us?
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