To: H-1B/L-1/offshoring e-newsletter

Thu Jul  4 18:35:10 PDT 2013


A number of people have brought to my attention the Will Oremus column
on Slate, "The Real Reason Silicon Valley Tech Workers Are Fighting
Immigration Reform," at

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/07/03/immigration_reform_and_h_1b_v
isas_silicon_valley_workers_threatened_by_highly.html       

Normally, I would not mention such a column here, as it is 100%
invective, not reasoning.  It accuses anti-H-1B tech workers of being
xenophobes who simply don't like "furriners."  Other than to point out
that many of those who are most opposed to expansion of H-1B are
foreign-born themselves (one does reach one's 35th birthday regardless
of where one is born, and then becomes vulnerable to being shunned by
employers who younger H-1B), I would normally have no comment.

However, several people have asked me to comment on this passage in
Oremus' screed:  "...a Brookings study found that H1-B workers in the
tech industry make 26 percent more than their American counterparts."

Note to my valued readers:  I ALREADY COMMENTED ON THE BROOKINGS STUDY.
I did so in

http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/Archive/BrookingsFlawedStudy.txt

in which I pointed out the severe flaws in the Brookings study.  (Turns
out that there are even more, discovered later by Hal Salzman.)  These
are not subtleties or issues on which reasonable people might disagree;
on the contrary, they are points that any solid researcher, regardless
of ideology, would agree are serious errors.

I urge you to keep this in mind, because Brookings, with its prominence,
will have its badly flawed findings repeated again and again.  Indeed,
even the blog by Ben Popper, which Oremus contemptuously considers
overly pro-tech worker, cites the Brookings study too.

Well, it's partly my own fault.  In my posting at the above URL, I
decided to make it a combination research critique cum statistics
lesson.  I was taught long ago the first rule of journalism--"Don't bury
your lead," and by mixing in material on statistics (the most hated
topic in all of college curricula, a guaranteed turnoff), I did dilute
the material on the Brookings study.

If you want to see why the Brookings research was so flawed, I refer you
to the above URL.  I also urge you to read that post again because I
state there, as elsewhere, a central point: the issue of underpayment
of foreign workers has already been settled, by simple economic theory
(or common sense) applied to the immobility of many of the foreign
workers.  (Basically, all the ones being sponsored for a green card, as
well as the ones hoping for sponsorship etc.)  People who are immobile
can't move in the labor market to swing the best salary deal.
Therefore, on average, they will be underpaid relative to their true
market worth.  

Norm


Archived at http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/Archive/SlateOremus.txt