There could be some rare edge case where you are undercut by a direct competitor, but overall America is much richer with H1Bs that without them.
A few select tech and financial services companies, and their shareholders, benefit the most from the program.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/03/04/what-we-k...
If 150,000 people buy the app, then I have ~$150,000 of revenue. I can pay a programmer $100,000 a year and have $50,000 left over. 150,000 people benefited from the app.
Now say I have to pay an additional $100,000 visa fee for my programmer. My cost of $200,000 is less than my revenue of $150,000. I don't build the app. I don't get $50,000. 150,000 people who would have bought the app don't benefit from it. The biggest loss is to the Americans who don't get to buy the app.
There are other possibilities, maybe I increase the price to $1.99 or I hire an American. We can see that those are both bad. The former extracts $150,000 extra dollars from American consumers. Since unemployment is low for Americans and an American programmer can't have two jobs at once, the later just means that some other project that the American programmer would have worked on is not completed.
https://www.epi.org/blog/tech-and-outsourcing-companies-cont...
https://www.epi.org/publication/new-evidence-widespread-wage...
The American electric car market is never kickstarted, none of the American employees of SpaceX or Tesla are hired, there is no space renaissance.
Keeping out Elon Musk is somewhat good for United Launch Alliance and for Ford, but it's worse for all the Americans who have to buy worse cars and pay more for satellite internet.
Are they underpaid, or are they swimming in cash to buy up all the expensive housing? Make up your mind.
https://www.bankrate.com/real-estate/home-affordability-in-c...
