On April 3, 2017, the job search company Glassdoor posted an article titled "Dispelling Myths: What H1B Visa Workers Are Really Paid". It was written by their Chief Economist, Dr. Andrew Chamberlain and mentioned that a then new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research and that "it was widely reported in media as showing H1B visas hurt wages for American workers." It went on to describe its own study as follows:
To answer this, we looked at a large sample of salaries from H1B visa applications and compared them to similar U.S. salaries reported on Glassdoor. We looked at the most recent year available - federal fiscal year 2016 - and focused on 10 major U.S. cities, comparing pay for U.S. and foreign H1B workers for the same job titles.
The bottom line: Across the 10 cities and roughly 100 jobs we examined, salaries for foreign H1B workers are about 2.8 percent higher than comparable U.S. salaries on Glassdoor. While it may be true that an influx of H1B workers in the 1990s hurt computer science wages, there's no evidence in the data on Glassdoor that H1B workers today represent a source of "cheap" labor paid any lower than comparable U.S. workers.
This page describes problems with the 2016 study. One problem was that it categorized the H-1B jobs using the JOB_TITLE field rather than the standarized SOC_NAME field. Also, the data is now 3 years older than the latest available data. The following uses the standardized SOC_NAME field to compare the H-1B salaries with Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) salaries for U.S. workers and uses the latest available data from 2019.
The following table shows the 15 job categories with the most Labor Condition Applications (LCAs) in 2019 and lists their names in the H-1B and BLS system, along with the number of H-1B Labor Condition Applications (LCAs) and total workers requested for each category:
Total H1B Total H1B
Workers LCAs H1B SOC_NAME Bureau of Labor Statistics
--------- --------- ------------------------------------------ -----------------------------------------------------------------------
640540 194060 SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS, APPLICATIONS Software Developers and Software Quality Assurance Analysts and Testers
422613 51200 COMPUTER OCCUPATIONS, ALL OTHER Computer Occupations, All Other
40593 40593 COMPUTER SYSTEMS ANALYST Computer Systems Analysts
288982 28315 SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS, SYSTEMS SOFTWARE NA
53864 28097 COMPUTER SYSTEMS ANALYSTS (combined with Computer Systems Analysts above)
23592 14799 COMPUTER PROGRAMMERS Computer Programmers
26839 10799 OPERATIONS RESEARCH ANALYSTS Operations Research Analysts
26026 10337 MECHANICAL ENGINEERS Mechanical Engineers
15210 10160 ACCOUNTANTS AND AUDITORS Accountants and Auditors
19457 9328 MANAGEMENT ANALYSTS Management Analysts
11975 8560 FINANCIAL ANALYSTS Financial and Investment Analysts, Financial Risk Specialists, and Financial Specialists, All Other
43376 8544 COMPUTER AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS MANAGER Computer and Information Systems Managers
50493 8340 STATISTICIANS Statisticians
11641 8107 DATABASE ADMINISTRATORS Database Administrators and Architects
17423 7316 ELECTRICAL ENGINEERS Electrical Engineers
Note: NA denotes a Glassdoor Job Title that has no BLS Job Title equivalent
The following three graphs and tables show that the median salaries of three major specific job categories (Software Developers, Computer Systems Analysts, and Computer Programmers). For those and the following job category (Accountants and Auditors), H-1B workers appear to earn less in 40 out of 43 cases. In those three cases, they made about the same or slightly more. H-1B workers also appeared to generally make less for the last two job categories (computer & information systems manager and electrical engineer) though the difference is not quite so clear. In any case, there doesn't seem to be anything in the data that supports the conclusion of the 2016 Glassdoor report that "H1B Visa Workers Earn 2.8 Percent More than Comparable U.S. Workers". On the contrary, it seems that H1B Visa Workers generally make less, at least the median workers.
SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS, APPLICATIONS - Median Salary, 2019
City BLS H1B LCAs
1 Atlanta 104,562 100,000 368
2 Boston 113,963 100,000 1,865
3 Chicago 102,274 87,464 3,885
4 Houston 105,539 92,218 276
5 Los Angeles 120,432 98,654 779
6 New York 117,686 120,000 754
7 Philadelphia 103,730 99,000 166
8 San Francisco 140,962 135,550 5,842
9 San Jose 141,544 115,000 3,217
10 Seattle 137,280 131,600 5,019
11 D.C. 115,523 94,000 107
COMPUTER SYSTEMS ANALYST - Median Salary, 2019
City BLS H1B LCAs
12 Atlanta 89,274 74,734 175
13 Boston 94,765 81,980 553
14 Chicago 87,630 75,900 1,677
15 Houston 106,683 88,701 95
16 Los Angeles 101,941 87,901 366
17 New York 105,685 108,000 223
18 Philadelphia 101,442 81,598 155
19 San Francisco 120,182 102,898 953
20 San Jose 118,602 96,800 798
21 Seattle 105,102 88,192 377
22 D.C. 104,686 87,402 33
COMPUTER PROGRAMMER - Median Salary, 2019
City BLS H1B LCAs
23 Atlanta 88,109 71,900 32
24 Boston 96,782 82,014 51
25 Chicago 91,291 68,300 285
26 Houston 99,216 70,845 31
27 Los Angeles 94,162 77,002 62
28 New York 92,102 77,100 30
29 Philadelphia 93,974 74,526 7
30 San Francisco 114,067 87,714 173
31 San Jose 113,006 85,883 312
32 Seattle NA 107,141 13
33 D.C. 100,880 82,000 8
ACCOUNTANTS AND AUDITORS - Median Salary, 2019
City BLS H1B LCAs
34 Atlanta 74,880 64,544 18
35 Boston 77,875 68,302 260
36 Chicago 71,968 65,915 376
37 Houston 76,045 70,658 22
38 Los Angeles 72,571 66,893 373
39 New York 90,709 80,600 113
40 Philadelphia 76,669 71,250 14
41 San Francisco 84,677 85,000 531
42 San Jose 83,678 78,499 345
43 Seattle 85,966 82,000 209
44 D.C. 85,966 76,482 7
COMPUTER AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS MANAGER - Median Salary, 2019
City BLS H1B LCAs
45 Atlanta 144,664 125,700 21
46 Boston 151,840 153,000 128
47 Chicago 144,414 130,246 224
48 Houston 150,197 175,453 4
49 Los Angeles 161,242 163,072 47
50 New York 180,669 180,500 72
51 Philadelphia 150,072 115,387 28
52 San Francisco 189,072 176,500 668
53 San Jose 198,224 172,000 238
54 Seattle 158,309 152,900 725
55 D.C. 164,195 186,500 2*
DATABASE ADMINISTRATOR - Median Salary, 2019
City BLS H1B LCAs
111 Atlanta 101,213 80,000 15
112 Boston 105,477 92,518 70
113 Chicago 100,818 81,000 149
114 Houston 97,573 95,000 11
115 Los Angeles 92,893 92,445 56
116 New York 110,510 102,900 39
117 Philadelphia 90,459 77,000 4
118 San Francisco 102,128 106,683 170
119 San Jose 138,486 101,379 138
120 Seattle 117,333 115,250 66
121 D.C. 104,354 92,160 9
ELECTRICAL ENGINEER - Median Salary, 2019
City BLS H1B LCAs
56 Atlanta 93,850 94,978 4
57 Boston 115,981 96,574 17
58 Chicago 96,034 78,104 39
59 Houston 104,208 104,187 15
60 Los Angeles 113,027 75,555 28
61 New York 109,283 80,507 2*
62 Philadelphia 101,920 NA 0*
63 San Francisco 122,346 125,795 50
64 San Jose 133,390 117,000 261
65 Seattle 116,563 101,667 21
66 D.C. 123,344 119,509 4
* H1B median salaries are not graphed when they come from less than 3 Labor Condition Applications (LCAs). BLS median salaries are equal to the median hourly wage multiplied by 2080 (40 hours/week * 52 weeks).
H1B numbers for 2019: Disclosure File, Program Record Layout BLS numbers for May 2019: Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA Boston-Cambridge-Nashua, MA-NH Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN-WI Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land, TX Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, CA San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV