Who Gets to Compete for an American Job?

Almost every argument about skilled immigration rests on a proposition that nobody in it disputes. The job should go to the person best able to do it. Progressives say it. Libertarians say it. Most conservatives say it. The fights are about numbers, enforcement and paperwork, never about the principle underneath.

The principle is incomplete as usually stated. Best able to do it among whom?

Merit among whom

Meritocracy is a rule for distributing positions inside a group whose membership has already been settled. It says nothing about who belongs to the group. A firm that hires on merit still hires from its applicants. A university that admits on merit still admits from its applicants. In every case the pool exists before the rule is applied, and something other than merit decides the pool.

For a country, immigration and work-authorization rules help decide the pool. Citizenship is part of that system, alongside the existing rights of permanent residents and other authorized workers. Expanding overseas recruitment changes who employers can hire and the alternatives available to people already seeking work here.

Both halves are defensible on their own. A country can run a merit standard among its own people. A country can also open itself to the world and admit that jobs will go abroad or to arrivals. What cannot be done is to hold both at once and pretend the second changes nothing about the first.

The size of the pool

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IndiaAbout 2.5 million

ChinaAbout 2.0 million

United StatesAbout 900,000

Source: NSF NCSES, The State of US Science and Engineering 2024; linked below.

Chart source: Science and engineering first degrees in 2020.

UNFPA estimated the United States population at about 347 million in 2025, roughly 4.2% of the world's population.^[1] That is about twenty-three residents elsewhere for every U.S. resident. These are population counts, including children and noncitizens, rather than counts of competing workers.

In 2020, India awarded about 2.5 million science and engineering first university degrees, China 2.0 million and the United States 900,000, according to NSF.^[2] The United States accounts for about one-sixth of this three-country total. These counts describe the scale of degree production, not the number of graduates seeking American jobs or a ranking of their abilities.

Allowing employers to recruit abroad expands the potential applicant pool beyond American workers. The number of additional competitors depends on the occupation, qualifications and visa rules. Population and degree totals show the scale of the countries involved; they do not count the applicants for a particular American job.

Employers usually do not have to recruit Americans first

An H-1B approval is often presented as evidence that an employer needed skills unavailable at home. The application process generally does not establish that.

The Labor Department's inspector general found that employers did not have to recruit U.S. workers for 96% of H-1B applications filed in the 2019 federal reporting year. Its November 2020 report also explained that the program does not require a shortage of U.S. workers in the occupation.^[3] This measures the absence of a recruitment obligation. It does not mean that 96% of employers refused to consider Americans.

The department's January 2025 guidance says domestic recruitment is generally required only of H-1B-dependent employers and employers previously found to have willfully violated program requirements.^[4] Even those additional obligations generally do not apply to applications exclusively covering exempt workers: those paid at least $60,000 annually or holding a related master's degree or higher.^[5]

A company can therefore receive permission to hire through the program without first demonstrating that a qualified domestic applicant was unavailable. If the policy objective is to fill shortages, a record of recruitment, offered wages and rejected applicants would provide evidence the present approval alone cannot supply.

What the wage figures establish

The Economic Policy Institute's analysis of Labor Department data found that 60% of H-1B positions certified in 2019 were assigned the two lowest prevailing-wage levels: 14% at Level 1 and 46% at Level 2. The same combined share applied to the thirty largest H-1B employers. These are historical certification data, not a measurement of today's workforce.^[6]

A certified position is not necessarily an approved visa or a filled job. Its prevailing-wage level sets a minimum; an employer may offer more. The distribution alone cannot establish that 60% of workers received below-median pay.^[6]

Employers must pay the higher of the applicable prevailing wage and their actual wage for comparable employees with similar experience and qualifications.^[8] Compliance and the adequacy of the wage floor are separate issues. A lawful salary can still leave a policy question about the terms on which employers should receive permission to recruit abroad.

USCIS reported median annual compensation of $120,000 for H-1B beneficiaries approved in the federal reporting year ending September 2024.^[7] A subsequent Homeland Security proposal, citing USCIS's 2025 report, put the following year's median at $133,000.^[11] These substantial salaries undermine any description of the entire program as low-paid labor. They also combine different occupations, locations and career stages. Neither national median settles whether a particular employer pays less than it would need to offer to recruit a comparable worker locally.

The useful comparison is the offered compensation against pay for the same work, experience and location, alongside the employer's recruitment record. That would test claims of scarce skills more directly than either a high national salary or a low prevailing-wage classification.

A larger economy and workers' living standards

Treating the United States as an economic zone means judging admissions principally by the additional production, customers and workers they bring. A government accountable to its citizens also needs to examine who receives the gains and who faces additional competition.

CBO's July 2024 analysis illustrates the distinction. It projected that the immigration surge would raise real GDP by 2.9% in 2034 and reduce cumulative federal deficits by about $900 billion over 2024–2034. It also projected slower wage growth through 2026 for existing workers with twelve or fewer years of education. Later productivity gains were projected to more than offset those short-term wage effects.^[9]

These were conditional projections about a broad immigration surge, not observed outcomes or an H-1B evaluation. CBO's February 2026 outlook revised immigration downward and reduced its previously projected boost to output.^[10] The earlier study remains useful for its distinction between total production and effects on different workers; its figures should not be presented as the current forecast.

Neither aggregate GDP nor a national average wage can answer whether an American entering a particular occupation benefits. The assessment should include starting salaries, hiring rates, employer-funded training and earnings over time. Where admissions are justified by shortages, those outcomes should be tracked in the occupations receiving workers.

Immigrants also buy goods, start businesses and contribute skills that can increase demand for other workers. Counting every arriving worker as one lost American job would ignore those effects. A defensible restriction argument must identify where the recruitment rules or wage incentives fail, then show how the proposed change would improve outcomes.

A nation is not a labor market

Citizenship gives people a political claim on the institutions that govern their lives. The case for giving citizens' opportunities weight does not depend on asserting that only citizens pay taxes or bear public obligations. People already lawfully employed here also have rights that an admissions policy must respect.

An employer choosing the most attractive applicant answers a business question. Congress deciding the conditions for overseas recruitment answers a public one. The employer weighs its own costs and benefits; public policy must also consider training incentives, workers' bargaining power and the ability of communities to absorb growth.

A country can welcome exceptional skills while requiring an employer to make a serious offer to its existing workforce first. That is a choice about the obligations attached to recruiting abroad. It does not require a judgment about the ancestry or worth of an applicant.

Set the pool before judging the applicants

Nation of Settlers favors lower admissions and stronger priority for domestic workers. The evidence here supports concrete changes to how employment admissions are justified. It does not calculate an optimal immigration total or establish how many current jobs Americans would fill under different rules.

Congress should require documented domestic recruitment before approving specialty-worker petitions, with narrow, published exceptions for demonstrable shortages. Employers should disclose the pay offered, the recruitment period and job-related reasons for rejecting qualified applicants. The recruitment requirement should protect the legally defined U.S. workforce, including permanent residents.^[4]

Wage requirements should make employers test their shortage claims with competitive offers. Enforcement should compare job duties, location and experience, and audit whether workers actually receive the promised pay. A higher wage threshold may screen out some lower-value applications, but salary alone cannot prove that no domestic worker is available.

The standard should be clear before employers select applicants: what must a company demonstrate before the government expands its hiring pool? Requiring evidence of recruitment and competitive pay gives that decision substance. Calling the successful applicant meritorious does not answer it.