When the current H1B standard was set up, a wage level of 60 or 65K was set in 1989 as the marker for high-paid, essential jobs we can’t fill in the US. That number hasn’t been adjusted since then. You’re right—that’s not the level of an essential job.
Today, an H1B shop can hire an Indian or Chinese computer worker with a Master’s or PH.D for that same salary to compete with American STEM graduates. The catch—which makes it a non-meritocratic system, and is de-STEM-ing the US—is that once an H1B is hired, he has to stay on the job for 3 or 4 years. If he loses the job he leaves the country.
The reason Americans can’t compete is that unscrupulous companies will pile work on so it’s routinely a 70 or 75 hour week. So, each H1B you hire is working 1.5x time (there’s no overtime for salaried professionals).
That’s not what an American STEM graduate signed on for. He wants a professional job—maybe 50 hours on average with occasional bursts, not non-stop indentured servitude. And, if you’re American, you’re likely to experience discrimination in your own country as the foreign-run shop has managers who don’t like you and will promote their countrymen first.
I got this from one of my kids, who worked at an H1B shop in Houston, programming for an oil exploration company named CGG. I believe him.
You'd hear wailing and gnashing of teeth in Silly Korn Alley as these petulant billionaires scramble a little to hire Americans. So what.