5/23/2013 9:35:59 AM
Topic:
Gross Unfairness of the US Tax System
Onward
Posts: 179
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Chart Reveals Just How Grossly Unfair The U.S. Tax System Has Become
By Mark Gongloff, Huffington Post, 05/22/2013
Apple CEO Tim Cook waved a magic wand in front of America on Tuesday, vanishing our outrage over how shamelessly companies avoid paying taxes, leaving the rest of us to foot the bill. As a public service to you, here is a chart that should enrage you about corporate tax rates all over again! (Story continues below chart of RAGE.)
Notice the beige stripe that is shrinking steadily? That stripe is the percentage corporate taxes contribute to total federal revenue. And notice the olive-green stripe that has swollen to be larger than the beige stripe used to be? That is the contribution of payroll taxes to federal revenue.
What this shows is how dramatically corporate tax contributions have shrunk in the past several decades, and how our personal taxes have risen to fill the gap. Payroll taxes now make up 35 percent of all federal government tax receipts, up from 11 percent in 1950. Corporate income taxes, meanwhile, now make up less than 10 percent of federal revenue, down from about 26 percent in 1950.
To 'splain those numbers a little more clearly: We who are on the payrolls of companies now bear way more of a tax burden than those companies bore decades ago. Those companies, meanwhile, bear less of a burden than we ever did.
And this doesn't include individual income tax, which accounts for about 46 percent of total federal tax receipts, roughly the same as 60 years ago.
Update: This chart of course does not reflect the fact that employers typically cover half of the payroll taxes collected by the government. Assuming companies pay half of the payroll taxes in this chart, the total tax burden for individual Americans is reduced to about 63 percent of total federal revenue, instead of 81 percent, as I estimated in an earlier version of this story. But that is up from about 45 percent in 1950.
And the total corporate contribution to federal revenue, including employers' share of payroll taxes, has dwindled from 32 percent in 1950 to about 17 percent today. Employer contributions to payroll taxes make the unfairness of the tax code slightly less unfair, but the trend is still clear and dramatic: Corporations are paying a lot less than they used to.
This chart was produced for a September 2012 report (download-y PDF file) about corporate tax avoidance by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Walter Hickey of Business Insider helpfully republished the chart on Tuesday, in honor of Cook's testimony before the same subcommittee.
Cook was there to techsplain how Apple holding $102 billion of cash offshore isn't really tax avoidance so much as good old fashioned ingenuity. Also, have you forgotten the shiny objects Apple makes (including the dreamy MacBook Air on which this here story was typed)? By the end of the hearing, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) had demanded that Congress apologize to Apple for the inconvenience, and Sen. John McCain (R-My Lawn) was reduced to gently jibing Cook about how often he has to update his apps.
And Rand Paul is kind of right, you guys, as is Tim Cook: We should not be so mad at Apple for doing what the law allows. We should be mad that the law allows Apple and other companies to keep billions of dollars of cash offshore and out of the government coffers, where it could be helping the unemployed and our crumbling infrastructure and such. Another thing we can get mad about is how the "corporate tax reform" that Cook and other corporate leaders are always banging on about will actually serve to make it so companies pay even less in taxes than they do now.
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5/23/2013 8:53:54 AM
Topic:
Crimes at the DOJ
Onward
Posts: 179
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Too-Big-To-Jail Dogs Obama's Justice Department As Government Documents Raise Questions
By Shahien Nasiripour, Huffington Post, 05/22/2013
The U.S. Department of Justice appears to have neither conducted nor received any analyses that would show whether criminal charges against large financial institutions would harm the economy, potentially undermining a key DOJ argument for why the world’s biggest banks have escaped indictment.
Testimony by a top Justice official and fresh documents made public on Wednesday during a House financial services committee hearing revealed that financial regulators and the Treasury Department did not provide warnings to prosecutors weighing the economic consequences or fallout in the financial system of criminal indictments against large financial groups. DOJ also could find no records that would substantiate its previous claims that it weighed potentially negative economic or financial impacts when considering criminal charges, said Mythili Raman, acting assistant attorney general for the criminal division.
Wednesday’s revelations are likely to increase criticism of the Obama administration, which has been accused of a lackluster enforcement record against big banks in the financial crisis and other matters.
It also may put further pressure on the Justice Department to strengthen future prosecutions. Recently, instead of filing criminal charges against large financial groups, federal prosecutors have begun to file criminal cases against subsidiaries. Observers including lawyers at Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, a top defense firm, have warned that Justice may expand its limited use of criminal indictments in part due to public pressure.
Leading Democratic and Republican lawmakers, including Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), have pilloried the administration for its approach, which they allege has been focused on settlements at the expense of justice.
The lawmakers, and others, may be encouraged to apply even more public pressure on efforts to crack down on big banks. Past missteps by the Obama administration and by big banks have added momentum to efforts to forcibly break up large financial groups.
The hearing comes as DOJ, Treasury and financial regulators battle perceptions that they consider some large financial institutions are either too big or too important to the economy to fail. Congressional Republicans and some leading current and former regulators have claimed that the 2010 law overhauling financial regulation known as Dodd-Frank failed to end “too-big-to-fail.” The Obama administration and most regulators insist that if the problem has not yet been solved, it soon will be.
Attorney General Eric Holder told Congress in March that some banks were “too large,” impeding attempts to bring criminal prosecutions. Holder's comment is perhaps the most explicit public admission of concern by a senior Obama administration official regarding big banks.
Though Holder has since attempted to walk back those comments, at the time he said that the size of large financial institutions “has an inhibiting influence -- impact on our ability to bring resolutions that I think would be more appropriate.” He further told lawmakers: “And I think that is something that we -- you all -- need to consider.”
DOJ officials have previously defended the lack of criminal charges against banks suspected of wrongdoing in large part by pointing to the so-called “collateral consequences” associated with filing a criminal indictment against a leading financial institution.
Two examples occurred in December, when HSBC, the U.K. banking giant, settled allegations that it violated U.S. sanctions and facilitated the movement across the U.S. financial system of tainted money by Mexican drug cartels, and UBS, the Swiss bank, settled claims it manipulated world interest rates.
At the Justice Department’s news conference to announce the HSBC settlement, Lanny Breuer, then-assistant attorney general for the criminal division, was asked why the agency did not pursue a criminal indictment.
“If you think that by doing a certain thing you risk either a charter being revoked, you think that counterparties in a massive financial institution may go away, you think that there is a risk that many, many innocent people will be harmed from a resolution,” Breuer said, “and by another resolution you think you can mitigate the risk of innocent people suffering, the economy being affected, and you can hone in on those and the institutions and address the issues underlying. To the Department of Justice, that's a very real factor, and so it is a factor you consider.”
Asked whether jobs were a factor in DOJ’s decision, Breuer replied: “Collateral consequences were absolutely a factor.”
Criminal charges in the financial services industry can be the equivalent of a corporate death sentence. The failure of Arthur Andersen, one of the five largest accounting firms in the U.S., was due to a criminal indictment related to accounting fraud at Enron.
During a separate news conference to announce the UBS settlement, Breuer said: “In the world today of large institutions where much of the financial world is based on confidence, one of the things we want to ensure as we come forward to a right resolution is to ensure that counterparties don't flee an institution, that jobs are not lost, that there is not some world economic event that is disproportionate to the resolution we want.”
Holder then stepped in and quickly added: "The impact on the stability of the financial markets around the world is something we take into consideration. We reach out to experts outside of the Justice Department to talk about what are the consequences of actions that we might take, what would be the impact of those actions if we want to make particular prosecutive decisions or determinations with regards to a particular institution."
In letters to Congress from the Treasury Department, Federal Reserve and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, made public by McHenry, top financial policymakers said they could find no records of such analyses that had been shared with DOJ.
In one letter, Tom Curry, OCC chief, said that Breuer had contacted him prior to the agency’s settlement with HSBC, but all he did was explain to Breuer during a single phone call how the agency revoked banks’ charters, or their legal license to operate.
In another, Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve chairman, said that in the HSBC case, all that the Fed and DOJ discussed was how to “better coordinate information sharing”.
“This meeting did not include discussion of the views of the Federal Reserve on collateral consequences of prosecuting any institution, either specifically or as a general matter,” Bernanke added.
Alastair Fitzpayne, Treasury assistant secretary for legislative affairs, told Congress: “We have not identified any analyses prepared by the Department of the Treasury for the DOJ regarding the potential prosecution of large, complex financial institutions.”
During a March hearing, David Cohen, Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said that DOJ had asked Treasury for “guidance” on the potential impact a criminal charge against HSBC could have on the financial system.
Cohen said Treasury told DOJ it was “not in a position to offer any meaningful guidance.”
Treasury documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by Public Citizen, an advocacy group, appear to show that the agency made no attempt to conduct any such examination internally.
The letters, testimony and documents obtained by Public Citizen and shared with The Huffington Post, appear to undermine a separate May letter to McHenry from Peter Kadzik, Justice principal deputy assistant attorney general, in which he told McHenry that DOJ has “contacted relevant government agencies to discuss such issues.”
“Those government agencies include domestic regulators, as well as foreign regulators where the financial institution is multi-national or is otherwise based,” Kadzik wrote.
DOJ's Raman said Wednesday that the agency had not found any internal records concerning threats to the economy or the financial system when weighing criminal indictments against big banks in past cases. She also said the agency could not locate any such documents from U.S. or foreign regulators.
Breuer did not return a call seeking comment.
DOJ representatives declined to comment beyond Raman’s testimony.
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5/22/2013 6:53:25 PM
Topic:
Billionaire Kochs Get Taxpayer-Subsidized Security
TheTaxMan
Posts: 68
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Billionaire Kochs Get Taxpayer-Subsidized Security Protection
By Pam Martens, Wall Street On Parade, May 21, 2013
Yesterday, DBA Press and the Center for Media and Democracy released a stunning report showing how counter terrorism units and the Department of Homeland Security gathered intelligence on the Occupy Wall Street movement for the benefit of the very corporations targeted by the protesters.
Titled, Dissent or Terror: How the Nation’s Counter Terrorism Apparatus, In Partnership with Corporate America, Turned on Occupy Wall Street, the year-long investigation is based on the collection of thousands of pages of records obtained from counter terrorism and law enforcement agencies.
One of the revelations of the report is that Koch Industries, as well as billionaire Charles Koch and his son, Chase Koch, hired off-duty Wichita, Kansas police officers that served as their own private security force at the company and their personal residences in mid February 2012. According to the report: “These dates coincide with Occupy Wichita’s ‘Occupy Koch Town’ events, held from February 17 through 19, 2012.” Koch Industries, one of the largest private and most secretive corporations in the world is headquartered in Wichita. Charles Koch and his brother, David, are majority owners of Koch Industries and regularly pilloried in the press for funding corporate front groups that use the taxpayer subsidized nonprofit structure to push a deregulatory agenda.
Wichita police receive their training, guns, equipment, uniforms and benefits from the taxpayer. Lawsuits and liability borne from their activities also accrue to the taxpayer. Setting up a program which allows billionaires to hire armed, off-duty municipal police with the power to arrest is akin to the Praetorian Guard that protected Roman Emperors; do the police owe their fealty to the billionaires or the public interest?
On October 10, 2011, we reported on a similar program in New York City called the Paid Detail. The program began under Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in 1998. It permits the New York Stock Exchange and Wall Street corporations, including those repeatedly charged with crimes, to hire municipal police. At the time of our 2011 report, the corporations were paying an average of $37 an hour (no medical, no pension benefit, no overtime pay) for a member of the NYPD, with uniform, gun, handcuffs and the ability to arrest. The officer is indemnified by the taxpayer, not the corporation.
When Wall Street investment bank, Lehman Brothers, collapsed on September 15, 2008, its bankruptcy filings in 2009 showed it owed money to 21 members of the NYPD’s Paid Detail Unit. Other Wall Street firms that are known to have used the Paid Detail include Goldman Sachs, the World Financial Center complex which houses financial firms, and the New York Stock Exchange.
When Occupy Wall Street protesters attempted to demonstrate near the New York Stock Exchange, they were clubbed with night sticks, kicked in the face and carted off to jail. We don’t know if some of these brutal actions were conducted by the Paid Detail showing their fealty to their Wall Street masters. A deeply unsettling video of the NYPD suppressing dissent and brutalizing peaceful protesters was provided to the court in the Federal civil rights case, Rodriguez v. Winski. In 2004, Robert Britz, then President and Co-Chief Operating Officer of the New York Stock Exchange, told a congressional committee that the Stock Exchange had “established a 24-hour NYPD Paid Detail monitoring the perimeter of the data centers.”
The report released yesterday by DBA Press and the Center for Media and Democracy, showing coordination between law enforcement and corporate interests to suppress the public’s right to dissent and to seek a realignment of their democracy away from those very corporate interests, builds on the frightening fusion of police power and Wall Street interests described in our 2011 investigation of the Lower Manhattan Security Coordination Center. Built with hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, Wall Street personnel sit alongside the NYPD and other law enforcement, using the most advanced surveillance equipment to spy on law abiding citizens on the streets of Manhattan.
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5/22/2013 6:46:58 PM
Topic:
The Myth of America's Tech-Talent Shortage
TheTaxMan
Posts: 68
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The Myth of America's Tech-Talent Shortage
And what it should mean for immigration reform.
By Jordan Weissmann, The Atlantic, Apr 29 2013
So it turns out the United States is not, in fact, the educational wasteland tech industry lobbyists would have you think.
Companies like Microsoft often claim that America is suffering from an economically hobbling shortage of science, math, and computer talent. The solution, they argue, is to let employers fill their hiring gaps by importing tens of thousands of educated guest workers beyond what the law currently allows. Much as farmers want to bring in field workers from Mexico on short-term visas, software developers desperately want to bring in more coders from India.
The Senate's current immigration bill would grant their wish. As written, it vastly increases the annual limit on H1-B visas, which allow corporations to bring employees with a bachelor's degree to the U.S. from overseas for up to six years. Roughly half the guest workers who currently arrive through the program come for computer-related jobs. When Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced earlier this month that he was forming a political action group to back the reform effort, it was in part seen as a move to ensure that the H1-B provision would make it to President Obama's desk intact.
There's just one problem. That whole skills shortage? It's a myth, as was amply illustrated (yet again) in a report written by researchers from Rutgers, Georgetown, and American University, and issued by the Economic Policy Institute. It still might be the case that tech companies are having trouble finding specific skill sets in certain niches (think cloud software development, or Android programming), but there simply aren't any signs pointing to a broad dearth of talent.
Our Programmer Surplus
Colleges, for instance, are already minting far more programmers and engineers than the job market is absorbing. Roughly twice as many American undergraduates earn degrees in science, technology, engineering, and math disciplines than go on to work in those fields. As shown in the EPI graph below, in 2009 less than two thirds of employed computer science grads were working in the IT sector a year after graduation.
Meanwhile, the unemployment rate for programmers is still stuck well above its pre-recession average.
Could it be that schools aren't teaching their students the right stuff, that despite their fancy credentials, today's grads lack the programming chops or logical prowess needed to succeed at a Google or Microsoft? Not so much.
In industries where talent is scarce, economists generally expect wages to rise, as desperate companies go chasing after what few qualified souls they think can do the job. That's exactly what's happened to oil and gas engineers over the last decade during the energy boom, for instance. But while there have certainly been anecdotal accounts of Silicon Valley firms tossing outrageous sums at elite college students, in the big picture, programmer salaries have been stagnant ever since the dotcom bubble went bust more than a decade ago. The pattern holds whether you look at the national data, or just at traditional tech centers such as Silicon Valley, the Route 128 corridor outside Boston, Dallas, or Austin, where you'd expect competition for talent to be hottest.
The "Indentured" Workers Problem
The H1-B program's fiercest critics, such as University of California, Davis computer science professor Norman Matloff, have long derided it as little more than a pipeline for cheap "indentured" labor. Companies are technically supposed to hire H1-B immigrants only if there are no Americans available to do the job, and then are required to pay them on par with U.S.-born professionals. Thanks to an array of legal loopholes in the way appropriate wages are calculated, though, it doesn't necessarily work out that way.
Often, it comes down to a matter of age: Companies frequently save money by hiring a young, less experienced immigrant instead of an older American who would command a higher salary. And because the bureaucratic hurdles make it difficult for H1-B holders to switch jobs -- particularly if they're stuck in line waiting for a green card -- guest workers have notorious difficulty bargaining for promotions or raises. They also can't go off and start their own businesses, as they'd lose their visa. Unlike green card holders, they're professionally chained in place.
The program has also fed the pernicious growth of IT outsourcing firms. These companies use H1-B visas to import low cost tech workers by the thousands, who they hire out to American corporations as substitutes for better-paid, in-house staff. The Boston Globe reports that just 4 of these companies -- New Jersey-based Cognizant Technology Solutions along with India-based Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, and Infosys -- claimed 20 percent of the 134,780 H1-B visas that were approved in 2012.
In light of these concerns and what we now know about the "skills shortage," is there any way to justify expanding H1-B?
Possibly, but only with caution.
The Benefits of High-Skill Immigration
Hollow rhetoric about our unskilled workforce aside, there are a few compelling arguments in favor of H1-B. First, and most simply, it's reasonable to think that companies should be able to quickly and easily fish for talent abroad in the cases where it's truly necessary.
Moreover, there may be evidence that the H1-B program has been a net plus for American workers. Earlier this year, U.C. Davis's Giovanni Peri and Colgate's Chad Sparber released a draft paper suggesting that that from 1990 to 2010, the influx of H1-B workers actually accounted for an astounding 10 to 20 percent of yearly U.S. productivity growth, and added $615 billion to the economy. That, they say, boosted both wages and employment for U.S. born scientists and engineers. There were undoubtedly winners and losers; while average salaries rose, some older Americans almost certainly gave up their jobs to younger immigrants with fresher skills. But if the paper is right, that price seems worthwhile in the grand scheme of things.
Finally, over the long term we really do want more immigration. Economies grow essentially one of two ways: productivity growth, or population growth. H1-B helps with the latter. It obviously is not a perfect tool for the job (after all, it's technically supposed to be a "non-immigrant" visa). It would be far better if we simply handed skilled workers more green cards -- and to be fair, the immigration bill is designed to do that as well -- since that gives them the freedom to shop around for jobs, bargain for higher pay, and set down roots in a community. But inviting in a group of educated, decently paid, law-abiding professionals who might one day become permanent residents through employer sponsorship or through marriage isn't a terrible second option.
A Policy Compromise
So perhaps a compromise is in order. Today, the the number of generic H1-B visas available to for-profit companies is capped at 65,000, with another 20,000 set aside for foreign students who earn an advanced degree at U.S. universities.* The Senate plan would give those numbers an MLB-sized shot in the arm. The cap would jump to 110,000 visas minimum, but could go as high 180,000, based on a formula that would account for both demand from employers and the unemployment rate for skilled professionals. Another 25,000 visas would be around for advanced degree earners.
This is too much, too fast for program that's such a mixed bag in its present state. Instead of rushing to bulk it up, Congress should just make the system more flexible by leaving the cap at 65,000 and carefully indexing it to health of the job market (the current formula could probably use some tweaking). That would give it room to grow without creating a sudden surge of new guest workers into an economy that may not be primed to handle them.
It would also create time to judge Congress's efforts to fix the program's many faults. The immigration bill both increases the minimum salaries employers will have to pay H1-B workers and comes loaded with financial penalties aimed at cracking down on companies, like the outsourcing firms, that over-rely on the visas. But will that be enough to head off future abuse? We don't know, and it seems unwise to super-size H1-B until we do.
Our immigration system should be designed to adjust to the needs of the market, but for the time being, we seem to have as many brains as the market needs. Let's not act like we don't.
__________________
*Academic institutions and nonprofits aren't subject to the cap at all.
A note to regular readers: A few Atlantic fans might recall that I've written much more blithely in support of increasing the H1-B program cap in the past. As I've learned more about the program, my thoughts about it have obviously changed. While I would love it if all of my opinions were unimpeachably well thought out, I think I have an obligation to be transparent in cases where they were not.
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5/22/2013 6:13:18 PM
Topic:
Phone Firms Selling their Customer's Data
TheTaxMan
Posts: 68
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Phone Firms Sell Data on CustomersBy Anton Troianovski | The Wall Street Journal – May 22, 20113
Big phone companies have begun to sell the vast troves of data they gather about their subscribers' locations, travels and Web-browsing habits.
The information provides a powerful tool for marketers but raises new privacy concerns. Even as Americans browsing the Internet grow more accustomed to having every move tracked, combining that information with a detailed accounting of their movements in the real world has long been considered particularly sensitive.
The new offerings are also evidence of a shift in the relationship between carriers and their subscribers. Instead of merely offering customers a trusted conduit for communication, carriers are coming to see subscribers as sources of data that can be mined for profit, a practice more common among providers of free online services like Google Inc. and Facebook Inc.
When a Verizon Wireless customer navigates to a website on her smartphone today, information about that website, her location and her demographic background may end up as a data point in a product called Precision Market Insights. The product, which Verizon launched in October 2012 after trial runs, offers businesses like malls, stadiums and billboard owners statistics about the activities and backgrounds of cellphone users in particular locations.
Several European mobile-network operators have launched similar efforts. This week, German software giant SAP AG is introducing a service that will gather smartphone-use and location data from wireless carriers and offer it to marketing firms.
Carriers acknowledge the sensitivity of the data. But as advertisers and marketers seek more detailed information about potential customers and the telecom industry seeks new streams of revenue amid a maturing cellphone market, big phone companies have started to tiptoe in.
The companies say they don't sell data about individuals but rather about groups of people. Privacy advocates say the law permits them to do so. In 2011, Verizon sent notice to customers saying they may use their data in this way.
Chris Soghoian, a privacy specialist at the American Civil Liberties Union, says the ability to profit from customer data could give wireless carriers an incentive to track customers more precisely than connecting calls requires and to store even more of their Web browsing history. That could broaden the range of data about individuals' habits and movements that law enforcement could subpoena, Mr. Soghoian says. "It's the collection that's the scary part, not the business use."
Verizon responds that the data it analyzes for Precision Market Insights is information it already collects and that it complies with legal processes when it gets requests for information from law enforcement.
The carrier also says that it will sell only broad information about groups of customers, and that the program won't include information from Verizon's government or corporate clients. Most other individuals' data will be used by default, but people can opt out on Verizon's website.
Jeff Weber, AT&T Inc.'s president of content and advertising sales, says his company is studying ways to sell and analyze customer data for advertisers while letting customers opt out, but so far the company doesn't have a product akin to Verizon's.
It's tricky territory. Last year, Spanish carrier Telefonica SA provoked a political outcry in Germany over its plans to sell aggregated location data and eventually said it didn't plan to launch the program there.
Verizon's data service is being used by the Phoenix Suns. The basketball team has used it to map where people attending its games live in order increase advertising in areas that haven't met expectations, says Scott Horowitz, a team vice president.
The carrier, a Verizon Communications Inc.-Vodafone Group PLC joint venture, has used its data to tailor its own marketing message, according to Colson Hillier, who oversees the data-mining program.
Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings Inc., one of the world's biggest billboard companies, has agreed to conduct a trial of the Precision service, according to Suzanne Grimes, Clear Channel's North America president. She says the service could allow billboard owners to measure how likely someone driving by is to go to the store being advertised. "You've got an industry that was historically about eyeballs," she says. "Now you know more about who those people are and what their behavior looks like."
SAP's offering will take an even broader approach. SAP Mobile Services President John Sims says the service will sift through huge volumes of data about how and where people use their mobile devices and then share the revenue from selling the information with the wireless carriers providing the data.
SAP hasn't said which carriers it's working with, but it described the process. When a smartphone user clicks on a Web link, the action will generate a data point, including basic information about the website the user is visiting along with the user's location as precisely as within 30 feet and demographic data.
SAP will then aggregate and analyze that individual subscriber data and provide statistics to clients about the usage habits at a particular location of groups of as few as 50 people. One possible use: Retailers worried about "showrooming," or inspecting products that the shopper will eventually buy online, can find out what websites people visit on their phones when they're in their stores.
Mat Sears, a spokesman for U.K. wireless operator EE, a joint venture of Deutsche Telekom AG and France Télécom SA, says the company is evaluating the SAP product and views the ability to sell and analyze data about how people use their smartphones as "a potentially game-changing opportunity."
Meanwhile, Americans have become more comfortable disclosing their locations via social-media services like Twitter Inc. and Foursquare. Indeed, as carriers get more involved in data mining, they could find themselves competing with those companies and Internet giants like Google and Facebook.
But the carriers say that they have more comprehensive data. "This is the information that everyone has wanted that hasn't been available until now," says the Suns' Mr. Horowitz.
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5/21/2013 10:31:25 AM
Topic:
SC Doesn't Need More Foreign STEM Workers
anonymous
Posts: 240
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Clemson Professor Says South Carolina Doesn't Need More Foreign STEM Workers
March 18, 2013, 9:50 AM EDT - posted on NumbersUSA
An op-ed written by Clemson Professor Mark Thies and published in the Greenville News says the number of U.S. students enrolled at Clemson in STEM fields is up 60 percent over the past five years. Furthermore, he says that one-third of STEM graduates aren't working in the field and starting salaries within the field have remained flat since 2010.
Thies teaches Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Clemson University in South Carolina. He says that enrollment in his Thermodynamics class is the highest its been in his 28 years of teaching. He uses his observations to criticize both the Gang of Eight's immigration proposal and Sen. Lindsey Graham's suggestions that the U.S. suffers from a "brain drain" - highly educated people leaving the country because they can't stay and work in the country after graduation.
"[A]ccording to Ross Eisenbrey in The New York Times, almost 90 percent of Chinese and Indian students who earn STEM PhDs stay here. Ross comments (and based on my 28 years at Clemson University I concur) that if a student is talented enough to be wanted by industry, they are essentially guaranteed to get a work visa."
Thies says it's not just recent graduates that are seeing flat starting salaries. He says expereinced STEM workers have also seen their salaries stop rising and there's evidence to prove that there are no labor shortages in the high-tech industry.
"[T]he National Association of Colleges and Employers, which tracks STEM salaries of new graduates, reports that overall engineering starting salaries have been flat since 2010, with a tiny 0.3 percent increase. Similar trends exist for more experienced workers. In fact, according to Professor Norman Matloff (EPI Briefing Paper No. 356, Feb. 28), no study other than those sponsored by industry has ever confirmed a shortage! Industry’s continual claims that there are too few Americans in STEM fields — and that U.S. citizens are less talented than their foreign counterparts — have been refuted by several recent studies.
"As far as the brain drain is concerned, Matloff’s study reached a somewhat startling conclusion: There indeed is a brain drain — but it’s an internal brain drain, as the best and brightest U.S. students move out of the STEM field after graduation into areas where salaries are more lucrative because of less worker competition."
Read Prof. Thies's full op-ed at GreenvilleOnline.com.
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5/21/2013 10:29:11 AM
Topic:
"Skilled Worker Shortage" -- A Proven LIE
anonymous
Posts: 240
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EPI Study: Business Wrong to Claim Need for More Workers
January 25, 2013, 1:42 PM EDT - posted on NumbersUSA
The Economic Policy Institute’s analysis of recent jobs data undermines the common business complaint that employers are not hiring because they can’t find enough qualified workers. EPI economist Heidi Shierholz argues there are more than enough unemployed workers in all sectors of the current job market to fill jobs in those industries.
Shierholz analyzed the November Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey released earlier this month by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. She concluded, “These data show that the main problem in today’s labor market is not a lack of the right workers for the jobs that are available; it’s that employers do not have enough work to be done to need to hire more workers.” Nationally there are far more unemployed construction, manufacturing, hospitality, education, health care and retail workers than job openings.
The “job-seekers ratio”—the ratio of unemployed workers to job openings—was 3.3-to-1 in November. That means there are no jobs for more than two out of three unemployed workers. That figure has improved since its peak of 6.7-to-1 in July 2009, but odds remain stacked against job seekers. The highest the ratio ever got during the early 2000s downturn was 2.9-to-1. In a labor market with strong job opportunities, the ratio would be close to 1-to-1.
According to Shierholz, business groups should not claim there is a lack of skilled workers in the sectors with job openings because there is a surplus of workers in all sectors. The EPI analysis supports the long-standing contention by the Center for Immigration Studies that the nation does not need amnesty or more skilled and unskilled guest workers.
In a recent study, CIS’ Steven Camorata concluded, “It is difficult to overstate the size of the pool of potential workers that now exists in the United States. If through enforcement a large fraction of illegal immigrants returned to their home countries rather than being allowed to stay with legal status, there would seem to be an ample supply of idle workers to replace them, particularly workers who have relatively little education. Of course, employers might have to pay more, and offer better benefits and working conditions in order to attract American citizens. But improving the living standards and bargaining power of the least-educated and poorest American workers can be seen as a desirable social outcome. The contention that there is a general labor shortage that has to be satisfied by giving work authorization and/or citizenship to illegal immigrants and increasing the number of immigrants allowed into the country seems entirely inconsistent with the available evidence.”
Others have written about the surplus of workers in various fields. EPI’s Daniel Costa, in commenting on Microsoft’s call for the importation of more foreign workers, wrote, "It is noteworthy that although Microsoft laments its 6,000 unfilled job openings, it laid off at least 5,000 employees during the recession. How many of these job openings are replacing employees who were laid off?" And Harold Salzman from The Urban Institute wrote, "The United States’ education system produces a supply of qualified [science and engineering] graduates in much greater numbers than jobs available."
Business groups have been pushing Congress to allow more foreign STEM graduates to remain in the U.S. rather than lose them to other countries. But according to Michael Finn of the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, the U.S. already retains 67 percent of foreign PhD graduates, including 72 percent of those in computer science. "(There is) no support for the view that (science and engineering) recipients on temporary visas have had declining stay rates because of difficulty obtaining visas that would permit them to say in the United States to work."
Read the EPI analysis.
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5/21/2013 10:25:00 AM
Topic:
Tech Layoffs Hit 3-year High during 2012
anonymous
Posts: 240
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Tech firm says tech layoffs hit 3-year high during first half of 2012
July 17, 2012, 9:47 AM EDT - posted on NumbersUSA
A report issued on Monday by the tech placement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas says that tech layoffs in the United States hit its highest level in three years during the first half of 2012. The firm's report says 51,529 planned job cuts within the tech sector were planned during the first half of the year.
The cuts represent a 260% increase over the same period in 2011. Plus, the figure is 39% higher than the total number of tech job cuts in all of 2011.
So far this year, Hewlett Packard has announced cuts of 30,000 jobs while Sony and Nokia have announced cuts of 10,000 jobs.
"We may see more job cuts from the computer sector in the months ahead," John A. Challenger, CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, said. "While consumers and businesses are spending more on technology, the spending appears to favor a handful of companies. Those that are struggling to keep up with the rapidly changing trends and consumer tastes are shuffling workers to new projects or laying them off altogether."
Members of Congress appear to be ignoring cuts within the tech industry, introducing bill after bill that would increase the number of foreign engineers, mathematicians, and scientists allowed to stay in the country. Pres. Barack Obama also included a call for more foreign tech workers during his State of the Union address in January.
For more information, see CNET.
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5/21/2013 10:23:20 AM
Topic:
Too Many US Scientists -- Not Enough Jobs
anonymous
Posts: 240
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Report Says U.S. has Too Many Scientists but Not Enough Jobs
July 9, 2012, 1:28 PM EDT - posted on NumbersUSA
A recent report from the Washington Post finds that there are too many scientists living in the United States with too few jobs despite bipartisan support for increased immigration for foreign nationals with advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The report finds that some high-tech areas are booming, while jobs in many other fields, including biology, chemistry, and medicine, are scarce.
The Washington Post report notes that while many highly-trained individuals are employed, many are not working in their field. This is consistent with research from the Center for Immigration Studies, which has found that 1.8 million engineers are either unemployed or working in a field other than engineering.
"They’ll be employed in something," Michael S. Teitelbaum, a senior adviser to the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation who studies the scientific workforce told the Washington Post. "But they go and do other things because they can’t find the position they spent their 20s preparing for."
The Post also found that U.S. drug firms, which used to produce high-paying, stable research positions, have cut 300,000 jobs since 2000.
"It's been a bloodbath, it’s been awful," Kim Haas, who spent 20 years designing pharmaceuticals for drug giants Wyeth and Sanofi-Aventis and is in her early 50s, told the Post. "Scads and scads and scads of people [have been cut]. Very good chemists with PhDs from Stanford can’t find jobs."
According to the American Chemical Society, the unemployment rate among chemists is at a 40-year high at 4.6% and only 38% of new PhD chemists were employed in 2011.
For more information, see the Washington Post and the Center for Immigration Studies.
Also, see our TV ad that's running across the country asking Congress why they want to bring in more high-tech workers when 1.8 million engineers can't find work in engineering.
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5/21/2013 10:21:10 AM
Topic:
Massive Visa Fraud by Infosys
anonymous
Posts: 240
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Global High-Tech Firm Accused of Visa Fraud
April 12, 2012, posted on NumbersUSA
Information Technology firm and high-tech industry powerhouse, Infosys, is being accused of bringing low-paid foreign wokers to the U.S. illegally, CBS News reported.
The allegations come from Jay Palmer, a principal consultant at Infosys. According to Palmer, Infosys engaged in systematic practice of visa fraud. Palmer's charges are the center of a federal probe.
Palmer said the first thing that caught his attention was an employee that had been in the U.S. from India several times before.
"He came up to me and he was literally in tears," Palmer told CBS News. "He told me he was over here illegally and he didn't wanna be here. He was worried that he would get caught."
Palmer said he began digging into how and why Infosys seemed to be bringing in large numbers of workers from its corporate headquarters in Bangalore, India, into the U.S.
Palmer said at first, most came over on H-1B visas. These visas are for people with specialized talents or a level of technical ability that can't be found among American workers.
When asked if all the people had some special expertise that couldn't be found in the U.S., Palmer said, "Absolutely not. Not even close. Many of them is what we call freshers. People that would just come over, whoever they could get to come over. Whoever got accepted for a visa."
"Many of the people brought in, in fact, didn't know what they were doing at all," Palmer said. "There was not a project or program that I was involved in that we did not remove somebody because they had no knowledge of what they were doing," he said.
Palmer says that Infosys' motive to bring in foreign workers was purely for profit.
Palmer says the Indian workers on his team were paid substantially less than an American would have made in the same job.
When the U.S. State Department began to limit the number of H-1B visas, Palmer said Infosys began using another type of visa, the B-1. The B-1 is meant for employees who are traveling to consult with associates, attend training or a convention. But Palmer said the employees were brought in not for meetings, but for full-time jobs.
Federal officials say Infosys employees have 6,000 B-1 visas good for 10 years.
And Palmer said the B-1 workers never paid U.S. taxes because they received their salaries from India.
Palmer said top company executives not only knew of the alleged fraud, but wanted to expand on it to increase profits. Palmer said during a 2010 meeting at Infosys' corporate headquarters in Bangalore the practice was discussed with a group of executives, including a senior vice president.
Palmer heard Infosys executives say "Americans are stupid" and according to Palmer, they were referring to the law and getting around the system. Palmer said it was totally easy to skirt the law.
Palmer said others at Infosys discussed the matter with him. And one of those people was Palmer's friend and Infosys project manager, Marti Harrington.
Harrington told CBS News, "I realize that there were a few times where they were really pushing me, they, Infosys, was really pushing me to get the client to agree to having more people onshore. They were still getting more money because they were paying these folks from India so little."
When Harrington learned that the B-1 visa specifically prohibited employment here, she checked the visa status of some of her own team members.
Harrington said, "And then I realize that we had people here, we being, you know, employees in Infosys - had people here that were in the States on B-1 visas that were working. You know, they weren't here to attend training or, you know, to attend a conference. They were here working on a project."
According to Palmer, telling documents come from an internal Infosys website. One document appears to be a "do's and don'ts" list that gives instructions on how to get B-1 visa requests by the U.S. State Department, telling managers not to mention things like work or employment on their applications or in interviews with U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents.
When CBS News senior correspondent John Miller asked Palmer what he thinks will happen to him and his future when this is all over. Palmer responded, "I don't know. You know, it's not about me. This story is about displaced American workers and about companies out for greed."
Infosys is one of the biggest consulting firms in the world with more than $6 billion in revenues last year alone, and 145,000 employees in 32 countries. But the bulk of its business comes from the U.S., re-engineering the computer systems of some of the biggest names in corporate America.
Palmer's civil suit against Infosys is scheduled to go to trial this summer in Alabama.
According to CBS News senior correspondent John Miller, who has been working on this case for months, suspects that there are many other companies practicing visa fraud. Miller even referenced a recent lawsuit against a different company in New Jersey alleging similar practices of visa fraud and abuse.
Read the story in its entirety at CBS News.
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5/21/2013 10:17:22 AM
Topic:
H-1Bs Hurting U.S. Workers
anonymous
Posts: 240
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H-1B Reform Proposal Would Close Loophole Hurting U.S. Workers
February 10, 2012, 3:58 PM EDT - posted on NumbersUSA
Attention has been drawn to the controversial H-1B program in the wake of Jennifer Wedel’s question to President Obama concerning the issuance of H-1B visas while U.S. tech workers are jobless. According the Rochester Institute of Technology Professor Ron Hira, Sen. Charles Grassley’s H-1B reform proposal would close a loophole in the program that allows some businesses to forego recruiting U.S. workers.
Sen. Grassley (R-Iowa) and Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) sponsored legislation that would prohibit businesses with more 50 employees from having more than 50 percent of their workers hold either H-1B or L-1 visas, and would require employers to first try to fill jobs with U.S. workers.
Sen. Grassley recently sent the president a letter in which he focused on the president's response to Wedel - "the H1-B should be reserved only for those companies who say they cannot find somebody in that particular field." In the letter, Sen. Grassley said, "I have long believed that it's not unreasonable to ask businesses to first determine if there are qualified Americans to fill vacant positions. It seems you may agree with this premise."
Professor Hira said the president’s statement about reserving H-1B visas for companies that cannot find workers with particular skills is “a common-sense prescription for how the H-1B program should work." However, he says the H-1B program does not work that way.
According to U.S. Department of Labor, employers are not required to recruit U.S. workers unless a company is considered H-1B dependent. A company is considered H-1B dependent if it has 51 or more full-time employees and at least 15 percent of those workers hold H-1B visas.
Professor Hira notes a strategic plan published five years ago by the U.S. Department of Labor, and since removed from its web site, said that "H-1B workers may be hired even when a qualified U.S. worker wants the job, and a U.S. worker can be displaced from the job in favor of the foreign worker."
Professor Hira said, "If the President means what he says then he ought to support the common-sense bipartisan reforms that have been proposed by Senators Durbin and Grassley. It would ensure that the H-1B program actually meets the goals President Obama claims he wants for it."
For more information, see this Computerworld article.
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5/21/2013 10:15:04 AM
Topic:
Wedels Want H-1B Policy Change
anonymous
Posts: 240
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Wedels Not Satisfied With Getting A Job From the White House, Want H-1B Policy Change
February 7, 2012, 12:02 PM EDT - posted on NumbersUSA
The White House is following up on an offer made by President Obama for Darin Wedel, a semiconductor engineer, according to a report by Computer World. The offer was made during a live online town hall, sponsored by Google, after Darin's wife, Jennifer questioned the government's policy concerning H-1B visa workers.
Jennifer Wedel of Fort Worth asked why the government continues "to issue and extend H-1B visas when there are tons of Americans just like my husband with no job?"
After learning that Darin Wedel was a semiconductor engineer, Obama claimed that engineers in the high-tech field should be able to get a job right away.
Obama asked for Darin Wedel's resume and said he would "forward it to some of these companies that are telling me they can't find enough engineers in this field."
"As much as it thrills me and our personal situation, it really doesn't help the average American that's in my same situation," Wedel said of the White House helping him find a job.
The Wedels have been contacted by many people since the Google town hall. "Our inboxes are filled with people thanking us for bring up this issue," said Darin Wedel.
Wedel also said the president's view on the job prospects for engineers in his field "is definitely not what's happening in the real world."
Three years ago, Wedel was laid off from Texas Instruments, a company which has played a prominent role in lobbying for the H-1B visas.
"The preference of big corporations is to hire the H-1B folks instead of hiring Americans with 10-plus years of expereince like myself," said Wedel.
According to Wedel, H-1B workers make it increasingly tough for American tech workers to gain training in related areas.
The visa use is putting more people in the marketplace and that makes it "less likely for (employers) to have to train anyone or do any kind of ramp-up at all," he said.
With employment still high, Wedel believes that "its only prudent to adjust the levels of immigrants that are allowed to come here."
Wedel would like to see the H1-B cap reduced, but he is not expecting the Obama administration to do that because it favors loosening restrictions.
For the Full Story, read Computer World
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5/21/2013 10:12:43 AM
Topic:
High-Skilled Workers Struggling to Find Work
anonymous
Posts: 240
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Sen. Grassley Tells Pres. Obama That High-Skilled Workers are Struggling to Find Work
February 8, 2012, 8:51 AM EDT - posted on NumbersUSA
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who serves as the Ranking Member of the Senate Immigration Subcommittee, sent a letter to Pres. Obama telling him that Jennifer Wedel's story of her unemployed engineer husband is not an isolated case, but a wider, national issue. Sen. Grassley has consistently fought for unemployed high-skilled workers by writing legislation that would rid the H-1B program of known fraud and abuse.
In his letter, Sen. Grassley told Pres. Obama that the Administration's recent policy change to offer work permits to the spouses of H-1B workers and extend the period that recent foreign graduates with degrees in science, technology, engineering and/or mathematics can work in the U.S. after graduation adversely affects America's high-skilled workers. He also urged the President to support a bill that he and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) are drafting to deal with the issues within the H-1B visa program.
Here's the full text of Sen. Grassley's letter to the President:
Dear Mr. President:
I read with interest news reports about your Google Plus “hangout” on January 30th, specifically your conversation with Ms. Jennifer Wedel. Ms. Wedel told of her husband’s personal struggle in trying to find employment despite the fact that he has an engineering degree and over ten years of experience. She expressed concern that the government continues to distribute H-1B visas at a time of record unemployment.
I was surprised to learn that you responded to Ms. Wedel by saying “industry tells me that they don’t have enough highly skilled engineers.” You also said that “the word we’re getting is that somebody in that kind of high-tech field, that kind of engineer, should be able to find something right away.” You said there’s a huge demand for engineers across the country, with which Ms. Wedel seemed to take issue. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) would also suggest otherwise. According to the BLS, the unemployment rate for electrical engineers rose 3.7% from 2006 to 2010.
Your response to Ms. Wedel leads me to believe that you don’t understand the plight of many unemployed high-skill Americans. Mr. Wedel’s situation is all too common. Thousands of qualified Americans remain out of work while companies are incentivized to import foreign workers. I’m concerned that you’re hearing only one side of the story -- from businesses who claim that there are better and brighter people abroad.
Despite your online chat and interest in investigating the problem, just last week, your administration proposed rules to “attract and retain highly skilled immigrants.” The Department of Homeland Security will expand the eligibility for foreign students to stay in the U.S. under the Optional Practical Training program. This program does not have U.S. worker protections, nor does it require that employers pay prevailing wages to these foreign students/employees. Your administration will also provide work authorizations to spouses of H-1B visa holders, thus increasing the competition for many Americans who are looking for work. It’s astonishing that, at this time of record unemployment, your administration’s solution is to grant more work authorizations to foreign workers. These initiatives will do very little to boost our economy or increase our competitiveness.
Nevertheless, I’m encouraged by your statement that “The H1-B should be reserved only for those companies who say they cannot find somebody in that particular field.” I have long believed that it’s not unreasonable to ask businesses to first determine if there are qualified Americans to fill vacant positions. It seems you may agree with this premise.
Therefore, I strongly encourage you to endorse legislation that I have cosponsored with Senator Durbin in the past. Our bill, which has been included in various comprehensive immigration reform proposals, warrants your leadership. With your help, we can reform the H-1B visa program and ensure that Americans like Mr. Wedel are on equal footing with foreign workers who are flooding the market.
While I’m glad that Mr. Wedel has been contacted by many employers since your online discussion took place, there are many more highly skilled Americans that need our help and attention. I hope you’ll work with me to make changes to the H-1B visa program on behalf of all these Americans.
I appreciate your consideration of my views.
-- Sen. Chuck Grassley, February 7, 2012
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5/21/2013 10:10:37 AM
Topic:
US Companies Hiring Foreign Workers at Record Pace
anonymous
Posts: 240
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U.S. Companies Hiring Foreign Workers at Record Pace Despite 8.6% Unemployment Rate
December 7, 2011, 12:11 PM EDT - posted on NumbersUSA
With a U.S. unemployment rate at 8.6%, one would expect that many of the high paying job openings available domestically are a positive sign for jobless Americans. However, that has not been the case. According to data from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services department, U.S. companies have hired foreign workers at an expeditious pace. U.S. companies have set a three-year record on the amount of time it took to reach the cap of 65,000 H-1B visas.
The H-1B visa program allows skilled immigrants to work in the United States on a supposedly temporary basis. The legal cap on H-1B visas dropped from 195,000 back to its original level of 65,000 on October 1, 2003. However that does not include an additional 20,000/year cap for individuals who fall under the ‘advanced degree' exemption, or the uncapped admissions to governmental agencies and not-for-profit employers.
Microsoft, the computer programming giant, continued its streak of hiring the most foreign workers again this year by importing more than 2,500 foreign workers. Nearly twice as much as the second highest H-1B user, IBM.
To read the official USCIS news release, click here. Also, for more information about the H-1B visa program, click here.
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5/21/2013 10:09:02 AM
Topic:
GAO Report Exposes H-1B Visa Abuse
anonymous
Posts: 240
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GAO Report Exposes H-1B Visa Abuse
January 18, 2011, 7:50 AM EDT - posted on NumbersUSA
A new report issued by the Government Accountability Office exposes the abuse of the H-1B Visa program, a program that offers up to 65,000 three-year visas per year to be issued to highly-skilled foreign workers. The reports found that the majority of the visas go to a small number of companies that simply act as middle-men and offer the workers to larger companies that aren't held accountable for their compliance, or non-compliance, to the program's rules.
The GAO report found that only 1 percent of the total companies that applied for the H-1B Visa received more than one-quarter of the visas issued. The report also estimates that at least 10 of the top 85 companies receiving H-1B visas were staffing companies. Staffing companies received nearly 12,000 of the 65,000 visas, or more than 6% of the total amount.
The issue found by the GAO is that staffing companies are ultimately responsible for H-1B compliance, not the companies that hire the visa holders from the staffing company. Furthermore, the staffing companies are not working with the companies to ensure that they are H-1B compliant.
In order to hire H-1B Visa holders, companies must first make a reasonable effort to hire an American worker and prove that no qualified American worker is available for the job. Second, the company must pay the H-1B Visa holder a wage competitive with American workers holding the same or similar job title. The GAO reports that the wage requirement is the most abused requirement.
H-1B Visas are commonly used by companies in the high-tech industry contracting with the federal government.
To read the entire report, see the GAO's website.
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5/21/2013 9:58:36 AM
Topic:
U.S. Seeks $5 Million in H-1B Fraud
anonymous
Posts: 240
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U.S. Seeks $5 Million in H-1B Fraud Case
September 2, 2009, 12:34 PM EDT - posted on NumbersUSA
The U.S. government is seeking $4.9 million from South Plainfield, NJ-based Vision Systems Group for their fraudulent use of the H-1B visa program.
The government has accused Vision Systems of creating a shell company in Iowa (where the prevailing wage is low) to hire H-1B workers. These H-1B workers were then transferred to other Vision Systems offices around the country but were still paid the Iowa wage. This is significant because employers are supposed to pay H-1B workers the "prevailing wage" of the area where they are working.
The government is seeking $4.9 million, which "represents the total amont of gross proceeds obtained as a result of the offenses."
Vision Systems, however, disputes the charges. Mark Weinhardt, an attorney for the indicted company, says the indictment "is based on a number of misconceptions about immigration law and procedure."
If the government's prosecution is successful, the $4.9 million fine will be the largest H-1B fraud case ever brought by the government.
Vision Systems is also accused of "benching," or not paying, H-1B holders and allowing them to live in a guest house with other benched workers.
Click here to read more about this case.
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5/21/2013 9:56:57 AM
Topic:
Journalist Recognized on H-1B Visa Abuse
anonymous
Posts: 240
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Connecticut Journalist Recognized for Reporting on H-1B Visa Abuse
June 1, 2009, 11:00 AM EDT - posted on NumbersUSA
Reporter Lee Howard was recently recognized by the Connecticut Society of Professional Journalists for his reporting on H-1B visa abuse by the Pfizer Corporation. Howard is a reporter for the New London Day in Southern Connecticut, and Pfizer's corporate headquarters are in New York City with a large research and development office in New London.
Howard won the Theodore Driscoll Award for investigative reporting after his four-part series uncovered Pfizer's recent move to layoff hundreds of American contractors in order to outsource the jobs to cheaper foreign workers.
The panel of judges who issued the award said Howard "was able to break through corporate silence to learn how and why Pfizer was utilizing H-1B visas to bring foreign workers to Connecticut to be trained by and replace American IT employees."
edited by anonymous on 5/21/2013
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5/21/2013 9:54:46 AM
Topic:
H-1B Holders Outnumber Unemployed Tech Workers
anonymous
Posts: 240
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H-1B Holders Outnumber Unemployed Tech WorkersMay 27, 2009, posted on NumbersUSA
The United States government is pursuing a visa-fraud case against a New Jersey IT company and will submit as evidence a report that will show the number of foreign tech workers using H-1B visas outnumbers the number of unemployed American tech workers.
According to an article on ComputerWorld.com, the government says that "in January of 2009, the total number of workers employed in the information technology occupation under the H-1B program substantially exceeded the 241,000 unemployed U.S. citizen workers within the same occupation."
The U.S. issues 85,000 H-1B visas per year. The visas are awarded to highly-skilled foreign workers usually in the fields of technology or health care. Companies must show that there is not an adequate number of American workers to fill open jobs before requesting H-1B visas.
The H-1B program continually comes under allegations of fraud, and Sens. Charles Grassley (R-IA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) have proposed legislation to revamp the program. They successfully added an amendment to the economic stimulus bill that was passed in February restricts banks that utilize TARP money from hiring H-1B workers.
For more information on this story, see ComputerWorld.com.
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5/21/2013 9:39:28 AM
Topic:
700,000 Guest-Worker Visas Issued in 2012
anonymous
Posts: 240
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700,000 Guest-Worker Visas Issued in 2012
April 3, 2013, posted on NumbersUSA
A new report from the Center for Immigration Studies has found that the United States issued nearly 700,000 guest-worker visas in 2012. This weekend, labor and business groups agreed on terms that would create a new low-skill, guest-worker program, creating up to 200,000 new temporary work visas each year. Business groups claim the U.S. doesn't issue enough guest-worker visas, specifically low-skill worker visas.
CIS found that two-thirds of the visas issued required certain skills or education, while the remaining third were for unskilled workers. The data comes from the State Department Non-Immigrant Visa Issuance Report for 2012 and does not include any additional visas that may have been issued by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
| Temporary Work Visas Issued, 2012 | | Visa Category | Type of Worker | Skilled or Unskilled | Number | | E | Treaty Worker | Skilled | 11,000 | | F | Student Worker | Skilled | 70,000* | | H-1B | Professional | Skilled | 136,000 | | H-2A | Agriculture | Unskilled | 65,000 | | H-2B | Seasonal | Unskilled | 50,000 | | J | Exchange Worker | Both | 175,000 | | L | Company Transfer | Skilled | 62,000 | | O | Special Ability | Skilled | 16,000 | | P | Entertainers | Skilled | 25,000 | | Q | Irish Exchange Workers | Skilled | 2,000 | | R | Religious Workers | Both | 4,000 | | TN | Nafta Professionals | Skilled | 75,000 | | Total | | | 691,000 |
* Estimates based on official records rather than actual 2012 issuance.
SOURCE: Center for Immigration Studies
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5/21/2013 9:37:05 AM
Topic:
Engineers Urge Senate Not to Increase H-1B Visas
anonymous
Posts: 240
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U.S. Engineer Association Urges Senate Committee Not to Increase H-1B Visas
Tuesday, May 14, 2013, 9:18 AM EDT - posted on NumbersUSA
As the Senate Judiciary Committee prepares to review the guest-worker provisions of the Gang of Eight's amnesty bill, a national association consisting of electrical and electronics engineers is urging Congress to leave the H-1B visa quotas alone. The IEEE issued a statement on Monday to reject amendments that would further increase the number of H-1B visas issued each year and amendments that would weaken worker protections.
Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee will review Title IV of S.744, the Gang of Eight's amnesty bill. Title IV increases the number of H-1B visas issued each year from 65,000 to 110,000 per year. The bill also allows for annual increases of no more than 10,000 visas per year up to an annual maximum of 180,000 visas per year.
The IEEE says H-1B visas lead to outsourcing and the loss of engineering jobs in the United States.
"Outsourcing is damaging to US workers and the American economy. We need laws that promote US job growth, not encourage it to leave our shores," IEEE-USA president Marc Apter said.
"We encourage the Senate to maintain the high-tech provisions as written. ...Efforts to destroy the balanced compromise that went into crafting the legislation will make it more difficult to enact into law,"
The IEEE is most concerned with amendments that will be offered by Republican Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah. Sen. Hatch has several amendments that would dramatically increase the number of H-1B visas issued each year, make it easier for tech employers to petition for H-1B visas, and loosen the wage protections in the bill. The Gang of Eight is faced with a difficult choice of alienating several special interest groups if they don't approve Hatch's amendments, but also risk any chance of obtaining Sen. Hatch's vote on the legislation if they choose to oppose his amendments.
For more information, see The Economic Times.
 Sen. Hatch
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