Martin Wolf: Americans Wake Up to the Bad Deal of H-1B

"[Thomas Friedman is] right; unlike trade mass immigration has the potential to equalize wage rates between rich and poor countries within no more than a generation. The huge area of local services, that provides a haven for the low-skilled which is immune to international competition, quickly succumbs to mass immigration," says financial columnist Martin Wolf. "Of course, any such rapid equalization of wages across the globe would involve a catastrophic decline in the living standards of the less able populations of rich countries. There is every sign that these oppressed helots are waking up to this. In the United States, not only was last year’s immigration amnesty legislation defeated easily, but there is now noticeable pushback against expansion of the H1B visa program, under which skilled young people from the Third World get the chance to practice their trades in the US market, competing against local folk."

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