Congressional panel votes to hike minimum salary

A key Congressional committee has passed a legislation that proposes to increase the minimum salary of H1B visa holders from $60,0000 to $90,000 and imposes a number of restrictions on the work visa that is popular among Indian IT professionals.

The Protect and Grow American Jobs Act (HR 170) - introduced by Darrell Issa, the chairman of the Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet subcommittee - was passed by the House Judiciary Committee during a markup hearing on Wednesday. The bill now heads to the full House for necessary action.

A similar version of the bill needs to be passed by the Senate before it can be sent to the White House for the US President Donald Trump to be signed into law. Given the sharp differences that the Democratic and Republican lawmakers and the White House has on various aspects of immigration reform including H1B, the Congressional passage of the bill and its becoming a law as of now appears to be a tall order.

The bill prohibits H1B dependent employers from replacing American workers with H1B employees, there are no longer any exceptions. It also lengthens the no-layoff policy for H1B dependent employers and their client companies for as long an H1B employee works at the company, which means they cannot layoff equivalent US workers.

For H1B dependent employers to be exempted from the requirement that US workers be recruited first, the Protect and Grow American Jobs Act dramatically increases the salary requirements for H1B workers.

"They must pay the lower of $135,000-which is indexed for inflation-or the average wage for the occupation in the area of employment, but with a floor of $ 90,000," said a media release issued by the House Judiciary Committee.

NASSCOM president R Chandrashekhar in a statement said that HR 170, as adopted by House Judiciary Committee, would harm US businesses and impose an extraordinary amount of bureaucratic red tape on a programme that contributes greatly to US prosperity.