Each visa holder reduces the budget deficit by more than $800,000 in net present value over his lifetime.
Samuel Gregg rightly notes that “foreigners often bring rare skills that boost the productivity of their colleagues and companies” (“H-1B Visas Are Good for U.S. Workers,” op-ed, Sept. 22). These immigrants are a boon to another aspect of our nation’s finances: the budget deficit.
My research for the Manhattan Institute finds that each H-1B visa holder reduces the budget deficit by more than $800,000 in net present value over his lifetime. Put differently, each recipient reduces the federal debt in nominal terms by more than $2.3 million and grows the economy by $460,000 over 30 years. Therefore, if the $100,000 application fee for new H-1Bs reduces the number of cap-exempt visas that the government issues, the policy will cost Washington revenue and shrink the size of the economy.
Continue reading the entire piece here at the Wall Street Journal (paywall)
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Daniel Di Martino is a graduate fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a Ph.D. student in economics at Columbia University, and the founder of the Dissident Project, a speakers’ bureau for young immigrants from socialist countries.
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