Indian American households earn a median income of $152,000 per year. Caucasian American households earn $81,000.[1] The immigrant group earns nearly twice what the founding population earns.
Chinese American households earn $96,000. Filipino Americans earn $106,000. Taiwanese Americans earn $102,000.[2] Every major Asian immigrant group in the United States now out-earns the Caucasian population that was here before they arrived.
This did not happen by accident. Immigration policy handed the best jobs in the American economy to foreign-born workers and their children. The Americans who should have had those jobs were steered into worse careers, worse pay, and worse prospects. The cost of everything went up because the country absorbed tens of millions of additional people without building enough housing or infrastructure to support them.
The same immigration policy that displaced the job made the neighborhood unaffordable.
The Job Pipeline
The Immigration Act of 1990 created the H-1B visa program. The program was supposed to allow companies to hire foreign workers with specialized skills that no American could fill. In practice, it became a mass labor pipeline.
Today, 400,000 H-1B petitions are filed annually. 72% of all H-1B visas go to Indian nationals. China is second at roughly 11%, meaning that two countries account for 83% of all H-1B admissions [3].
The top H-1B sponsors tell you everything about what the program actually is:
| Rank | Company | Type |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Amazon | Big Tech |
| 2 | Infosys | Indian outsourcing firm |
| 3 | Tata Consultancy Services | Indian outsourcing firm |
| 4 | Cognizant | Indian outsourcing firm |
| 5 | Big Tech | |
| 6 | Microsoft | Big Tech |
| 7 | Meta | Big Tech |
| 8 | Apple | Big Tech |
| 9 | Wipro | Indian outsourcing firm |
| 10 | Deloitte | Consulting |
Four of the top ten H-1B sponsors are Indian outsourcing firms. These companies do not employ geniuses who possess skills no American has. They employ competent programmers who cost less. They bring them in on H-1B visas, contract them out to American companies, and undercut the domestic labor market.
The Economic Policy Institute found that 60% of H-1B positions are certified at Level 1 or Level 2 wages - the bottom two tiers out of four.[4] The majority of H-1B workers are legally paid below the local median for their occupation. This is not a program that imports the best in the world. It imports cheaper alternatives to Americans.
What Happens to the American
When a company hires a foreign-born worker for a position that an American could have filled, that American does not disappear. They still need a job. They still need to pay rent. They still need to feed their family. The $150,000 software engineering role, the $120,000 finance position, the $130,000 data science job - it went to someone from Hyderabad or Shanghai.
The American takes a worse job. $65,000 instead of $130,000. $50,000. A job that did not exist 30 years ago because it did not need to exist.
The income data confirms it.
Median Household Income by Group (2022-2023 ACS)
| Group | Median Household Income |
|---|---|
| Indian American | $152,000 |
| Filipino American | $106,000 |
| Taiwanese American | $102,000 |
| Chinese American | $96,000 |
| Japanese American | $97,000 |
| All Asian Americans | $109,000 |
| Caucasian American | $81,000 |
| All Americans | $75,000 |
The pre-1990 population now earns less than every major Asian immigrant group. Indian Americans earn nearly double. Caucasian Americans are not less capable. The best-paying jobs in the American economy are disproportionately held by foreign-born workers and their children. The Americans who would have held those jobs were pushed into lower-paying alternatives.
In Silicon Valley, 66% of tech workers are foreign-born. 23% are from India. 18% are from China. 17% were born in California.[8] In a region where the average tech salary exceeds $150,000, two-thirds of those salaries go to people who were not here 35 years ago.
The University Pipeline
The displacement starts before the job market. It starts in the universities.
55-60% of computer science graduate students at American universities are foreign nationals. In engineering, the figure is 50-55%. In some PhD programs, over 70% of students are international.[6] American universities - funded by American taxpayers, built by American communities - are training foreign nationals to take the best jobs in the American economy.
The numbers from the National Center for Education Statistics tell the story of a generation steered away from high-paying careers. "Communication and journalism" degrees grew from 52,000 per year in 1990 to 95,000 by 2022. "Parks, recreation, leisure, and fitness studies" grew from 10,000 to 55,000. "Visual and performing arts" grew from 47,000 to 95,000. "Area, ethnic, cultural, gender, and group studies" grew from 5,000 to 10,000.[7]
These are not career paths that lead to $150,000 salaries. A communications degree leads to a $45,000 marketing coordinator job. A gender studies degree leads to a $40,000 nonprofit position.
American CS bachelor's degrees have grown from 25,000 in 1990 to roughly 100,000 in 2022.[7] Demand has grown far faster. The graduate programs that lead to the highest-paying positions are dominated by foreign nationals. An American kid who graduates with a CS degree is competing against a global labor pool funneled into the American job market through the H-1B pipeline.
The universities told a generation of Americans to follow their passions. Those passions led to careers that pay half or a third of what the foreign-born worker earns at Google. The cultural machinery ran in the same direction as the immigration machinery.
Then Everything Got More Expensive
Bring in tens of millions of people over 35 years. Concentrate them in the same 20 metro areas. Do not build nearly enough housing to accommodate them. The result is predictable.
| Metro Area | Foreign-Born % | Median Home Price (1990) | Median Home Price (2024) | Increase |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| San Jose | 39% | ~$260,000 | ~$1,550,000 | ~496% |
| Miami | 54% | ~$90,000 | ~$550,000 | ~511% |
| San Francisco | 35% | ~$280,000 | ~$1,350,000 | ~382% |
| Los Angeles | 34% | ~$220,000 | ~$950,000 | ~332% |
| Seattle | 22% | ~$140,000 | ~$800,000 | ~471% |
| New York | 37% | ~$180,000 | ~$650,000 | ~261% |
The metros with the highest foreign-born populations have the most extreme housing cost increases. More people competing for the same housing stock drives prices up. When the foreign-born population of a metro doubles or triples in 35 years, rents and home prices follow.
The American who lost the $130,000 job to an H-1B worker now earns $65,000. Rent has tripled. Home prices have gone from $260,000 to $1,550,000. Their parents bought a house in San Jose on a single income in 1985. They cannot afford a one-bedroom apartment in the same city on two incomes in 2025.
Less money coming in. More money going out.
The Generational Lock-In
The displacement compounds across generations.
Indian American parents who arrived on H-1B visas in the 1990s and 2000s earned well. They bought homes in good school districts. They raised their children with an intense focus on STEM education, medical school, and high-paying careers. Their children - second-generation Indian Americans - are entering the workforce in finance, tech, medicine, and law at rates far above their share of the population.
This is not a criticism of Indian American parenting. It is an observation about what happens when immigration policy creates a parallel pipeline. The children of H-1B workers grow up in wealthy, education-focused households. They attend the best public schools. They fill seats at elite universities. They take the same high-paying jobs their parents had.
The American whose job was displaced in generation one is watching their children get displaced in generation two. The $81,000 Caucasian median household income is not a snapshot. It is a trajectory. The gap between the pre-1990 population and the post-1990 immigrant groups is widening.
In 1990, there was no income gap between Caucasian Americans and Indian Americans. The Indian-born population in the US was roughly 450,000. Today it is over 5.4 million foreign-born alone.[10] The total Indian American population including all generations is far larger. In 35 years, a population that barely existed went from zero to earning nearly double the founding population. The H-1B pipeline built that. Chain migration multiplied it.
The System is Not Working for Americans
Before 1990, an American with aptitude and work ethic could pursue a career in tech, finance, engineering, or medicine with a reasonable expectation of success. The labor market was domestic. The competition was other Americans. The cost of living in major metros was manageable on a professional salary. A family could buy a house, raise children, and build wealth in the same community where they grew up.
After 1990, the H-1B program flooded the professional labor market with foreign workers. The tech industry went from 30% foreign-born to 66%.[8] Indian outsourcing firms became top H-1B sponsors. Universities filled their graduate programs with international students. The Americans who would have taken those seats and those jobs got pushed into lower-paying careers. Housing costs in every major metro exploded because the population surged without the infrastructure to match.
The system works for the people it was designed to benefit. Tech companies get cheaper, visa-dependent labor. Foreign nationals get access to the richest labor market on earth. Political parties get new voters. University administrators get full-paying international tuition.
The only people it does not work for are the Americans who were here before it started.
An Indian American household earns $152,000. A Caucasian American household earns $81,000. One group arrived after 1990. The other group built the country. Immigration policy decided which group would get the best jobs.
What Needs to Change
The H-1B program as currently structured does not fill genuine skill gaps. It suppresses wages and displaces Americans. A replacement program, if any, should be limited to truly exceptional talent - not Level 1 wage workers from outsourcing firms.
Overall immigration must be reduced by at least 50%. The cost-of-living crisis in major metros is directly linked to population growth outpacing housing supply. Fewer arrivals means less pressure on housing, schools, and infrastructure.
Graduate programs at taxpayer-funded universities should not be 60% foreign nationals. American students should have priority access to the programs that lead to the highest-paying careers.
Chain migration turns one H-1B worker into an entire family. That family's children compete with American children for the same university seats and the same jobs. The multiplier effect locks in displacement for generations.
English proficiency must be required for permanent residency. It is the minimum standard for assimilation. Without it, immigrant communities remain insular and economically separate.
The loss of the best jobs and the rise in the cost of everything are not natural economic phenomena. They are the direct result of immigration policy choices made in 1990. Those choices can be reversed.
Sources
- U.S. Census Bureau, "Median Household Income Increased in 2023," 2024
- Pew Research Center, "Key Facts About Asian Americans," 2024
- USCIS, H-1B Employer Data Hub, FY2022-2024
- Economic Policy Institute, Daniel Costa and Ron Hira, "H-1B Visas and Prevailing Wage Levels," 2020
- Department of Labor, Office of Foreign Labor Certification, Performance Data
- National Science Foundation, Survey of Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering, 2022
- NCES, IPEDS Completions Survey
- Silicon Valley Institute for Regional Studies, 2025 Silicon Valley Index
- Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED), Case-Shiller Home Price Indices
- U.S. Census Bureau, "The Foreign-Born Population in the United States: 2022"
- Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics
- Data USA, Congressional District 17, California