CNN's Lou Dobbs reports on the effect of immigration on science salaries, and Andre at Biocurious wonders if he's not correct in his thinking. "[Companies] keep wages low by exploiting visa rules, and bringing cheap foreign workers into this country," Dobbs says. The number of foreign postdocs increased by 52 percent since 1996, while the number of postdocs who are US citizens or permanent residents has only grown by 9 percent.
Says Andre: "If Americans cut off the supply of foreign scientists by making it even harder to get visas, postdoc salaries would increase because of the sudden drop in available labor, but at the same time, labs would no longer be getting the best available people and the quality and quantity of science would decrease. Wouldn't this drop in productivity in American labs make it harder to justify research spending to the government and general population?"