Fact of the Week: H-1B Immigration Raised Native Non-STEM Workers’ Incomes by About 15 Percent in Computer Systems Design

Source: Ran Abramitzky et al., “Long-Run Effects of H-1B Immigration on the U.S. Economy” (NBER working paper 35560, July 2026), https://www.nber.org/papers/w35560.

Commentary: H-1B immigration has generated substantial long-run economic benefits for U.S. workers, particularly those whose jobs complement the specialized skills that H-1B workers bring to the economy. New research examining the effects of the H-1B program finds that a 1 percentage point increase in an industry’s exposure to H-1B workers raises the long-run income of college-educated native workers in non-STEM occupations by 1.2 log points, or about a 1.21 percent increase. In Computer Systems Design, the industry most exposed to H-1B immigration, this translates into an approximately 15 percent increase in long-run income for native non-STEM workers. The fact that these gains concentrate among non-STEM workers suggests that H-1B workers complement non-STEM U.S. workers.

The study also finds evidence that H-1B immigration acts as a broader productivity shock to the U.S. economy. The benefits extend downstream to industries that purchase goods and services from H-1B-intensive industries, while the researchers find no statistically distinguishable effects on upstream industries. This pattern is consistent with H-1B workers increasing productivity and lowering production costs rather than merely increasing the supply of labor. Moreover, the researchers find no evidence that H-1B immigration directly increases patenting in exposed industries. Instead, the productivity gains appear to come from more efficient execution of skilled tasks. These findings suggest that the economic value of high-skilled immigration bring to the United States: H-1B workers can raise the productivity and incomes of existing U.S. workers by bringing specialized skills that complement the work they already perform.