Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI) and Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH) introduced the Protecting American Workers Through H-1B Modernization Act on Monday, a direct legislative strike against a labor loophole that has persisted for nearly three decades. The bill targets the specific exemption that allows H-1B dependent employers—companies where foreign specialists make up a significant share of the workforce—to skip the requirement of attempting to hire American workers first. Currently, these firms can bypass this obligation if they pay the visa holder at least $60,000 annually.
That $60,000 figure dates back to 1998. It was originally designed to be twice the Social Security Administration’s National Average Wage Index, a benchmark that has since climbed to nearly $70,000. Because Congress never indexed the threshold for inflation, the effective cost of the exemption has eroded significantly. Husted called the current state of affairs "a loophole," arguing that companies have exploited this static number to sidestep hiring domestic talent. "That's not modernization, that's a loophole," Husted said.
The proposed fix is mechanical but significant: it replaces the fixed dollar amount with a dynamic standard equal to two times the SSA’s current national average wage index. This would set the immediate threshold at approximately $140,000, ensuring it rises automatically with wage growth in future years. Grothman emphasized that this is not about banning visas, but about ensuring American workers have a fair competitive footing. "Washington’s failure to act shows how little the Establishment cares about unemployed Americans when employers want access to cheap foreign labor," Grothman said.
Crucially, the bill does not mandate that all H-1B holders earn $140,000. It only raises the bar for the exemption that allows companies to ignore the "American worker first" attestation. If the legislation passes, employers relying heavily on visa sponsorship would have to either pay significantly more to maintain their exemption or actively recruit and interview US citizens for those roles. The bill faces a long legislative journey, especially with Vice President JD Vance recently calling for the abolition of the H-1B program entirely, signaling deep ideological tensions within the Republican base regarding foreign labor.