Trump’s H-1B Proposal Would Push Entry-Level Tech Salary Floor Near $162,000
May 8, 2026 – 2:35 pm
Image by: United States Federal Government
An entry-level software engineer in San Francisco would need to be paid at least $162,000 a year to qualify for an H-1B visa under a Trump-administration proposal published in March. This is a significant increase from the current minimum wage of around $113,000 in Dallas and $132,000 in New York.
The proposal would raise the prevailing wage calculation anchor for H-1B and PERM visa programs from the seventeenth percentile to the thirty-fourth percentile of Bureau of Labor Statistics earnings. This change affects all four wage levels, with Level IV (senior tier) rising from the sixty-seventh percentile to the eighty-eighth.
The Department of Labor estimates that this would raise wages by roughly $14,000 per affected role annually, with senior positions in high-cost metros absorbing even more. Some legal commentary suggests certain combinations could reach near or above $208,000.
The administration’s argument: The current bands, set in the 1990s, are said to be below market rates for American workers, especially early-career engineers and recent STEM graduates. By adjusting the bands, the proposal aims to eliminate the cost incentive to fill entry-level technical roles abroad. However, the impact on hiring is contested.
This proposal is part of a broader trend in H-1B policy:
- In September 2025, the administration imposed a $100,000 fee on new H-1B petitions, replacing a previous fee structure that cost employers between $2,000 and $5,000. A federal judge upheld the fee in December.
- Major tech companies like Amazon (over 10,000 H-1B sponsors), Microsoft, Meta, Apple, and Google sponsor thousands more.
With the new wage rule and application fees, the marginal cost of an entry-level H-1B engineer in a top metro rises by tens of thousands before the contract starts, impacting an industry already shifting its labor costs towards AI. Companies like Meta and Microsoft are converting payroll into AI capital expenditure, while layoffs in tech continue to mount.