“Data compiled by Crowdpac, a nonpartisan group that tracks campaign donations, shows that employees at technology companies are donating overwhelmingly to Hillary Clinton,” Farai Chideya reports for FiveThirtyEight. “Of the $8.1 million given by tech employees or executives, Clinton got 95 percent, or $7.7 million; Donald Trump got 4 percent, or $299,000; Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate and Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, each got less than 1 percent. Similarly, in the Silicon Valley area, nearly 99 percent of the political donations went to Clinton, and 1 percent to Trump, according to Crowdpac.”
“The big political concerns for the tech industry this election cycle include trade and the status of high-tech H-1B visas,” Chideya reports. “In 2015, the U.S. exported nearly $205 billion worth of computer and electronic products, constituting 13.6 percent of total U.S. exports, the second-largest category of exports. That’s why many tech executives have been alarmed by Trump’s opposition to free trade and trade agreements. Clinton now opposes the Trans-Pacific Partnership but is much more supportive of free trade than Trump is. In addition, Clinton wants to continue the H-1B visa program, while Trump has criticized it and said he will severely limit it.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: The two major candidates’ positions on H-1B visas as follows:
Hillary Clinton doesn’t mention H-1B visas in her platform.
Donald Trump’s position paper states the following regarding H-1B visas:
· Increase prevailing wage for H-1Bs. We graduate two times more Americans with STEM degrees each year than find STEM jobs, yet as much as two-thirds of entry-level hiring for IT jobs is accomplished through the H-1B program. More than half of H-1B visas are issued for the program’s lowest allowable wage level, and more than eighty percent for its bottom two. Raising the prevailing wage paid to H-1Bs will force companies to give these coveted entry- level jobs to the existing domestic pool of unemployed native and immigrant workers in the U.S., instead of flying in cheaper workers from overseas. This will improve the number of black, Hispanic and female workers in Silicon Valley who have been passed over in favor of the H-1B program.
· Requirement to hire American workers first. Too many visas, like the H- 1B, have no such requirement. In the year 2015, with 92 million Americans outside the workforce and incomes collapsing, we need companies to hire from the domestic pool of unemployed. Petitions for workers should be mailed to the unemployment office, not USCIS.
· End welfare abuse. Applicants for entry to the United States should be required to certify that they can pay for their own housing, healthcare and other needs before coming to the U.S.
· Immigration moderation. Before any new green cards are issued to foreign workers abroad, there will be a pause where employers will have to hire from the domestic pool of unemployed immigrant and native workers. This will help reverse women’s plummeting workplace participation rate, grow wages, and allow record immigration levels to subside to more moderate historical averages.
SEE ALSO:
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