What this guide covers:

The DOL is raising the minimum wages companies must pay H-1B and other visa workers. But the new levels are still too low to stop companies from undercutting American pay
There's a better option the DOL is considering called Experience Benchmarking that would set visa worker pay based on what Americans with the same education and experience actually earn: we need commenters to push for it
The rule does nothing to fix the rigged PERM recruitment process where companies post jobs in newspaper classifieds and require paper mail applications to avoid hiring Americans
There's no enforcement: companies self-certify they're following the rules and the DOL has no authority to check after the fact
Your personal story is the most powerful tool we have: the DOL needs to hear directly from Americans who have been passed over, laid off, or underpaid because of visa worker programs

The DOL is finally now looking to stop companies undercutting American pay with H1Bs and other visa holders. Just like you, we are eager for the government to take action to prevent companies importing cheap labor to take American jobs. Unfortunately, the DOL proposed rule change in March 2026 doesn’t go nearly far enough to protect American wages.

The good news is the public gets a chance to give feedback! The DOL has to take comments from the public until May 26. 2026 at 11:59pm EDT before they can finalize the rule. Better yet, they have to read and respond to every real comment. So we are calling on the Jobs Now community to make your voices heard at the Department of Labor. This is our chance to tell them exactly how the H1B visa program is hurting Americans, and ask them to do something about it!

Your unique story will help prove to the DOL they need to do more to stop H1B abuse. If you have applied to dozens of PERM jobs and been rejected despite being qualified, say that! If your company laid off Americans and hired H1Bs, say that! If you didn’t get a raise as your boss hired more H1Bs, tell the DOL!

Tell the government the real life harm the H1B and legal work visas have caused you, personally! This is the unique information the Washington swamp doesn’t have without your comment.

To make this campaign work well, we need to make our comments clear and personal. Every comment needs to do 3 things:

Identify the exact provision you are commenting on
Explain why its a problem
Suggest what the agency should do instead

To help you with this process, we are offering a Jobs Now comment guide below, to help you make an impactful comment & tell your story.

Once you have prepared your comment, you can submit it to the DOL at the link below:

https://www.regulations.gov/commenton/ETA-2026-0001-0001

We suggest including sections 1 and 3 of our guide as written, while adding your own section 2 explaining the negative impact of visa programs on your life.

Use Our Comment Guide

Identify provisions

Section II.C.1.c.iv: Proposed Prevailing Wage Levels

The proposed wage levels of 34% for Level I and 88% for Level IV do not appropriately reflect labor market realities.

As noted on page 65 of the NPRM, “many of the most common occupations in LCA programs, and especially in the H-1B program, frequently report requiring education less than a Bachelor’s degree”. As a result, setting the level at only the 34th percentile of the wage distribution in a given occupation will result in setting minimum prevailing wages below the average wage, in a field where many workers do not have the minimum level of education required to qualify for the visa program. A wage level of 34% will thus fail to achieve the statutory goal to “not adversely affect the wages or working conditions of workers in the United States similarly employed”.

Secondly, the Level IV wage level proposal to use the 88th percentile is also insufficient to protect similarly employed US workers. The agency notes on page 68 of the NPRM that “H-1B workers in some instances make wages far in excess of those earned by 90 percent of all U.S. workers in the same occupation”, and concludes that “individuals at the fourth wage level possess the most advanced skills and competence… within their occupations” (p.69). If visa workers in Level IV possess the most advanced skills in their occupation, their wages should be benchmarked to similarly skilled workers in the US, rather than merely the top 12% in their occupation, or those most skilled US workers will likely have their wages adversely affected.

Section II.D.6.a: Experience Benchmarking

The agency requests comment on the potential alternative Experience Benchmarking (EB) methodology for setting prevailing wages. The agency notes that the EB methodology “guarantees that an alien worker is never paid less than the median native-born worker

with the same occupation, education, and experience in the same location”. I advocate strongly for the adoption of the EB methodology, to ensure employers are not able to pay alien workers less than similarly employed US workers.

Lack of enforcement of LCAs

The DOL inspector general prepared a report (REPORT NUMBER: 06-21-001-03-321) in November 2020, identifying several key vulnerabilities within the foreign labor certification programs, which this NPRM leave unaddressed. The report indicated the following issues with labor certification processes:

PERM “Regulations are outdated, as they require employers to advertise in the local Sunday paper”, despite the fact that US workers “are likely to be unaware of these employment opportunities due to the obsolete advertising methods required”.
Applications do not provide enough information for DOL to determine “whether there were no able, available, qualified, and willing U.S. workers for the job opportunity”
“DOL has no post-adjudication review or enforcement”, meaning DOL cannot verify applications after they are approved.
Lack of protection for US workers in H1B: The NPRM raises wage floors but does not introduce any labor market test for the H-1B program comparable to the PERM requirement, despite the Department's own evidence that 63% of LCAs are filed at Levels I and II for positions the NPRM itself describes as potentially not requiring specialty-occupation-level qualifications.
Employers are not complying with program requirements, including cases where employers failed to pay H1B employees wages, pay less than the prevailing wage certified, or illegally charge workers fees for their employment opportunities.

The current NPRM fails to address these failures of foreign labor certification programs to protect the wages & conditions of US workers.

2.Explain the impact on you

Here you should provide a personal explanation of how foreign labor programs have negatively impacted you. If you can, include your job title, your city, and what exactly happened to you. We encourage you to share stories such as:

You applied for many specialized jobs and did not receive any response or interviews despite relevant qualifications & experience.
Your company conducted layoffs while simultaneously hiring & maintaining H1B workers.
You were unable to obtain competitive salary increases due to the prevalence of visa workers in your field.
You applied for jobs advertised as part of a PERM labor market test, and experienced discriminatory practices intended to dissuade your application or unfairly disqualify you.
You noticed PERM job ads from well-known companies in newspaper classifieds requiring you to mail a paper resume, for roles that are posted nowhere on the company's website.

3.Suggest improvements

I request the DOL improve the proposed regulation through the following changes:

Adopt the Experience Benchmarking alternative, or increase Level I and Level IV wages to the 50th and 95th percentile levels respectively. This will help prevent adverse impact on US workers wages
Adopt additional regulation changes to fix vulnerabilities in the LCA process, such as:
Require that for H-1B workers placed at third-party worksites, the actual-wage comparison must include wages paid by the end-client to its own similarly employed workers, not merely wages paid by the staffing or outsourcing firm.
Updating PERM regulations to require advertising in modern approaches such as company online job boards, Linkedin, and Indeed.
Prohibit PERM certification for recruitment conducted exclusively via postal mail, fax, or email to immigration-only staff.
Require employers to document the number of U.S. applicants, the number interviewed, and the specific lawful job-related reasons each was rejected.
Establish an investigation authority to validate PERM attestations after they are certified
To the extent the Department has authority to require enhanced attestations or labor market documentation for H-1B applications, it should exercise that authority; to the extent statutory change is required, the Department should formally recommend such legislation to Congress in the preamble to the final rule.
Establish authority for random investigations of H1B program violations to provide enforcement capabilities.

Submitting your Comment

Remember to submit your comment directly to the DOl at the link below: