Hate to break it to you but someone with a PhD is not a 'new grad', they have often been working in a high pressure job for ~5 years post graduation, usually required to do teaching, assist on their supervisor's research projects (lots of grunt coding), and do research and write a thesis. In this hypothetical, their value comes from having specific expertise on top of general skills.

There is no guarantee you will be able to find an American with those skills, even for $129k. If there is a long term need, and the industry doesn't move somewhere cheaper, eventually there will be more applicants. I've yet to meet any company who says 'no problem, we'll just delay that project until we can find someone'.

You could have a payroll tax on H1Bs, say 25%, that goes toward funding STEM PhD stipends, and peg their minimum salaries to be greater than the median of comparable American salaries. Though that may create a perverse incentive for companies to pay locals a lot LESS so as to reduce the overall salary bill. Needs some expert modelling...

> Hate to break it to you but someone with a PhD is not a 'new grad'

Then they'll have no problem to get a 130k jobs.

Looks like a good thing. Companies won't be able to pretend that they are fresh inexperienced workers and pay them peanuts.

>supervisor's research projects (lots of grunt coding)

Hobby projects that A) have no users so stability and usability is unimportant, B) have no one review code, or the results so correctness is unimportant, C) have no requirements to support it after the paper is written, so maintainability is unimportant all add up to shit general skills.

If a PhD has specific expertise you need then great, otherwise expect a mediocre entry level dev with a chip on their shoulder.

>There is no guarantee you will be able to find an American with those skills, even for $129k.

You could hire an American citizen with a PhD.