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Original Date Announced
March 27, 2026The Department of Labor (DOL) issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), "Improving Wage Protections for the Temporary and Permanent Employment of Certain Foreign Nationals in the United States," proposing to revise Employment and Training Administration (ETA) regulations governing the prevailing wage levels for the H-1B, H-1B1, and E-3 nonimmigrant visa programs and the EB-2 and EB-3 employment-based immigrant visa programs. The NPRM would amend the methodology used to compute the prevailing wage that an employer must agree to meet or exceed when it seeks a labor certification to employ a noncitizen under these visa classifications. Using the new computation method, the NPRM also proposes increasing the prevailing wage floors at all four tiers.
DOL states that it is proposing the rule because the current methodology "allows employers to pay alien workers significantly less than what similarly qualified U.S. workers earn for the same jobs in the same area of intended employment," resulting in "unfair competition for U.S. workers" who are "displaced or undercut" by noncitizen workers.
Public comments are accepted until May 26, 2026.
Trump 2.0 [ID #2239]
2026.03.27 DOL - Improving Wage Protections for the Temporary and Permanent Employment of Certain Foreign Nationals in the United StatesCurrent Status
NoneOriginal Trump Policy Status
Status: Proposed Comment PeriodTrump Administration Action: RuleSubject Matter: Labor Employment Verification Non-Immigrant Visas: Employment-Based Immigrant Visas: Employment-BasedAgencies Affected: DOLAssociated or Derivative Policies
- September 19, 2025 Proclamation 10973: Restriction on Entry of Certain Nonimmigrant Workers
Documents
Trump-Era Policy Documents
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Commentary
2026.03.27 Institute for Progress - A Prescription for Fixing the Prevailing Wage System
The Institute for Progress (IFP) analyzes the NPRM described in this entry. IFP explains that the NPRM considers two ways to reform the prevailing wage system to prevent employers from using visa programs to pay foreign workers less than similarly qualified Americans: “Blind Benchmarking” and “Experience Benchmarking." IFP argues that DOL's main proposal, Blind Benchmarking, cannot end such "wage arbitrage," but that the Experience Benchmarking approach would fully do so.
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