Bill raises minimum pay for foreign worker visas.
S. 5638 — Protecting American Workers Through H–1B Modernization Act. · Filed by Jon Husted (R-OH) · Introduced Sep 30, 2026 · Referred to committee
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What it does
The bill changes the minimum wage for H-1B visa workers. Employers must now pay at least $60,000. This bill would raise that to twice the national average wage. That was about $168,000 in 2024. The wage would go up automatically each year.
Who it affects
Employers who hire H-1B workers would have to pay much more. U.S. workers in tech, healthcare, and finance might face less competition. Some employers might move jobs overseas or use automation instead.
One thing to notice
The wage floor goes up on its own each year without Congress voting again.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
- Sep 30, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Sep 30, 2026 — Referred to Senate Committee on the Judiciary · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Words to know
- H-1B visa — A permit that lets U.S. employers hire foreign workers for specialty jobs.
- minimum wage — The lowest amount of pay an employer must give a worker.
- national average wage — The typical wage earned by workers across the entire country in a year.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (445 characters) on Oct 8, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
As of — page rendered 2026-10-20.
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