&gt; This rule would unfortunately favor employers in high cost-of-living areas over low COL ones<p>&gt; It also incentivizes putting as much of the compensation in salary as possible, and as little as possible in other benefits.<p>Both of these to a pretty ridiculous degree. You would have issues with companies like Amazon (who pay reasonably well and so far as I know don&#x27;t abuse the H1-B system) getting screwed because they either don&#x27;t pay as much in cash (they like a stock heavy comp model) or because they aren&#x27;t paying people bay area money.