Critics say the president's plan to charge $100,000 application fees for the H-1B visa program will greatly stifle the US economy, with universities, nonprofits and tech startups the most affected. Since its introduction in 1990, the H-1B visa program has been mostly used to provide the tech industry with highly skilled foreign workers. The White House claims that the H-1B system is being abused and that it disadvantages US workers. He added, however, that even in its "broken state," studies consistently prove how much the visa system "creates jobs, drives innovation and contributes dramatically to the gross domestic product." Clemens said "decades of extremely rigorous, peer-reviewed studies" on the effects of H1B workers "consistently point to one result: benefits for the local economy."