1. Data Sources
TruthWage combines three official US government data sources:
- DOL PERM (Form ETA-9089). Filed when an employer sponsors a worker for a permanent-residence (green card) labor certification. Discloses the offered salary, job title, worksite, required education, and prevailing wage. DOL disclosure data.
- DOL LCA (Form ETA-9035). Filed before an H-1B, H-1B1, or E-3 petition. Discloses the offered wage and the DOL prevailing wage and wage level.
- BLS OEWS. The Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey of ~1.1 million establishments, covering all workers in ~830 occupations. Used as the independent market benchmark.
2. What This Data Covers and Does Not Cover
DOL filing data covers positions where an employer sponsored a worker for a green card or H-1B visa. It does not cover US citizen or green-card-holder positions, and it does not cover every role at every company. For some employers (especially large tech and staffing firms) sponsorship covers a large share of hiring and the data is representative; for others it is a small subset. We always show BLS OEWS data alongside, which covers all workers.
3. Wage Normalization
Wages filed hourly, weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly are converted to an annual figure (hourly x 2080, weekly x 52, bi-weekly x 26, monthly x 12). Implausible outliers (for example an hourly rate above $500, or an annual figure above $5,000,000) are treated as data-entry errors and excluded.
4. Employer Name Deduplication
The same company appears under many spellings (GOOGLE LLC, Google Inc., GOOGLE, INC.). We normalize names by removing legal suffixes and punctuation and grouping variants into one canonical employer. Mechanical normalization resolves most duplicates; the rest are merged through manual review.
5. Prevailing Wage Premium
The DOL sets a prevailing wage floor for each occupation and location, at four levels: Level I (entry), II (qualified), III (experienced), IV (fully competent). Employers must pay at least the floor for the level they file. The TruthWage Prevailing Wage Premium compares an employer's median filed salary to the median prevailing-wage floor for the same role - a positive premium means they pay above the legal minimum.
6. BLS OEWS Comparison
BLS OEWS is collected by surveying employers about all of their workers, so it represents the whole labor market rather than only sponsored positions. Comparing the two sources shows how sponsored-role pay relates to the broader market.
7. Update Frequency
DOL disclosure data is released quarterly and imported each quarter. BLS OEWS is released annually.
8. Limitations and Caveats
Filing data reflects what employers declared at filing time, not necessarily final pay. Coverage varies by employer. Cost-of-living adjustments use published index data and do not account for taxes. Figures are informational and not financial or legal advice.