Methodology

1. Prevailing wage (DOL OFLC)

Source: DOL OFLC quarterly Prevailing Wage Determinations + LCA disclosure CSVs. We rebuild the wage level 1-4 × SOC × MSA lookup every quarter when DOL releases new files. Page-level data points cite the exact disclosure ID where reproducible.

2. Priority dates (travel.state.gov visa bulletin)

Source: monthly visa bulletin from travel.state.gov. Our ETL scrapes "Final Action Date" and "Date for Filing" tables for each category × chargeability area. Historical retrogression trend lines reach back to the earliest published bulletin we can verify.

3. Processing times (USCIS)

Source: egov.uscis.gov/processing-times/ tables. Synced monthly. Per-form, per-service-center matrices; we do not interpolate or smooth.

4. Substantial Presence Test (IRS Pub 519)

Computed straight from IRS Publication 519 §1: days in current year + 1/3 days in prior year + 1/6 days in year before that. We surface the exemptions for F/J students and J/Q teachers as published.

5. PERM processing time

Source: DOL OFLC PERM disclosure CSV (case received date → final determination date). We compute the running median by determination month for the 12 most recent published months.

What we don't do

• We don't predict approval probability for individual cases.
• We don't aggregate self-reported H-1B salary data — we cite DOL LCA filings, which are the legal floor.
• We don't combine government data with lawyer-blog estimates without naming the lawyer-blog source.

Last sync timestamps

Each data-driven page surfaces a "Last verified: YYYY-MM-DD" stamp synced with the ETL build that produced its numbers. If a stamp is older than the source's published cadence, we flag it.

Corrections policy

If a number on a page disagrees with the underlying DOL/USCIS/IRS source, we treat the source as authoritative and update the page. See Corrections for the full procedure.