The University of Iowa

What these numbers don't say

The wage is the job, not the payer

The median offered wage moves almost entirely with what roles they file. A software developer and a poultry cutter are different numbers wherever they are filed, so this figure is not plotted against the field and no percentile is given for it: that comparison would rank occupation mix and call it pay. Wages by occupation are on the wages page.

Volume doesn’t change the wait

DOL works a single national queue, oldest first, whoever filed the case, so a company with four thousand filings waits exactly as long as one with three.

The name is a legal entity

DOL prints whatever went on the form. A group that files through several subsidiaries appears as several rows, and one that files everything through a parent appears once, so a rank is a rank among printed names rather than among companies.

A median over 44 decided cases

The queue is national and first in, first out, so this figure follows when the cases were filed as much as it follows the sponsor.

Two sources, and they do not add up

The filing counts come from DOL's disclosure files, where every row already carries a decision date, so nothing pending is in them. The queue figures come from a live per-case tracker with its own coverage and its own as-of date. Subtracting one from the other gives a number that means nothing. Where the queue stands overall is on the processing times page.