FWD: Wage data understated on DoL website?

[Anonymous User <anonfwd -at- RAYCOMM -dot- COM>]

Name withheld upon request. Please reply on list.

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America's Career InfoNet is a website from the US Department of Labor (DoL)
that gives wage data for different U.S. states and occupations. There is a
problem with this website that affects technical writers in Minnesota and
possibly others around the nation. The site claims that its Minnesota wage
data is based on numbers from the Minnesota Department of Economic
Security. However, performing the following procedure will reveal the
inaccuracy of those numbers:

1. Using your web browser, go to the page that shows up when some
unsuspecting manager or HR person goes looking for MN technical writer wage
data:
www.acinet.org/acinet/occ_rep.htm?oescode=34005&stfips=27&x=29&y=9
This page has a supposed 1996 median salary.

2. At the above-given URL, locate the text "Source:" and next to it, click
on "Minnesota Department of Economic Security", to go to the supposed
source of the wage data.

3. The MDES Economic and Employment Data page appears. From there, scroll
down to "Minnesota Salary Survey 1996" (under the subheading "Workforce
Data by Industry").

4. Click on "Minnesota Salary Survey 1996".

5. Under "Wage and Employment Data for:", click "Alphabetical" next to
Minnesota employment and wage estimates.

6. Scroll down to Technical Writers and Editors.

7. Check the numbers against the America's Career InfoNet 1996 Minnesota
Technical Writer numbers from step 1. America's Career InfoNet misquotes
their own source.

One possible explanation I have received for the discrepency is that the
DoL lumped technical writers and editors in with all other writers (authors
of fiction, freelance magazine writers, journalists, etc.). Unfortunately,
most employers will not know this (this fact is not made clear on the
website; if someone searches for Minnesota technical writer wage data, the
above URL is what they will get. It should instead say "Sorry, we don't
have data for technical writers. That information is available at the MDES
website. Would you like to see data for all writers, including those who
quit their day jobs in hopes of becoming the next James Michener, but who
are going through that 'struggling artiste' period trying to eek out a
living and who frequently ponder the utility of rejection slips as a
stand-in for firewood?")

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