Pay, records and enforcement · Wage year 2026-27
Common wage level mistakes on filings
Wage level errors aren’t exotic. The same handful recur, they all come from reading the wrong input, and every one of them is visible on the face of the filing.
Read this firstThis is a computed reading of published federal data and published federal guidance, not legal advice. Only the Department of Labor issues prevailing wage determinations, and only the Department of Labor decides whether an obligation has been met. Where a rule below is our reading rather than a verbatim quotation, the text says so.
What follows is a list of failure patterns, drawn from how the determination works rather than from any enforcement statistic. Each one is checkable in a couple of minutes against the published data.
1. Setting the level from the job title
A title with "senior" in it’s not a Level III determination and a title without it’s not Level I. The determination reads requirements: experience against the occupational norm, education against the usual entry level, special requirements, supervision. Two roles with the same title at two employers can land differently and both be right. The sequence is How the four wage levels are determined.
2. Using the city instead of the county
Areas are built from counties. New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ is 22 of them across more than one state, and a worksite anywhere inside it shares one wage table. Looking up a city name, or using the headquarters address instead of the worksite, produces a figure for the wrong area. See Area of intended employment, and why the county matters more than the city.
3. Carrying a figure across 1 July
The tables are republished annually and take effect on 1 July. A figure prepared in June and filed in July is a figure from the previous wage year. The current vintage here’s 2026-27. See The wage year calendar, and when the figures change.
4. Treating a preference as a requirement
"Master's preferred" isn’t an education requirement, and writing it into the requirements block inflates the level and the wage for nothing. The reverse error is worse: describing a genuine hard requirement as a preference to hold the level down produces a job description that doesn’t match the job.
5. Missing that the occupation isn’t on Appendix A
For most professional occupations a bachelor's degree is the usual entry level, so requiring one adds no step. That’s not universal. Transportation, Storage, and Distribution Managers, SOC 11-3071, has a usual entry education of high school diploma or equivalent in this data, so a degree requirement there sits above the occupational norm. See Appendix A, and which occupations are on it.
6. Counting supervision that’s already inherent
In a management occupation, supervising people is what the occupation is. Adding a step for it double-counts something the classification already reflects, and pushes the filing to a level the job doesn’t support.
7. Ignoring the Job Zone
An experience requirement only moves the level when it exceeds what’s ordinary for the occupation, and what’s ordinary comes from the Job Zone. In a Zone 4 occupation, several years of experience is unremarkable. See Job Zones, and how they set the experience baseline.
8. Not noticing the figure was imputed
A wage row flagged above GeoLvl 1 was borrowed from a broader geography rather than surveyed for that area. It’s still the published prevailing wage, and it still deserves a note in the file. In this build 89 of 2,367 cells carry such a flag. See What GeoLvl means, and when a wage figure is imputed.
9. Picking the occupation code from the title
The code is matched from duties against published occupation definitions. Change the code and the entire wage table changes, which is why classification disputes and wage disputes are usually the same dispute. See SOC codes, and how a job maps to one.
10. Reading the top of the offered wage range
The application states the offered wage as a range. The binding promise is the bottom of it. Employees checking their own filing frequently read the top and conclude they’re being underpaid when they aren’t, and reviewers occasionally do the reverse. See Reading an LCA: the fields that matter.
The check that catches most of them
Take the occupation code, the worksite county, the wage year and the level, look up the four published figures, and see whether the number on the filing is one of them. If it’s, the level is identifiable. If it’s not, something in the chain is wrong. For Software Developers in New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ in 2026-27:
| Level | Hourly | Annual |
|---|---|---|
| Level I | $52.81 | $109,845 |
| Level II | $66.21 | $137,717 |
| Level III | $79.61 | $165,589 |
| Level IV | $93.01 | $193,461 |
Computed from ALC_Export.csv in OFLC_Wages_2026-27.zip, wage year 2026-27.
That check takes a minute and finds errors 2, 3, 8, 9 and 10 outright. The rest need the job description, which is the document the whole determination rests on.
More in pay, records and enforcement
- Prevailing wage versus actual wage, and the two-part obligation. The two figures, which one binds, and why the internal one is the one that moves.
- What happens when the offered wage is below the prevailing wage. How a shortfall arises, how it surfaces, and the range of consequences.
- What a public access file has to contain. The contents, the deadlines, and the one item employers most often can’t produce.
- How to check whether you're being paid correctly as a visa holder. Five inputs, one lookup, one comparison, and what to do if the numbers don’t meet.
All 24 guides are indexed at Guides. Wage figures throughout are read from ALC_Export.csv, wage year 2026-27.