What we treat as a correction

A correction is any factual error on a published page. The bar is the same whether the source of the error is ours or upstream:

  • Data errors. Wrong BLS OEWS percentile, BEA RPP value, state tax bracket, license fee, reciprocity status, employment count.
  • Calculation errors. Paycheck, retirement, mortgage, or take-home math that produces a wrong number for the inputs given. Includes rounding, bracket-stack, FICA-cap, and locality-tax bugs.
  • Editorial errors. Misnamed agencies, misquoted statutes, misattributed methodology, broken citation links.
  • Currency drift. A page that hasn't picked up a publicly released update (IRS Rev. Proc., state DOR bulletin, NCSBN compact-state addition) within the published refresh cadence on Data Sources.

Differences in interpretation, methodology disagreements, or "your number is lower than Glassdoor's" do not qualify as corrections — we'll respond, but they're handled as editorial feedback rather than a correction.

How to report one

Email [email protected] with:

  1. The page URL.
  2. The specific value, sentence, or calculation you believe is wrong.
  3. A link to the authoritative source (BLS release, state DOR bulletin, agency press release, statute citation) that supports the correction. We can't act on tips without a verifiable source.

If you'd rather not email, the same form fields are at /contact/. Anonymous reports are accepted; we just can't reply to confirm the fix.

Service-level commitment

StageTargetWhat happens
AcknowledgementWithin 2 business daysReply confirming we received the report and whether we're treating it as a correction or as editorial feedback.
InvestigationWithin 3 business days of acknowledgementVerify against the cited source and our pipeline output. If the source supports the correction, we proceed; if not, we close with reasoning.
ResolutionWithin 5 business days of acknowledgementPage is updated, the data file is patched, and an entry is logged in the public changelog.
Systemic fixesSame release cycleIf the bug affects more than one page (e.g., a tax-engine issue), every affected page is rebuilt — not just the page reported.

Corrections that depend on an upstream agency releasing data (e.g., waiting for BLS to issue a corrected OEWS file) follow the upstream timeline; we publish a holding note on the affected page until the agency data is in.

How a correction shows up on the page

  1. The corrected value or copy replaces the original.
  2. The page's last synced timestamp is bumped.
  3. A short entry is added to the site changelog identifying what changed, when, and which dataset or release triggered it. We don't silently overwrite numbers.
  4. Material methodology changes (formula updates, bracket-stack revisions, RPP-blend adjustments) are additionally logged on the Methodology page with the prior approach preserved for reference.

What we won't do

  • Backdate. If we got it wrong, the changelog says so with the original date. We don't quietly edit the public record.
  • Take down by request. Pages aren't removed because a number is unflattering or because someone wishes the data said something else. The data says what the source says.
  • Negotiate methodology. Our real-wage formula is published on the Methodology page. If you disagree, we'd genuinely like to hear it — but the methodology is not changed page-by-page on request.

Editor of record

Corrections are reviewed and resolved personally by Marcus Liang, founder and sole editor (profile). For escalations, the same address: [email protected].