The current process in determining income for calculating guidelines is to use actual income. When evidence of current or average income is not available or not equitable, 43 O.S. §118B allows for imputing income. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is one resource you can use to ascertain appropriate income. To find income information in a specific field for a particular state, follow these directions:
First, access the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics – Home.
This home page has several selections you can choose from.
But, to save you from having to search through the Bureau of Labor Statistics web pages, instead, go to U.S. BLS – Overview of BLS Wage Data by Area and Occupation.
Scroll down a little until you see Wage Data by State, and click on By State.
To narrow the search down even further go to U.S. BLS – Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics and choose a State from the interactive map. Once the state information opens, you can scroll through the page to see the abundant information about occupations on this page. As you scroll the page you will come across a table that contains average wages for occupations. The Occupation list is long, but you should be able to find the job category you are looking for and the average hourly wage and average annual wage (look for column headings of mean hourly wage and annual mean wage). (Hint: You might save some time by using Ctrl+F to search for the job title.)
You can also delve a little deeper and get a more accurate look at income by region within the state. To do that, you click on the state, like you did above, but instead of finding occupation information, you will click on “Links to OEWS estimates for other areas and states.” At that point, you will find links to metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas within the state. Click on the appropriate region, and search for occupation information as described above.
Keywords: impute