There are a significant number of people who distrust government economic data. A Marketplace Edison research poll, for instance, found that roughly a quarter of Americans “completely distrust the economic data reported by the federal government."
In response, a number of private entities are working to create their own economic measurement tools. As reported by writer Josh Zumbrun, the website Glassdoor is hoping that it can analyze the millions of reviews employees leave online of their employers to create a more detailed pictures of U.S. wages.
Recently, Glassdoor unveiled its Local Pay Reports, a new monthly estimate of overall U.S. wage growth. This new method also supplies estimates of compensation for different occupations in specific cities, though not yet for Baltimore and Washington.
There have efforts by others in recent years to comb through Twitter to determine when people lose jobs. Researchers also look at online prices to measure inflation. Here’s what’s amazing. The top level finding in Glassdoor’s report is not all that different from what the U.S. Labor Department has been reporting regarding recent compensation increases.
