There is a pretty cool but not well-known tool that employees in Texas can use to find out if they are being underpaid. It’s a FREE wage database maintained by the Texas Workforce Commission, which contains a wealth of statistics on labor data, including wages for variety of occupations in different cities and areas of Texas.

To find out what others are making in your profession in Texas, follow these steps:

1. Go to www.texaslmi.com and then select Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics database on the left side of the screen:

2. Select “Texas” and then search for your profession (I searched for “Registered Nurse”):

3. Search for your industry and select whether you want to look up hourly or salary information. Then “run” the report. Your results will look something like this:

4. You can export the report into an Excel spreadsheet and see the data for each city and/or area in Texas, if that data is available. In that report, you can see the “mean wage,” “entry wage,” and “experienced wage” and other data for different geographic areas. This will allow you to determine if you are being underpaid and provide you with evidence to show your employer when negotiating a higher compensation.

This is also a great tool for employers who are trying to figure out how much to pay new hires.

Leiza Dolghih is the founder of Dolghih Law Group PLLC.  She is board certified in labor and employment law and has 16+ years of experience in commercial and employment litigation, including trade secrets and non-compete disputes. You can contact her directly at [email protected] or (214) 531-2403.

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