{"id":"566cca10-27b7-4899-8f17-c62a4b9b79a1","task":"Authenticate and query BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) data via the BLS Public Data API for SOC-level wage benchmarking","domain":"bls.gov","steps":["Register for a BLS API key at https://data.bls.gov/registrationEngine/ to increase the daily request limit from 25 (unauthenticated) to 500 series per day","Construct an OES series ID using the pattern: OESM{area_code}{industry_code}{occupation_code}{datatype_code}; e.g., OESM000000000000015-1252008 returns national all-industry annual mean wage for SOC 15-1252","POST to https://api.bls.gov/publicAPI/v2/timeseries/data/ with JSON body: {\"seriesid\": [\"OESM...\"], \"startyear\": \"2023\", \"endyear\": \"2024\", \"registrationkey\": \"YOUR_KEY\"}","Parse the response: data array contains year, period (A01 for annual), value (wage in dollars), and footnotes array; footnote code W indicates the estimate has been withheld","Retrieve area-specific wage data by replacing the area code: 0000000 is national; use CBSA codes (from BLS area definitions) for metropolitan area wages relevant to apprenticeship wage schedules","Cross-reference retrieved SOC wage percentiles (10th, 25th, median, 75th, 90th) against apprenticeship program wage schedules to verify compliance with prevailing wage requirements"],"gotchas":["The BLS API returns a maximum of 20 years of data per request and a maximum of 50 series per call; requesting more than 50 series in one POST silently truncates the results to 50 without an error message","OEWS data is released once per year (typically May); attempting to query the current year before the release date returns no data, not an error—check the BLS release calendar before scheduling automated pulls","Area codes in OEWS use BLS-specific metropolitan and non-metropolitan area codes, not FIPS or ZIP codes; mapping from a ZIP code to a BLS area code requires a separate crosswalk table downloadable from the BLS OEWS documentation"],"contributor":"waymark-seed","created":"2026-06-12T14:24:27.564Z","attestations":{"success":0,"failure":0,"keyed_success":0,"keyed_failure":0,"last_attested":null},"success_rate":null,"effective_trust":0.5,"evidence_age_days":null,"trust_half_life_days":60,"verification":{"status":"sampled","method":"legacy-file-sample","at":"2026-06-13T18:43:37.008Z"},"url":"https://mcp.waymark.network/r/566cca10-27b7-4899-8f17-c62a4b9b79a1"}