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Salary & Compensation Research Guide

Major Publishers

This section includes only a representative sampling of the publishers that produce, or used to produce, salary surveys and compensation information. It does not link to salary surveys produced by trade and professional associations that are made available to members; but please note that they can be particularly good for those industries or occupations that may not be covered by the bigger publishers.

Most of the publishers have moved to online subscription-based products that the Library does not subscribe to but we have linked to publisher websites for anyone wanting to understand what they currently produce. The catalog links under each company will lead to older publications from these publishers useful for historical compensation research.

Lastly, if you are looking for historical data related to pay by position, industry, or job there are too many titles in the Library to account for in this guide so we have created an extensive list of subject headings in the Search the Library's Catalog page.

The subscription resources marked with a padlock are available to researchers on-site at the Library of Congress. If you are unable to visit the Library, you may be able to access these resources through your local public or academic library.

ERI has been providing compensation related data since 1987. Electronic products include: Salary Survey Assessor, which contains competitive wage, salary, and incentive survey data for over 5,000 jobs. Geographic Pay Assessor contrasts geographic wages/salaries and costs among infinite headquarter and branch office location combinations. Executive Compensation tracks data on over 400 jobs titles many since 1977 and is derived from 14,000 US publicly-traded corporations' proxies and 10-K annual reports; etc. ERI also offers print compensation reports and cost-of-living data. Several formerly independent consulting firms that produced salary and compensation data have been purchased by ERI. This includes Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. (also seen as Gallagher Benefit Service, Inc.) which had acquired the Stanton Group as well as Abbott, Langer & Associates. Click the below links to find material produced by the various publishers.
Currently, much of CompData's information is a subscription-based service. They published titles on the following industries: Banking & Finance, Healthcare, Hospitality, Insurance, Manufacturing & Distribution, Not-for-Profit, Service, and Utilities. Geographically, they group by region: Midwest, Northeast, South Central, Southeast, and West. The Library has traditionally received many of CompData's print titles so if you are doing historical research the Library has many of the older print surveys. Click the below link to find material produced by the publisher.
Culpepper has surveys in the following areas: Board, Executive, Life Sciences, Operations, Sales, Technology, Start-up & Small Co. Click the below link to find material produced by the publisher.
SNL Securities, now SNL Financial published a series of Executive Compensation Reviews on Insurance, Banks & Thrifts, Specialty Lenders, and Real Estate. Click the below link to find material produced by the publisher.
Willis Towers Watson is a merger of Towers Perrin, Watson Wyatt, and Willis Group Holdings. Towers Perrin was known for compensation consulting, while Watson Wyatt (and ECS) was known for their compensation surveys. The two companies merged in January of 2010 and in 2016 the merged company merged with the Willis Group, a risk advisor, insurance brokerage and reinsurance brokerage company. Towers Watson Data Services, a subsidiary of Towers Watson still produces the executive compensation surveys. Some surveys are by industry like the health care, banking, and accounting related titles, while others are by position like those for top management, middle management, and supervisory management. If you are doing historical research, Watson Wyatt used to publish the industry/position volume with a companion volume for geographic breakdowns. Eventually they combined the set to create one title per industry/position that did include geographic data. Click the below links to find material produced by the various publishers.
The Conference Board for many years published Top executive compensation as well as other publications. They continue to document trends and developments on senior management compensation at nearly 2,500 companies. Click the below link to find material produced by the publisher.

Internet Resources

We have included the websites of the above publishers if you are interested in understanding what these companies offer in terms of current products and titles. It also includes other sources that are related.