Licensing: official authority first
State boards, departments, statutes, administrative rules, and official exam/provider documents take priority over third-party summaries.
TRADECAIRN Source Standard
How we verify career, licensing, and wage information.
TRADECAIRN separates official facts, sourced estimates, practical interpretation, and long-range scenarios so readers can see what a number means—and what it does not.
Wages: BLS OEWS
National, state, metro, and nonmetro wage figures use the latest available Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics release whenever possible. We label the data vintage.
Outlook: BLS projections
Official employment projections are labeled with their actual projection window. Longer-range TRADECAIRN scenario analysis is separated from federal forecasts.
Training: program-specific verification
Union, non-union, school, employer, and registered apprenticeship requirements are verified against the actual sponsor or authoritative source where available.
Corrections and dates
Pages should show source dates or last-reviewed dates where useful. When a rule or source changes, TRADECAIRN should update the page rather than preserve an outdated claim for SEO.