Evidence that the beneficiary has either commanded a high salary or will command a high salary or other substantial remuneration for services in relation to others in the field, as evidenced by contracts or other reliable evidence.
To demonstrate that the petitioner meets this criterion, the petitioner should provide appropriate evidence establishing that the beneficiary’s past or future compensation is or will be high relative to others working in the field.
When evaluating assertions regarding future compensation, officers may consider the credibility of submitted contracts, job offer letters, or other evidence of prospective salary or remuneration for services.
Petitioners often submit wage surveys to show a comparison. Wage survey data, including but not limited to government wage survey data such as the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, may be helpful in evaluating the relative compensation for a given field. When evaluating whether an accurate comparison is being made between the beneficiary’s documented remuneration and the remuneration in the survey, the following considerations, among others, may be relevant:
- The description of the occupation. Broad descriptions that include multiple occupations or multiple industries may not provide an accurate comparison to others in the field. For example, directors and producers might be listed as a single category across industries, but evidence that a film director receives high remuneration based on a broad range of occupational data that include disparate occupations such as film director and radio show producer, may not be sufficiently probative.
- The validity of the survey. Some websites provide user-reported salary data, which may not be a valid comparison if, for example, too few users reported their salaries or the data is otherwise not credible or reliable.
- Location and currency. Officers evaluate persons working outside of the United States based on the wage statistics or comparable evidence relevant to the applicable work location, rather than by simply converting the salary to U.S. dollars and then viewing whether that salary would be considered high in the United States.
