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The report supplements the Wage and Hour Division's (WHD) Compliance Strategies Evaluation by exploring whether and how data that are housed outside of WHD could be integrated with WHD’s administrative data. The researchers explored how external data can be integrated with WHD’s case management system, the Wage and Hour Investigative Support and Reporting Database (WHISARD), and the limitations of doing so.

Research Questions

• What are the strengths and limitations of WHD’s administrative data for the purposes of monitoring and evaluation?
• What is the potential for data that are external to WHD to play a complementary role to WHD’s administrative data in monitoring and evaluation activities?
• What are the challenges and opportunities in integrating these different data sources?

Key Takeaways

• Matching external limited-service restaurant data with WHISARD data demonstrated that it is possible to find complementary external data.
• The CHDExpert data provided an example of external data that can help WHD assess WHISARD’s bias in data selection and allow comparison group and subgroup analysis.
• The FRANdata data showed the potential of using franchising data to identify ownership characteristics and establish inter-connectedness between establishments.
• Only a small share of LSRs observed in WHISARD could be matched with external data from CHDExpert and FRANdata and integrating the external data was resource intensive.
• The inability to match establishments was likely due to: differences in data collection and recording processes between WHISARD and CHDExpert; the matching method itself; and/or WHISARD’s choice of establishments differing from the external establishments due to WHD’s priorities and targeting.
• It may be possible to improve matching by linking establishments to external data before beginning investigations and seeking stronger sources of external data.

Citation

Patnaik, A. (2020). Mathematica. Exploring External Data to Enhance Monitoring and Evaluation of WHD’s Compliance Strategies. Chief Evaluation Office, U.S. Department of Labor.

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The Department of Labor’s (DOL) Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) sponsors independent evaluations and research, primarily conducted by external, third-party contractors in accordance with the Department of Labor Evaluation Policy and CEO’s research development process.