---
license: cc-by-4.0
language:
- en
pretty_name: Office Blues — Misery Data
tags:
- labor-statistics
- wages
- bls-oews
- burnout
- open-data
- united-states
- economics
size_categories:
- n<1K
source_datasets:
- original
configs:
- config_name: occupation_wages
  data_files: data/occupation_wages.csv
- config_name: city_burnout_index
  data_files: data/city_burnout_index.csv
---

![Office Blues — Misery Data](banner.png)

# Misery Data — the cost of work, in numbers

[![DOI](https://img.shields.io/badge/DOI-10.5281%2Fzenodo.20534485-0047FF?style=flat-square)](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20534485)
[![License: CC BY 4.0](https://img.shields.io/badge/License-CC%20BY%204.0-FF2D2D?style=flat-square)](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
[![Website](https://img.shields.io/badge/site-officeblues.net-0A0A0A?style=flat-square)](https://officeblues.net)
[![Source](https://img.shields.io/badge/GitHub-officeblues%2Fmisery--data-0A0A0A?style=flat-square&logo=github)](https://github.com/officeblues/misery-data)

Two small, clean, public datasets on **what work actually costs you** — maintained by **[Office Blues](https://officeblues.net)**, a tools-and-data project for the unhappily employed. Built from federal sources, free to reuse, easy to cite.

> **CC BY 4.0** — quote a figure, build on it, cite us. No scraping mystery; every number traces to a public source.

---

## 📦 What's inside

| Config | Rows | What it is |
|---|---:|---|
| **`occupation_wages`** | 823 | Annual wage percentiles for U.S. detailed occupations (BLS OEWS, May 2025) |
| **`city_burnout_index`** | 50 | A composite burnout score (0–100) for the 50 largest U.S. metros |

Both ship as **CSV and JSON**, plus a [Frictionless Data](https://frictionlessdata.io/) `datapackage.json` (typed schemas + licensing).

## 🚀 Quickstart

```python
from datasets import load_dataset

wages = load_dataset("officeblues/misery-data", "occupation_wages", split="train")
burnout = load_dataset("officeblues/misery-data", "city_burnout_index", split="train")

print(wages[0])
# {'soc': '15-1252', 'title': 'Software Developers', 'median_usd': 132270, ...}
```

Prefer pandas?

```python
import pandas as pd
url = "https://huggingface.co/datasets/officeblues/misery-data/resolve/main/data/occupation_wages.csv"
df = pd.read_csv(url)
df.nlargest(10, "median_usd")[["title", "median_usd"]]
```

---

## 🗂️ Schema

### `occupation_wages` — U.S. occupation annual wages (n = 823)

| field | type | meaning |
|---|---|---|
| `soc` | string | Standard Occupational Classification (SOC 2018) code |
| `title` | string | Occupation title |
| `p25_usd` / `median_usd` / `p75_usd` / `p90_usd` | int | Annual wage percentiles, USD |
| `source_url` | string | The Office Blues page for this occupation |

**Source:** U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, [Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS)](https://www.bls.gov/oes/), May 2025 release. National figures.

### `city_burnout_index` — City burnout index (n = 50)

| field | type | meaning |
|---|---|---|
| `cbsa_code` | string | Census CBSA code |
| `city` / `state` | string | Metro area / state |
| `population` | int | Metro population |
| `burnout_score` | int | Composite score, 0–100 (higher = worse) |
| `rank` / `of_cities` | int | Rank (1 = worst) of 50 |
| `source_url` | string | The Office Blues page for this metro |

**Methodology:** the burnout score composites public metro-level indicators (pay-to-cost-of-living gap, commute time, unemployment). Full method: **[officeblues.net/methodology](https://officeblues.net/methodology)**. Treat it as an editorial index (v1), not an official statistic.

---

## 📑 Citation

**DOI:** [10.5281/zenodo.20534485](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20534485) — the concept DOI, always resolving to the latest version (archived on [Zenodo](https://zenodo.org/records/20534486)).

```bibtex
@misc{officeblues_misery_data,
  author       = {Office Blues},
  title        = {Misery Data: U.S. occupation wages and a city burnout index},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Office Blues},
  doi          = {10.5281/zenodo.20534485},
  url          = {https://officeblues.net},
  note         = {CC BY 4.0}
}
```

## ℹ️ About

Maintained by **Office Blues** — <https://officeblues.net>. The methodology and the tools behind these numbers (the Meeting Tax Calculator, the Salary Negotiation Script, the daily pulse) live there. **Aggregates only** — no personal or per-visitor data. This is the canonical mirror of [github.com/officeblues/misery-data](https://github.com/officeblues/misery-data).

*Tools, data & receipts for the unhappy employed.*