[ones_and_zeros]

I've thought about this as well. Ultimately you need access to some pretty private data. One thought I've had is to use the mint/intuit APIs to get a list of a persons transactions in their bank account and find the ones that occur every 2 weeks, etc.

Or possibly have users upload paystubs, though you'd have to have someway to verify. I'm sure that's possible.

[pixeloution]

Even if users were willing, this would be woefully inaccurate information. Mint shows take-home pay. But you have to keep in mind ...

  * People contribute between 0 to X% to a 401k. 
    This couldn't be deduced from take-home.
  * Many companies have a Employee Stock Purchase Program, 
    which is deducted from payroll.
  * Some (Many?) programmers get a large chunk of 
    compensation in options or RSUs.

I think self-reported is likely the only way to get numbers without some extremely invasive requests.

[notyourwork]

Its an interesting approach but I see trouble convincing a user to give their mint credentials to a site for salary information. Imagine if Glassdoor or LinkedIn asked for this.

[ones_and_zeros]

You wouldn't need to give your mint credentials. They have an API so that you can create an app that gets read only access based on an OAuth token for a particular user. Similar to fb oauth, google, etc.

[duaneb]

This would cause weird effects, like my canceling my 401k contribution if I want to change jobs to boost my apparent income.

[coredog64]

Why not just go to ADP?