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Research: Five Original Datasets, Free to Reuse Under CC BY 4.0

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The 2026 reportThe flagship datasetsMethodology, corrections and machine-readable copiesFor journalists and researchersRelated guidesArchived, citable copies

Updated July 31, 2026. Quick answer: Clear Money Guide publishes original datasets built by reading primary sources rather than aggregating other people’s summaries. Every one is deposited with a permanent DOI, and the full list is at the bottom of this page. Each one was built by reading primary sources — SEC Form ADV filings, state statutes, court fee schedules — rather than by aggregating other people’s summaries, and each is released under CC BY 4.0, so anyone may reuse it with attribution. This page is the index: what each dataset measures, where the methodology is written down, and how to cite it.

The 2026 report

State of Advisor Fees 2026 — the flagship analysis built on these datasets: measured advisory cost at five portfolio sizes from 176 firms’ own SEC filings, and the access gap underneath it — 61.4% of firms cannot price a $250,000 household. Free to reuse under CC BY 4.0, with an archived copy at DOI 10.5281/zenodo.21741167.

The flagship datasets

Advisor fee benchmark. What registered investment advisers actually charge, taken from their own published Form ADV fee schedules rather than from a survey: weighted medians by portfolio size, and a measure of how many firms publish a fee you can price at all. The benchmark, with its methodology and citation block.

Advisor statistics by state. Counts and concentration of advisers across the United States, state by state. Advisor statistics.

Transfer-on-death deed statutes. Which states authorise a TOD deed for real property, under what statute, and with what limits — verified against each state’s own code. TOD deed states.

Medicaid estate recovery. What each state may recover from an estate after Medicaid has paid for care, and the exemptions that apply. Medicaid estate recovery.

Probate costs by state. What probate actually costs, built from published fee schedules and statutory formulas rather than national averages. Probate cost by state and the underlying statistics. Related: retirement tax statistics.

Methodology, corrections and machine-readable copies

Every dataset page carries its own methodology section and cite-as string; those are the authoritative versions and this page does not restate them. Machine-readable copies live at the data directory. How the work is done and how errors are handled: methodology, editorial policy, and corrections — corrections are logged publicly, including which figures changed.

For journalists and researchers

All of them are reusable under CC BY 4.0: reproduce the figures, charts and tables in your own work, including commercially, with attribution to Clear Money Guide and a link to the source page. Each page’s cite-as string is the preferred form. If you need a cut we have not published — a different balance point, a state breakdown, an earlier vintage — ask, and if the underlying data supports it we will publish it rather than send a private extract, so everyone can check it. Contact.

Two honest limits. These are datasets built by a small independent publisher, not peer-reviewed research, and they are described that way deliberately. And each has a vintage — the date it was collected is on its page, and figures drawn from filings and statutes go stale as those change.

Equity Compensation · Trusts · Roth Conversions · Settling an Estate · Inherited IRA Rules · Business Owner Retirement and Exit · Social Security Timing · Retirement Withdrawals · When a Spouse Dies · Pension and Annuity Decisions · Charitable Giving and Tax · Divorce and Your Money · Home Sale Taxes · Life Insurance Decisions · IRMAA · Long-Term Care Planning · All guides

The tools are reusable too. Six calculators built on these datasets are available as free embeds under the same attribution terms: the embed catalog.

Archived, citable copies

Published 2026-08-04, DOI pending: the Statute Provenance Register 2026 (149 state-law pages: the authority relied on, the primary source read, and the date it was read) and the Statute Source Fingerprints 2026 (SHA-256 fingerprints of the 108 source documents, so a rewrite can be detected independently). Both CC BY 4.0, downloadable now; the Zenodo deposits are queued, so neither has a DOI yet and this page will not imply one.

All 21 datasets are deposited with permanent DOIs, so they can be cited in academic and journalistic work and will resolve even if this site changes. Everything is CC BY 4.0 — reuse it, including commercially, with attribution.

Citable figures: our statistics index collects 20 measured figures from four open datasets, each with the DOI to cite and all free to reuse under CC BY 4.0.

The 2026 report: The State of Estate Planning 2026 collects the eight findings from this site’s statute-cited data in one citable place — including which jurisdictions’ small-estate route reaches real property, and which publish a probate fee schedule at all. Free to reuse under CC BY 4.0.

Added in 2026: two computed flagships

Where you can skip probate. Every state’s small-estate route ranked on the dimension that decides most estates — whether it can transfer real property, not merely personal property — with dollar thresholds published as a separate axis and the states our data cannot answer named rather than dropped. Where you can skip probate.

The 2026 Retirement & Estate Law Scorecard. The year’s changes and figures in one dated, sourced review — the basic exclusion at $15,000,000 under OBBBA, nineteen registered federal figures, and the SSI and Medicare rules commonly mis-dated, each stamped with the date its own instrument carries. The 2026 scorecard.

Both are computed from data already published on this site, both carry a CSV, and both have a DOI queued for deposit. Free to reuse with attribution under CC BY 4.0.

The CE spending study now has a front end — the spending study, made interactive.

The State Retirement Scorecard. Every state on every dimension that decides a retirement move — income tax, Social Security treatment, pension exemption, estate tax, inheritance tax and probate model — presented separately, with no composite score and no ranking, because the weights a ranking needs are editorial judgements wearing arithmetic. The scorecard.

State law tables

A second wing of the library, and a deliberately different one. The flagship datasets above are computed from microdata and serve the retirement audience. These are read from state statutes and serve a different reader entirely — writers, HR staff, tenants, local journalists and anyone checking a number before republishing it.

All four follow the same discipline: every cell is quoted from the state’s own code with the date it was read, and the coverage is stated rather than implied. They ship at wave-one size on purpose — a fifty-row table assembled from other people’s summaries would look more authoritative and be worth less.

  • Final Paycheck Laws by State — When a final paycheque is due after quitting versus being fired, with the penalty provision where the state has one. Wave one: 7 states, each quoted from the state’s own code with the date it was read.
  • Security Deposit Laws by State — Deposit caps, return deadlines, the states that owe tenants interest, and what each statute does to a landlord who withholds wrongfully. Wave one: 6 states, each quoted from the state’s own code with the date it was read.
  • Auto Insurance Minimums by State — Statutory liability floors, no-fault status and the states that accept a bond or deposit instead of a policy. Wave one: 4 states, each quoted from the state’s own code with the date it was read.
  • Notary Fees and Remote Notarization by State — What a notary may legally charge, and where remote online notarization is authorised – with one row already carrying a 2027 effective date. Wave one: 4 states, each quoted from the state’s own code with the date it was read.

Source artefacts and per-row quotes sit on each page; archival deposits are queued. Reusable under CC BY 4.0 with attribution.

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