Average salary in Los Angeles in 2026, and what actually counts as good

A typical job in the Los Angeles metro pays $55,850 a year before tax. $93,740 puts you in the top quarter, and $141,370 in the top 10%.

Those figures come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey for May 2025, the latest release. They cover all 6.27 million jobs in Los Angeles and Orange counties, from Santa Monica and Burbank to Long Beach, Anaheim and Irvine, the second-largest job market in the country after New York. The national median for all jobs is $50,980, so the typical LA salary is about 10% higher. Among the 36 US metros with more than a million jobs, Los Angeles ranks 14th, and its median sits below the median for California as a whole ($58,240).

One comparison puts the top-quarter line in perspective. HUD, the federal housing agency, counts a single person in Los Angeles County as "low income" up to $93,300 a year, which is within a few hundred dollars of what it takes to out-earn three in four LA jobs. This guide starts with what specific jobs pay, then shows where any salary sits on the LA scale, what rent and California's taxes leave from it, how much the answer changes between LA County and Orange County, and how Los Angeles compares with San Diego, Seattle, Chicago and Minneapolis.

What six senior jobs pay in Los Angeles

We ran six realistic resumes through PayScope's market value model with the location set to Los Angeles. Each belongs to a fictional professional with ten to twelve years of experience, at senior level. The roles follow what the metro is known for: film and television, the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, aerospace in the South Bay, a large hospital sector and real estate. Only one is a software job. PayScope reads the skills and experience in a resume and compares them with people and job openings in the area, so the ranges below describe what the market pays for that kind of profile in Los Angeles right now.

Source: PayScope market value model, one resume per role, senior level, location Los Angeles, CA, run on November 5, 2026. Figures in thousands, as the model displays them.

All six medians land between $136,000 and $175,000. The real estate asset manager and the streaming software engineer share the top at $175,000, a little above the $172,000 a senior software resume got in San Diego and below the $190,000 one got in Seattle. For how software pay rises from entry to lead level nationally, see our software engineer salary guide. The aerospace structures engineer comes out at $160,000, close to the BLS median for all aerospace engineers in the metro ($163,280), and the post-production producer at $152,000.

Nurses are paid well here by national standards. A senior emergency department nurse comes out at $146,000, against $128,000 for a senior ICU nurse in Seattle and $104,000 in Chicago, and the BLS median for all registered nurses in the LA metro is $135,560. The port operations manager is the lowest of the six at $136,000. These are senior roles, which is why every median here is more than double the metro's typical $55,850. Earlier in a career, pay for the same jobs is much lower.

How pay is spread across the Los Angeles area

The BLS surveys employers about what they pay and estimates the pay level at each point of the scale, from the lowest-paid tenth of jobs in the metro to the highest. Find your own salary in the table to see where you sit among everyone working here, whatever their job.

Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, all occupations, Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim metro (Los Angeles and Orange counties), 6,271,560 jobs. The average (mean) is $77,270, or $37.15 an hour, pulled up by the highest earners, which is why we use the median as "typical".

As a monthly figure, the typical salary is about $4,650 before tax, or $26.85 an hour. The gap with the national scale is widest around the top-quarter line: Los Angeles is about $4,900 above it at the median, $13,200 at the top-quarter line and $12,800 at the top-10% line. At the bottom, the floor is set by law. The City of Los Angeles minimum wage is $18.42 an hour from July 2026, or $38,314 for a full-time year, and unincorporated LA County's is $18.47. The metro's bottom-10% line works out to $17.25 an hour, between the California minimum of $16.90 and the local ones.

Part of the reason the median is modest for such an expensive place is the shape of the workforce. The single largest occupation in the metro is home health and personal care aides: 385,530 jobs, about one in every sixteen, more than twice their share nationally. Their median pay is $34,320 a year, and nine in ten earn less than $38,010. Fast food and counter workers come next with 160,270 jobs at a median of $42,110, higher than in most of the country because of California's $20 fast food minimum.

The BLS counts jobs by where they are, not where people live, and covers employees only, so the self-employed, including many freelancers in film and TV, are left out. It also converts hourly pay to a full-time year of 2,080 hours. If you count only people who worked full time all year and live in the metro, the Census Bureau's American Community Survey for 2024 puts the median at $65,399, and 29.8% of them earned $100,000 or more. That is the lowest full-time median of the five US metros we have covered.

Why a top-quarter salary counts as low income in Los Angeles

Every year HUD publishes income limits that decide who qualifies for housing vouchers and affordable apartments. They are tied to local family incomes and adjusted upward where rents are high. For 2026, in Los Angeles County, a single person earning up to $58,300 counts as "very low income" and up to $93,300 as "low income".

Source: HUD FY2026 income limits, one-person household; BLS OEWS May 2025 top-quarter line for each metro (Orange County is part of the Los Angeles metro).

Put that next to the pay scale and two things stand out. The very-low-income line of $58,300 is above the metro median, so the typical LA job pays less than what HUD treats as very low income for one person. The low-income line of $93,300 sits $440 under the top-quarter line, so about three in four jobs in the metro pay less than it. Orange County's limits are higher still, because family incomes there are higher, and San Diego shows the same pattern as Los Angeles.

HUD's limits are not a measure of comfort, and plenty of people below them live without assistance. What they do capture is the gap between local pay and local housing costs, which is the real question behind "what is a good salary in LA". The next two sections put numbers on it.

Is Los Angeles expensive to live in on a typical salary?

For rent we use HUD's Fair Market Rents for 2026. HUD sets one figure for Los Angeles County, $2,328 a month for a one-bedroom and $2,903 for a two-bedroom, and a separate one for Orange County, $2,746 and $3,236. Both counties' one-bedroom figures rose about 12% from 2025. The figures include utilities and sit at the 40th percentile of what recent movers pay, so they describe an ordinary apartment, not a new building in downtown or Irvine.

Source: PayScope calculation with 2026 IRS brackets, California income tax (2025 FTB schedules), SDI 1.3%, FICA and a 5% 401(k); rent from HUD FY2026 Fair Market Rents. Health insurance not included.

On the typical $55,850, a single person takes home about $3,550 a month. A one-bedroom in LA County takes 66% of that and leaves about $1,230 for everything else. On the Orange County side the same apartment takes 77% and leaves about $810. A one-bedroom falls to 30% of take-home only at about $142,500 in LA County, just above the top-10% line, and at about $173,500 in Orange County, which only a small share of jobs pay.

Sharing is the normal answer, and it changes the numbers a lot. Half of an LA County two-bedroom costs about $1,450, which is 41% of take-home on the typical salary and falls to 30% at about $80,000. A couple who both earn the metro median and file jointly take home about $7,110 a month, and a two-bedroom takes 41% of that. With one median earner and one top-quarter earner, it drops to 32%.

A practical answer for Los Angeles: living alone at the usual 30% guideline takes a top-10% salary. With a roommate, around $80,000 gets you there, which is between the median and the top-quarter line.

Where in the LA metro is rent cheapest?

The two county figures hide a wide range inside Los Angeles County, where HUD also publishes one-bedroom rents for each ZIP code. Across the county's 474 ZIP codes they run from $1,630 to a cap of $3,490, and half of them fall between $2,300 and $2,640.

Source: HUD FY2026 Small Area Fair Market Rents, Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale area, one-bedroom. HUD does not publish ZIP-level figures for Orange County, which uses the single county figure of $2,746.

The Westside and the beach cities are at or near the cap: Venice, Brentwood and Manhattan Beach at $3,490, Westwood at $3,450 and Santa Monica at $3,330, about one and a half times the county figure. The San Fernando Valley spans most of the range, from $3,130 in Sherman Oaks and Studio City to about $2,100 in Pacoima and Panorama City. The cheapest areas are South and East LA, Compton and the Gateway cities at about $1,720 to $1,950, and the Antelope Valley, where most of Lancaster and Palmdale sit between $1,630 and $1,790. Even the lowest figure in the county, $1,630, is 46% of the typical LA take-home, and the commute from the Antelope Valley to central LA is long.

California taxes on a Los Angeles paycheck

California's income tax rises in steps from 1% to 12.3%, with a 1% surcharge above $1 million. On top of it, employees pay State Disability Insurance (SDI) at 1.3% of all wages in 2026, with no cap. Neither the City of Los Angeles nor LA or Orange County taxes wages. The result is a tax that is light on modest pay and heavy on high pay: on a bottom-quarter salary SDI takes more than the income tax does.

To show what that means in dollars, we took the same gross salary and worked out monthly take-home for a single person in Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis and Seattle. Everything else is held equal: 2026 federal income tax and standard deduction, Social Security and Medicare, a 5% pre-tax 401(k), and each state's own payroll levies. San Diego is left out because the tax is identical to Los Angeles.

Source: PayScope calculation with 2026 IRS brackets, 2025 California Franchise Tax Board schedules (the 2026 schedules were not yet published in November 2026) and SDI 1.3%, Illinois 4.95% with the 2026 exemption, 2026 Minnesota brackets with Paid Leave 0.44%, Washington PFML 0.81% and WA Cares 0.58%, FICA and a 5% 401(k). Health insurance premiums not included.

On the typical $55,850, California takes about $1,950 a year in income tax and SDI combined, about 3.5% of gross pay. That is less than Illinois or Minnesota would take from the same salary, so the LA worker keeps about $44 a month more than in Chicago. The order flips higher up. California takes more than Illinois above about $73,400 and more than Minnesota above about $84,200, and on the top-10% salary of $141,370 an LA worker keeps about $300 a month less than in Chicago and $680 less than in Seattle.

One practical detail: the 2026 withholding tables California employers use build in a margin of about 10% over the actual tax rates. So state tax withheld from an LA paycheck tends to run a little above the tax actually owed, and the difference comes back when you file.

Los Angeles vs San Diego, Seattle, Chicago and Minneapolis after tax and rent

Los Angeles and San Diego share the same state taxes, so the comparison between them comes down to pay and rent. The typical San Diego job pays $2,840 a year more, and San Diego's one-bedroom costs $131 a month more than LA County's. The two effects almost cancel.

Source: BLS OEWS May 2025 medians; PayScope take-home calculation for a single filer with a 5% 401(k) and each state's taxes and payroll levies; HUD FY2026 Fair Market Rents (Los Angeles shown with both county figures).

On the LA County figure, a one-bedroom takes 66% of the typical paycheck in both Los Angeles and San Diego, and the typical worker keeps about $1,230 a month after rent in LA against $1,260 in San Diego. Those are the two lowest of the series. The typical Chicago worker keeps about $1,860, the typical Minneapolis worker $2,320 and the typical Seattle worker $2,530. Rent is not the whole difference: Seattle's one-bedroom costs about $180 a month less than LA County's, while its typical salary is $16,760 a year higher.

On the Orange County figure Los Angeles drops to the bottom, with about $810 left after rent. The salary that brings a one-bedroom down to 30% of take-home is about $77,000 in Minneapolis, $88,000 in Chicago, $118,000 in Seattle, $142,500 in LA County, $152,500 in San Diego and $173,500 in Orange County.

Jobs that pay a good salary in Los Angeles

If "good" means the top quarter of all jobs, these are the large occupations whose typical pay in the Los Angeles metro is above the $93,740 line. The figures are BLS medians across all experience levels, so a senior person in these jobs usually earns more.

Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim metro, occupations with at least 5,000 jobs (selection).

Entertainment is the metro's clearest specialty. Arts, design, entertainment and media jobs are 2.2 times as common here as in the national workforce, producers and directors 3.8 times, art directors 3.1 times and film and video editors 5.8 times. Producers and directors have a median of $131,600, and the top 10% earn more than $325,000. Police and sheriff's patrol officers clear the line with a median of $121,980, higher than in Seattle ($115,120) or Chicago ($107,810), and elementary school teachers reach $101,860.

Some familiar jobs fall short of it. Electricians have a median of $73,810, well below Seattle and Chicago, graphic designers $72,400 and paralegals $77,520. The registered nurse median of $135,560 is close to San Diego's and far above Chicago's $100,490, which matters in a metro with 109,360 nurses.

Los Angeles, Long Beach, Irvine and the rest of the metro

The BLS publishes one set of figures for the whole metro, but the Census Bureau's survey of residents can be split by county and city. Among people who worked full time all year in 2024, here is the median by where they live.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2024 1-year estimates, table S2001, in 2024 dollars. Places with fewer residents, such as Beverly Hills, Newport Beach and West Hollywood, are not included.

Orange County's full-time workers earn about $9,800 a year more than LA County's ($71,965 against $62,136), and 35.1% of them earn $100,000 or more against 28.1% in LA County. That is roughly the same proportion as the gap in rent between the two counties. Orange County also holds both ends of the list: Irvine's median is above $100,000 and more than half its full-time residents earn six figures, while next door in Santa Ana the median is $46,751.

In LA County, Santa Monica and Torrance lead, and Pasadena, Burbank and Glendale sit in the $75,000 to $81,000 range. The city of Los Angeles is almost exactly at the county figure. Pomona, Palmdale and Inglewood are lower, between about $50,000 and $58,000. These figures describe who lives in each place, not what employers there pay, since many people commute across the metro.

Average salary in California

For the whole state the median job pays $58,240, the top quarter starts at $97,880 and the top 10% at $159,080, across 18.2 million jobs in the BLS survey. Among people who worked full time all year, the Census Bureau puts the state median at $69,440 for 2024, and 32.3% of them earned $100,000 or more.

Los Angeles is below the state on both measures because the Bay Area pulls the state figure up. The median job pays $84,050 in the San Jose metro and $74,260 in San Francisco, against $58,690 in San Diego, $55,850 in Los Angeles and $48,400 in the Riverside-San Bernardino metro next door.

Why your number may differ from the average

The metro median tells you where the middle of the whole job market sits. It says very little about what you should be paid.

Your role and level set the range, and in Los Angeles they put every senior profile we tested at $136,000 or more at the median. Your specific skills then decide whether you sit in the bottom or top quarter of your own role, which for the senior software engineer is the difference between $150,000 and $205,000. In a metro where rent alone can take two thirds of a typical paycheck, that spread decides whether you can live alone.

The useful comparison is with people doing your job, at your level, in this metro. Upload your resume to PayScope and you get that comparison: a Los Angeles range for your profile and where your current pay sits inside it.

FAQ

What is a good salary in Los Angeles?

On the job scale, $93,740 puts you in the top quarter of jobs in the Los Angeles metro and $141,370 in the top 10% (BLS, May 2025). For a single person renting a one-bedroom alone in LA County, rent falls to 30% of take-home at about $142,500, so living alone comfortably takes a top-10% salary. With a roommate, about $80,000 keeps your half of a two-bedroom at 30%.

Is $100,000 a good salary in Los Angeles?

Yes. $100,000 is above the top-quarter line of $93,740 and nearly double the metro median of $55,850. A single filer takes home about $5,780 a month after federal tax, California tax, SDI, FICA and a 5% 401(k). A typical LA County one-bedroom at $2,328 takes about 40% of that, and an Orange County one-bedroom about 47%, so living alone is possible but tight by the 30% rule.

Can you live comfortably on $70,000 a year in Los Angeles?

It depends on sharing. $70,000 is above the metro median and leaves about $4,360 a month after tax. A typical LA County one-bedroom takes 53% of that, but half of a two-bedroom takes 33%, close to the usual guideline. In the cheapest parts of the county, such as South LA or the Antelope Valley, a one-bedroom is about $1,650 to $1,850, or 38% to 42% of take-home.

What counts as low income in Los Angeles for a single person?

For HUD housing programs in 2026, a single person in Los Angeles County is "low income" up to $93,300 a year, "very low income" up to $58,300 and "extremely low income" up to $35,000. In Orange County the limits are $104,200, $65,150 and $39,100. The LA County low-income line is almost exactly the metro's top-quarter wage of $93,740.

How much is California state income tax on a Los Angeles salary?

California taxes income in steps from 1% to 12.3%, and employees also pay 1.3% of all wages for State Disability Insurance. Los Angeles has no city income tax. On the typical $55,850 salary with a 5% 401(k), income tax and SDI together come to about $1,950 a year, or 3.5% of gross. On $141,370, the top-10% line, they come to about $10,080, or 7.1%.

What is the minimum wage in Los Angeles in 2026?

$18.42 an hour in the City of Los Angeles and $18.47 in unincorporated Los Angeles County from July 1, 2026. Hotel workers in the city at hotels with 60 or more rooms earn at least $25.00. The California minimum is $16.90 in 2026 and rises to $17.40 on January 1, 2027.

What is the average salary in Los Angeles per month and per hour?

The typical (median) job in the Los Angeles metro pays $55,850 a year, which is about $4,650 a month or $26.85 an hour before tax. After federal and California income tax, SDI, FICA and a 5% 401(k), a single filer takes home about $3,550 a month. The mean is higher, $77,270 a year or $37.15 an hour, because high earners pull it up.

What income puts you in the top 10% in Los Angeles?

$141,370 a year, about $67.97 an hour, puts a job in the top 10% of the Los Angeles metro (BLS, May 2025). After tax that is about $7,700 a month for a single filer, and a typical LA County one-bedroom takes 30% of it.