Los Angeles Compensation Benchmarks 2026
Los Angeles does not pay one premium. Across 215 major occupations it runs +12.1% against national medians on average, but that average hides a spread of 36.8 points between the best-paid and worst-paid occupation groups in this metro.
Which means the shortcut most pay structures rely on, a single Los Angeles geographic adjustment factor, is wrong in both directions at once: it underpays the roles this market values and overpays relative to market on the roles it does not.
Computed from BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, for Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA (CBSA 31080). 687 occupations carry metro-level data; 215 have Los Angeles employment above 5,000 and are used here. Free to read, free to use, no account required.
Los Angeles pay by occupation group
Median wage vs national · employment-weighted within group
→ Arts, Design & Media at +35.5% and Healthcare Support at -1.3%. Same metro, same month, 36.8 points apart.
Where Los Angeles pays more
Largest premium vs national median
Where Los Angeles pays less
Largest discount vs national median
The ten roles Los Angeles employs most
Metro median vs national median · annualised at 2,080 hours
| Role | Los Angeles | National | Gap | Jobs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Home Health and Personal Care Aides | $34,320 | $35,797 | -4.1% | 386K |
| Retail Salespersons | $37,710 | $35,422 | +6.5% | 131K |
| Laborers and Freight, Stock, and Material Movers, Hand | $42,390 | $40,248 | +5.3% | 121K |
| Office Clerks, General | $48,110 | $45,011 | +6.9% | 112K |
| Cashiers | $36,982 | $32,885 | +12.5% | 110K |
| Registered Nurses | $135,574 | $97,552 | +39.0% | 109K |
| General and Operations Managers | $125,840 | $105,768 | +19.0% | 105K |
| Stockers and Order Fillers | $38,646 | $37,336 | +3.5% | 86K |
| Security Guards | $40,040 | $38,022 | +5.3% | 83K |
| Janitors and Cleaners, Except Maids and Housekeeping Cleaners | $38,730 | $36,837 | +5.1% | 83K |
What named Los Angeles employers file for the same job
US Department of Labor H-1B filings · FY2026 Q3 (decisions 1 Oct 2025 to 30 Jun 2026) · 12,445 certified Los Angeles filings from 4,554 employers
Market data tells you the range; it never tells you who pays what. Employer wage filings do. Taking one role, Software Developers, and only employers with 12+ Los Angeles filings in it, the same job in the same metro is filed anywhere from the 27th to the 88th percentile of the market range on this page:
| Employer | Filings | Median filed | vs Los Angeles market |
|---|---|---|---|
| Whatnot Inc. | 22 | $219,601 | P88 |
| Meta Platforms, Inc | 16 | $200,746 | P79 |
| ServiceTitan, Inc. | 26 | $198,800 | P78 |
| Ingram Micro Inc. | 25 | $184,558 | P69 |
| Riot Games, Inc. | 18 | $184,558 | P69 |
| SNAP INC. | 37 | $184,558 | P69 |
| Western Digital Technologies, Inc. | 12 | $129,667 | P27 |
| AUDIBLE, INC. | 13 | $143,700 | P37 |
| SONY INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT LLC | 13 | $150,100 | P42 |
→ 61 percentile points between named employers, inside one role, inside one metro. A candidate moving between two of these companies is not moving within a band; they are changing markets.
Median filed by role · where it sits on the Los Angeles OEWS curve
What this data is, and is not. These are base salaries stated on Labor Condition Applications for visa-sponsored roles, floored by prevailing-wage rules: offered pay on a legal form, not a payroll extract, and base only, no bonus or equity. It shows how an employer positions pay for a role. Source: US Department of Labor, Office of Foreign Labor Certification disclosure files, FY2026 Q3 (decisions 1 Oct 2025 to 30 Jun 2026). Employers keyed on federal tax ID; role medians computed only where an employer has 12 or more Los Angeles filings in that occupation. Metro membership is by worksite county in the OMB delineation BLS uses for this metro.
Method, and one exclusion worth naming
Each Los Angeles occupation is compared to its own national median from the same BLS survey vintage, so the comparison holds the job constant. Group figures are employment-weighted, meaning a group is driven by the roles Los Angeles actually employs rather than by an unweighted average across job titles.
Tipped occupations are excluded. BLS reports cash wages for tipped roles, and most of the variation between metros comes from state tip-credit law rather than local pay levels. California requires the full state minimum wage before tips, so tipped roles here would show a premium against the national median that is a legal difference, not a market one. Waiters, bartenders and similar roles are left out for that reason.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, for Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA (CBSA 31080). Employer-reported wages from approximately 1.1 million surveyed establishments. Analysis by CompSignal; the underlying figures are BLS, the comparison and commentary are ours.
Run this on your own roles
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