2026 Edition · An annual reference on what work pays

Carpenters

Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA metropolitan area. Estimated employment 30,600.

Data released May 2025 BLS OEWS · SOC 47-2031
Fig. 1 — The wage rule

Where you sit in the distribution

Drag the marker, or type a figure
$75,740 · 50th
$46,86010th
$59,47025th
$75,74050th
$100,62075th
$117,43090th

That is the medianhalf of carpenters in Los Angeles earn more.

Table 1 — Adjusted

$75,740 in Los Angeles buys what $66,700 buys across the country as a whole.

Los Angeles's regional price parity is 113.6 — well above the national average — a dollar here buys noticeably less than in the US as a whole. Adjusted figures for other metros are in the nearby-metros table below.

Table 2 — Nearby metros

The same job, elsewhere in California

Adjusted figures apply each metro's regional price parity, so the columns are directly comparable.

Metro areaMedianAdjustedRPPvs. Los Angeles
San Francisco$89,200$77,200115.6+15.7%
Napa$80,590$71,600112.6+7.4%
Santa Rosa$80,520$74,700107.8+12.0%
San Jose$80,190$72,600110.4+8.9%
Santa Cruz$77,690$70,700109.9+6.0%
San Luis Obispo$77,220$71,100108.6+6.6%
Vallejo$76,220$70,300108.5+5.4%
Yuba City$76,100$73,000104.2+9.5%

Price parity and difference against Los Angeles are in the full table on wider screens.

Fig. 2 — Five-year trend

Nominal against real

The same median, once as published and once restated in 2025 dollars.

50k60k70k80k 20212022202320242025
Nominal, as published Real, in 2025 dollars US$ thousands

Published pay rose 26.7% over the five years to 2025. Adjusted for inflation it still rose 6.7% — pay has outrun prices since 2021. The two lines meet at the right edge by construction, since 2025 is the base year.

Sources

How this page was made

Wage data
Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 release. Public domain.
Price parity
Bureau of Economic Analysis, Regional Price Parities, 2024.
Inflation
Real figures deflate by CPI-U annual averages (BLS, all items, US city average).
Employment
30,600 employed in this occupation in the metro (BLS estimate; excludes the self-employed).
Occupation
SOC 47-2031, Carpenters. Mapped to our taxonomy as carpenters.

Percentiles are reported exactly as released and are never interpolated between published values. We take no payment from employers, recruiters or anyone else for how any figure is presented.