2026 Edition · An annual reference on what work pays

Carpenters

San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA metropolitan area. Estimated employment 14,010.

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
$89,200 · 50th
$59,02010th
$63,34025th
$89,20050th
$100,38075th
$132,76090th

That is the medianhalf of carpenters in San Francisco earn more.

Table 1 — Adjusted

$89,200 in San Francisco buys what $77,200 buys across the country as a whole.

San Francisco's regional price parity is 115.6 — 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. San Francisco
San Francisco This page$89,200$77,200115.6
Napa$80,590$71,600112.6−7.2%
Santa Rosa$80,520$74,700107.8−3.2%
San Jose$80,190$72,600110.4−5.9%
Santa Cruz$77,690$70,700109.9−8.4%
San Luis Obispo$77,220$71,100108.6−7.8%
Vallejo$76,220$70,300108.5−8.9%
Yuba City$76,100$73,000104.2−5.4%

Price parity and difference against San Francisco 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.

75k80k85k90k 20212022202320242025
Nominal, as published Real, in 2025 dollars US$ thousands

Published pay rose 18.6% over the five years to 2025. Adjusted for inflation it is roughly flat — carpenters in San Francisco earn about what they earned in 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
14,010 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.