Lifeguards, Ski Patrol, and Other Recreational Protective Service Workers
Santa Cruz-Watsonville, CA metropolitan area. Estimated employment 340.
Where you sit in the distribution
That is the median — half of people in this occupation in Santa Cruz earn more.
$39,970 in Santa Cruz buys what $36,400 buys across the country as a whole.
Santa Cruz's regional price parity is 109.9 — 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.
The same job, elsewhere in California
Adjusted figures apply each metro's regional price parity, so the columns are directly comparable.
| Metro area | Median | Adjusted | RPP | vs. Santa Cruz |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Los Angeles | $43,800 | $38,600 | 113.6 | +6.0% |
| San Diego | $43,050 | $38,500 | 111.9 | +5.8% |
| San Jose | $42,460 | $38,500 | 110.4 | +5.7% |
| Santa Cruz This page | $39,970 | $36,400 | 109.9 | — |
| Santa Maria | $39,580 | $36,400 | 108.8 | +0.0% |
| Riverside | $39,160 | $36,800 | 106.4 | +1.2% |
| San Francisco | $39,120 | $33,800 | 115.6 | −7.0% |
| Stockton | $38,480 | $36,600 | 105.1 | +0.7% |
Price parity and difference against Santa Cruz are in the full table on wider screens.
Nominal against real
The same median, once as published and once restated in 2025 dollars.
Published pay rose 10.5% over the five years to 2025. Adjusted for inflation it fell 7.0% — prices rose faster than pay since 2021. The two lines meet at the right edge by construction, since 2025 is the base year.
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
- 340 employed in this occupation in the metro (BLS estimate; excludes the self-employed).
- Occupation
- SOC 33-9092, Lifeguards, Ski Patrol, and Other Recreational Protective Service Workers. Mapped to our taxonomy as lifeguards-ski-patrol-and-other-recreational-protective-service-workers.
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.