2026 Edition · An annual reference on what work pays

Physical Therapists

Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA metropolitan area. Estimated employment 9,750.

Data released May 2025 BLS OEWS · SOC 29-1123
Fig. 1 — The wage rule

Where you sit in the distribution

Drag the marker, or type a figure
$108,170 · 50th
$85,58010th
$97,85025th
$108,17050th
$134,16075th
$160,07090th

That is the medianhalf of physical therapists in Los Angeles earn more.

Table 1 — Adjusted

$108,170 in Los Angeles buys what $95,200 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$141,980$122,800115.6+28.9%
Vallejo$141,530$130,500108.5+37.0%
Santa Rosa$140,100$130,000107.8+36.5%
San Jose$139,000$125,900110.4+32.2%
Napa$138,540$123,100112.6+29.2%
Chico$134,970$133,400101.2+40.0%
Sacramento$131,430$123,200106.7+29.4%
Santa Maria$128,680$118,300108.8+24.2%

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.

90k100k110k120k130k 20212022202320242025
Nominal, as published Real, in 2025 dollars US$ thousands

Published pay rose 8.6% over the five years to 2025. Adjusted for inflation it fell 8.6% — prices rose faster than pay 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
9,750 employed in this occupation in the metro (BLS estimate; excludes the self-employed).
Occupation
SOC 29-1123, Physical Therapists. Mapped to our taxonomy as physical-therapists.

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.