Security Guards
Santa Cruz-Watsonville, CA metropolitan area. Estimated employment 470.
Where you sit in the distribution
That is the median — half of security guards in Santa Cruz earn more.
$43,610 in Santa Cruz buys what $39,700 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Napa | $47,240 | $42,000 | 112.6 | +5.8% |
| San Jose | $46,250 | $41,900 | 110.4 | +5.5% |
| San Francisco | $45,730 | $39,600 | 115.6 | −0.3% |
| Santa Rosa | $45,160 | $41,900 | 107.8 | +5.6% |
| Santa Cruz This page | $43,610 | $39,700 | 109.9 | — |
| Santa Maria | $43,250 | $39,800 | 108.8 | +0.2% |
| San Luis Obispo | $42,980 | $39,600 | 108.6 | −0.3% |
| Vallejo | $42,800 | $39,500 | 108.5 | −0.6% |
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 20.3% over the four years to 2025. Adjusted for inflation it still rose 9.4% — pay has outrun prices since 2022. 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
- 470 employed in this occupation in the metro (BLS estimate; excludes the self-employed).
- Occupation
- SOC 33-9032, Security Guards. Mapped to our taxonomy as security-guards.
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.