Substance Abuse, Behavioral Disorder, and Mental Health Counselors
Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA metropolitan area. Estimated employment 26,960.
Where you sit in the distribution
That is the median — half of people in this occupation in Los Angeles earn more.
$51,910 in Los Angeles buys what $45,700 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.
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. Los Angeles |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| San Luis Obispo | $80,770 | $74,400 | 108.6 | +62.7% |
| Salinas | $73,940 | $67,800 | 109.0 | +48.3% |
| El Centro | $73,620 | $77,400 | 95.2 | +69.2% |
| Hanford | $72,960 | $71,800 | 101.6 | +57.1% |
| Stockton | $72,770 | $69,200 | 105.1 | +51.5% |
| San Jose | $72,550 | $65,700 | 110.4 | +43.7% |
| San Francisco | $68,400 | $59,200 | 115.6 | +29.4% |
| Vallejo | $66,940 | $61,700 | 108.5 | +35.0% |
Price parity and difference against Los Angeles 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 5.2% over the five years to 2025. Adjusted for inflation it fell 11.4% — 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
- 26,960 employed in this occupation in the metro (BLS estimate; excludes the self-employed).
- Occupation
- SOC 21-1018, Substance Abuse, Behavioral Disorder, and Mental Health Counselors. Mapped to our taxonomy as substance-abuse-behavioral-disorder-and-mental-health-counselors.
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.