Waiters and Waitresses
Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA metropolitan area. Estimated employment 85,210.
Where you sit in the distribution
That is the median — half of waiters and waitresses in Los Angeles earn more.
$35,850 in Los Angeles buys what $31,600 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 Jose | $41,920 | $38,000 | 110.4 | +20.3% |
| San Francisco | $38,860 | $33,600 | 115.6 | +6.5% |
| Napa | $37,130 | $33,000 | 112.6 | +4.5% |
| Santa Rosa | $36,830 | $34,200 | 107.8 | +8.2% |
| Vallejo | $36,610 | $33,700 | 108.5 | +6.9% |
| Santa Cruz | $35,930 | $32,700 | 109.9 | +3.6% |
| Los Angeles This page | $35,850 | $31,600 | 113.6 | — |
| San Diego | $35,850 | $32,000 | 111.9 | +1.5% |
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 18.3% over the five years to 2025. Adjusted for inflation it is roughly flat — waiters and waitresses in Los Angeles earn about what they earned in 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
- 85,210 employed in this occupation in the metro (BLS estimate; excludes the self-employed).
- Occupation
- SOC 35-3031, Waiters and Waitresses. Mapped to our taxonomy as waiters-and-waitresses.
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.