Los Angeles Times
Salaries of $500,000 and up are 'a dime a dozen' in this California region, report says

Caroline Petrow-Cohen
Mon, December 16, 2024 at 5:28 PM EST
3 min read

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The lights of San Francisco shine behind the Golden Gate Bridge. (Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Times)

More than 1 million people across the country earn paychecks of $500,000 or higher, according to a report that analyzed payroll records on millions of salaries paid over the course of a year.

The study titled "High-paying jobs? They’re a dime a dozen," which was done by ADP, a leading management company that provides payroll and other services, concluded that “a substantial number of professionals found in every major metro” earn more than half a million dollars annually. Government data, including the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, typically obscure the prevalence of hefty paychecks by capping the level of wages reported.

One California metropolis stood out from the rest, the ADP report found. The San Francisco Bay Area has the highest concentration of jobs that pay more than $500,000, “vastly outranking” other major cities. One in 48 jobs there pays $500,000 or more, nearly double the share in Austin, Texas, which has the second-highest concentration.

The Los Angeles and Long Beach region has the 12th-highest concentration of jobs that pay that amount. Slightly less than 1% of employees in Los Angeles and Long Beach earn more than $500,000, while 0.22% earn more than $1 million and 0.06% earn more than $2 million.

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