List of California locations by income

The following is a list of California locations by income.

California had a per capita income of $29,906 during the five-year period 2010 through 2014. About every third county in California had per capita incomes above the state average. Although somewhat counterintuitive, this implies that counties with per capita incomes even slightly exceeding that of the state can be classified as "high income" given the natural division of places into a top third (high), middle third (medium), and lower third (low) when ranked by per capita income. Hence, the upper third of all places in this ranking have a per capita income with a lower bound roughly equal to that of the state, about $30,000. The median place and county in California had a per capita income of roughly $25,000, and the lower third of both types of geographies had per capita incomes with an upper bound of about $20,000. Places and counties with the highest per capita income were concentrated in the San Francisco Bay Area, which has a relatively high cost of living. Those with the lowest per capita incomes were concentrated in the Central Valley, an economy in which agriculture assumes a primary role.

Entire state

PopulationU.S. Census Bureau. American Community Survey, 2010-2014 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates, Table S0101. U.S. Census website. 39,242,141 Population densityU.S. Census Bureau. American Community Survey, 2010-2014 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates, Table S0101. U.S. Census website. 253.7 Per capita incomeU.S. Census Bureau. American Community Survey, 2023 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates, Table S1902. U.S. Census website. $48,013 Median household incomeU.S. Census Bureau. American Community Survey, 2023 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates, Table S1901. U.S. Census website. $95,521 Median family incomeU.S. Census Bureau. American Community Survey, 2023 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates, Table S1901. U.S. Census website. $109,349

Counties

The average population of counties with per capita incomes above the state's was twice as high (921,098) as that of those with a per capita income below the state average (546,543). Even this difference is minuscule when population density is considered: Counties with a per capita income above that of the state were eight times as dense on average (1,540.2 persons per square mile) as those with per capita income below that of the state (192.1 persons per square mile).

Marin County had by far the highest per capita income during that period ($58,004); its per capita income was almost $10,000 higher than San Francisco County, which ranked second in that regard. Of the ten counties in California with the highest per capita income, all but Orange County were in Northern California, and all but three are located in the San Francisco Bay Area. Of the three not located there, two are smaller counties located in the Sacramento metropolitan area. Orange County's per capita income ranks last among these ten, and its per capita income is about $5,000 more than that of the state.

Seven of the ten counties in California with the lowest per capita incomes are located in the Central Valley. Two of the remaining three are rural counties in Northern California. This leaves Imperial County, which shares California's portion of the U.S.-Mexico border with San Diego County. All of these counties had populations not exceeding 1,000,000, and all of them are landlocked, with the exception of Del Norte County.

Of counties with a population exceeding 1,000,000, Santa Clara County had the highest per capita income ($42,666), followed by Contra Costa County ($38,770). San Diego ($31,043), Los Angeles ($27,987), and Sacramento ($27,071) counties all had per capita incomes near that of the state.

County PopulationU.S. Census Bureau. American Community Survey, 2010-2014 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates, Table B01003. U.S. Census website. Populationdensityper sq. mileU.S. Census Bureau. 2014 U.S. Gazetteer. 2014 U.S. Gazetteer Files.Total population divided by land area in square miles.Income Percapita MedianhouseholdU.S. Census Bureau. American Community Survey, 2010-2014 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates, Table B19013. U.S. Census website. MedianfamilyU.S. Census Bureau. American Community Survey, 2010-2014 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates, Table B19113. U.S. Census website. Alameda 1,559,308 2,109.8 $36,439 $73,775 $90,822 Alpine 1,202 1.6 $24,375 $61,343 $71,932 Amador 37,159 62.5 $27,373 $52,964 $68,765 Butte 221,578 135.4 $24,430 $43,165 $56,934 Calaveras 44,921 44.0 $29,296 $54,936 $67,100 Colusa 21,424 18.6 $22,211 $50,503 $56,472 Contra Costa 1,081,232 1496.0 $38,770 $79,799 $95,087 Del Norte 28,066 27.9 $19,424 $39,302 $52,452 El Dorado 181,465 106.3 $35,128 $68,507 $84,690 Fresno 948,844 159.2 $20,231 $45,201 $50,046 Glenn 28,019 21.3 $21,698 $40,106 $51,940 Humboldt 134,876 37.8 $23,516 $42,153 $53,532 Imperial 177,026 42.4 $16,409 $41,772 $46,555 Inyo 18,439 1.8 $27,028 $45,625 $69,041 Kern 857,730 105.5 $20,467 $48,574 $52,541 Kings 151,390 109.0 $18,518 $47,341 $50,202 Lake 64,209 51.1 $21,310 $35,997 $47,773 Lassen 33,356 7.3 $19,847 $53,351 $66,717 Los Angeles 9,974,203 2,457.9 $27,987 $55,870 $62,289 Madera 152,452 71.3 $17,797 $45,490 $49,964 Marin 256,802 493.4 $58,004 $91,529 $120,030 Mariposa 17,946 12.4 $28,327 $50,560 $63,520 Mendocino 87,612 25.0 $23,712 $43,290 $53,996 Merced 261,609 135.2 $18,464 $43,066 $47,729 Modoc 9,335 2.4 $21,830 $38,560 $46,536 Mono 14,193 4.7 $29,578 $61,814 $73,494 Monterey 424,927 129.5 $25,048 $58,582 $62,370 Napa 139,253 186.1 $35,092 $70,925 $81,275 Nevada 98,606 103.0 $32,117 $56,949 $69,649 Orange 3,086,331 3,903.6 $34,416 $75,998 $85,472 Placer 361,518 256.9 $35,711 $73,747 $88,615 Plumas 19,286 7.6 $29,167 $48,032 $60,709 Riverside 2,266,899 314.6 $23,660 $56,592 $63,523 Sacramento 1,450,277 1,503.0 $27,071 $55,615 $64,496 San Benito 56,888 41.0 $26,317 $67,874 $71,124 San Bernardino 2,078,586 103.6 $21,384 $54,100 $59,626 San Diego 3,183,143 756.7 $31,043 $63,996 $74,569 San Francisco 829,072 17,680.1 $49,986 $78,378 $93,391 San Joaquin 701,050 503.9 $22,642 $53,253 $59,614 San Luis Obispo 274,184 83.1 $30,392 $59,454 $75,828 San Mateo 739,837 1,649.7 $47,198 $91,421 $108,088 Santa Barbara 431,555 157.8 $30,526 $63,409 $73,636 Santa Clara 1,841,569 1,427.3 $42,666 $93,854 $106,401 Santa Cruz 267,203 600.2 $33,050 $66,923 $81,495 Shasta 178,520 47.3 $23,763 $44,556 $55,028 Sierra 3,019 3.2 $28,030 $43,107 $57,708 Siskiyou 44,261 7.1 $22,482 $37,495 $46,079 Solano 421,624 513.1 $29,132 $67,341 $77,634 Sonoma 491,790 312.1 $33,361 $63,799 $76,614 Stanislaus 522,794 349.8 $21,729 $49,573 $55,357 Sutter 95,067 157.8 $23,828 $51,527 $58,434 Tehama 63,284 21.5 $21,002 $42,369 $49,731 Trinity 13,515 4.3 $23,145 $36,862 $49,221 Tulare 451,108 93.5 $17,888 $42,863 $45,296 Tuolumne 54,347 24.5 $26,063 $48,493 $58,355 Ventura 835,790 453.5 $33,308 $77,335 $86,890 Yolo 204,162 201.2 $28,080 $55,508 $75,225 Yuba 73,059 115.6 $19,586 $45,470 $49,560

Places

California places were unlike counties insofar as places with per capita incomes below and above the state average had about the same average population and population density. Like counties, however, the lowest-income places tend to be located in the Central Valley, and the highest-income places were concentrated in the San Francisco Bay Area.

San Francisco is an extreme example of a place in California with both a large population (829,072) and high per capita income ($49,986). In fact, it has the highest per capita income of all places in California with a population of over 100,000. Though Sunnyvale ($48,203), San Mateo ($46,782), Thousand Oaks ($46,231), and Carlsbad ($44,305) join San Francisco to make up the top five places in California with the highest per capita income in that population class, none of them have populations even close to San Francisco. The next place with a population similar to that of San Francisco that appears in the per capita income rankings is San Jose ($34,992), and at this point, the difference in per capita income with the entire state of California is only about $5,000.

Seven of the ten places with the lowest per capita income and a population of over 50,000 were in Los Angeles County, and East Los Angeles has the highest population among them (127,610).