Salinas, CA
Metropolitan statistical area, CBSA 41500 · 36.24, -121.31
9 findings fired for Salinas, CA this run, against a typical home value of $841,133 in September 2026 and covered employment of 185,826 in 2026 Q1.
- 68th pct · 124th of 393 US metro areas · median 105,500
Total employment in the BLS OEWS occupational tables for this metro area. It is an occupational survey total, not the QCEW payroll count below.
An estimate: the sum of the member counties BLS publishes, not BLS's own metro row, whose boundaries follow each year's delineation. The arithmetic is printed below.
- 97th pct · 12th of 379 US metro areas · median $305,707
Zillow Home Value Index, metro file, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- 96th pct · 15th of 382 US metro areas · median $1,504
Zillow Observed Rent Index, metro file.
- 94th pct · 21st of 379 US metro areas · median 16.9
typical home value / (typical rent × 12); Zillow ZHVI over ZORI, same month.
- 37th pct · 236th of 379 US metro areas · median 2.0%
Zillow's own twelve-month change on the metro row.
A percentile here is a min-max scaling of average rank: the smallest published value in the cohort is 0 and the largest is 100, and tied values share the average of the ranks they span. It is not the share of entities below the value, so 0 means smallest, not none below. Entities that did not publish the metric are outside the cohort entirely and are counted in neither the rank nor its denominator.
Occupation mix #
The 30 largest detailed occupations and all 22 SOC major groups in Salinas, CA, from the bundled BLS OEWS release.
| SOC | Occupation | Jobs | Mean annual wage | Location quotient |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 45-2092 | Farmworkers and Laborers, Crop, Nursery, and Greenhouse | 26,830 | $40,270 | 84.30 |
| 31-1120 | Home Health and Personal Care Aides | 6,740 | $35,570 | 1.31 |
| 35-3023 | Fast Food and Counter Workers | 4,180 | $41,880 | 0.90 |
| 41-2031 | Retail Salespersons | 4,110 | $42,390 | 0.88 |
| 41-2011 | Cashiers | 4,020 | $40,040 | 1.08 |
| 53-7062 | Laborers and Freight, Stock, and Material Movers, Hand | 3,890 | $42,150 | 1.10 |
| 29-1141 | Registered Nurses | 3,180 | $138,810 | 0.79 |
| 35-3031 | Waiters and Waitresses | 3,100 | $45,820 | 1.14 |
| 43-9061 | Office Clerks, General | 2,790 | $50,910 | 0.95 |
| 53-7064 | Packers and Packagers, Hand | 2,700 | $37,090 | 4.02 |
| 11-1021 | General and Operations Managers | 2,600 | $130,360 | 0.62 |
| 25-9045 | Teaching Assistants, Except Postsecondary | 2,290 | $49,070 | 1.34 |
| 25-2021 | Elementary School Teachers, Except Special Education | 2,280 | $93,690 | 1.37 |
| 25-3099 | Teachers and Instructors, All Other | 2,170 | $123,230 | 15.90 |
| 53-3032 | Heavy and Tractor-Trailer Truck Drivers | 2,140 | $56,250 | 0.87 |
| 35-2014 | Cooks, Restaurant | 1,910 | $45,310 | 1.13 |
| 37-2011 | Janitors and Cleaners, Except Maids and Housekeeping Cleaners | 1,890 | $45,420 | 0.71 |
| 37-2012 | Maids and Housekeeping Cleaners | 1,890 | $43,330 | 1.83 |
| 53-7065 | Stockers and Order Fillers | 1,860 | $42,810 | 0.55 |
| 37-3011 | Landscaping and Groundskeeping Workers | 1,590 | $48,190 | 1.39 |
| 49-9071 | Maintenance and Repair Workers, General | 1,550 | $56,090 | 0.85 |
| 33-9032 | Security Guards | 1,520 | $43,730 | 0.99 |
| 33-3012 | Correctional Officers and Jailers | 1,510 | $99,160 | 3.31 |
| 43-6014 | Secretaries and Administrative Assistants, Except Legal, Medical, and Executive | 1,500 | $57,800 | 0.73 |
| 35-1012 | First-Line Supervisors of Food Preparation and Serving Workers | 1,450 | $55,210 | 0.99 |
| 53-7051 | Industrial Truck and Tractor Operators | 1,290 | $43,930 | 1.39 |
| 43-3031 | Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks | 1,270 | $60,540 | 0.77 |
| 45-1011 | First-Line Supervisors of Farming, Fishing, and Forestry Workers | 1,240 | $62,640 | 37.07 |
| 43-1011 | First-Line Supervisors of Office and Administrative Support Workers | 1,230 | $75,820 | 0.71 |
| 25-3031 | Substitute Teachers, Short-Term | 1,220 | $63,550 | 1.94 |
| SOC | Occupation | Jobs | Mean annual wage | Location quotient |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 45-0000 | Farming, Fishing, and Forestry Occupations | 29,450 | $41,270 | 56.43 |
| 35-0000 | Food Preparation and Serving Related Occupations | 18,270 | $44,700 | 1.11 |
| 53-0000 | Transportation and Material Moving Occupations | 15,720 | $45,830 | 0.96 |
| 43-0000 | Office and Administrative Support Occupations | 15,170 | $56,800 | 0.71 |
| 25-0000 | Educational Instruction and Library Occupations | 14,160 | $87,360 | 1.30 |
| 41-0000 | Sales and Related Occupations | 13,450 | $52,290 | 0.84 |
| 31-0000 | Healthcare Support Occupations | 10,530 | $41,960 | 1.11 |
| 11-0000 | Management Occupations | 8,850 | $133,570 | 0.66 |
| 29-0000 | Healthcare Practitioners and Technical Occupations | 8,620 | $135,370 | 0.73 |
| 13-0000 | Business and Financial Operations Occupations | 6,860 | $93,750 | 0.54 |
| 47-0000 | Construction and Extraction Occupations | 6,540 | $73,460 | 0.85 |
| 37-0000 | Building and Grounds Cleaning and Maintenance Occupations | 6,390 | $47,500 | 1.17 |
| 51-0000 | Production Occupations | 6,340 | $50,730 | 0.62 |
| 33-0000 | Protective Service Occupations | 6,300 | $81,600 | 1.39 |
| 49-0000 | Installation, Maintenance, and Repair Occupations | 5,330 | $66,430 | 0.73 |
| 39-0000 | Personal Care and Service Occupations | 3,600 | $46,340 | 0.92 |
| 21-0000 | Community and Social Service Occupations | 3,520 | $73,370 | 1.10 |
| 27-0000 | Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media Occupations | 2,020 | $82,360 | 0.82 |
| 15-0000 | Computer and Mathematical Occupations | 1,970 | $112,940 | 0.31 |
| 19-0000 | Life, Physical, and Social Science Occupations | 1,590 | $101,490 | 0.90 |
| 17-0000 | Architecture and Engineering Occupations | 1,040 | $108,380 | 0.33 |
| 23-0000 | Legal Occupations | 710 | $137,080 | 0.45 |
BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, metropolitan area tables, committed to this repository rather than fetched. A location quotient above 1 means the occupation is more concentrated here than in the United States as a whole; wages are means, not medians, and BLS suppresses a wage where its sample is too thin.
Housing #
The typical home in the Salinas, CA metro was worth $841,133 in September 2026.
25 months to September 2026. Rent: $2,771 in September 2026.
Zillow Home Value Index and Observed Rent Index, metro files, joined by the RegionID recorded in the place manifest. Both are smoothed indices of the middle third of the market, not sale prices.
Employment, rolled up from member counties #
About 185,826 covered jobs across the 1 member county BLS published.
- jobs = sum of QCEW third-month employment across the 1 of 1 member counties BLS publishes.
- 185,826 = 185,826
| County | FIPS |
|---|---|
| Monterey County, CA | 06053 |
The place manifest names 1 member county for this metro, fewer than the 5 a cohort needs before a percentile means anything, so no within-metro position is offered for its counties. The positions above are against the other 392 metropolitan areas, which is a cohort that does not depend on the county pull.
There are no QCEW metro employment totals here, and that is a property of the data rather than an omission: BLS does publish MSA area codes (C####), but lib/economy's QCEW reader handles only county (SSCCC), state (SS000) and national (US000) rows at aggregation levels 74, 54 and 14, and the /api/economy route regex rejects anything else. So this figure is a sum of member counties, labelled an estimate, with every county it could not count named.
National indicator context #
None of these series is keyed to this metro area. They are national, gauge, single-state or port series, shown as context for the numbers above.
| Indicator | Latest | Unit | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mississippi River at Memphis, stage | not published | ft | no data |
| Mississippi River at St. Louis, stage | not published | ft | no data |
| Ohio River at Louisville, stage | 17.95 | ft | ok |
| Missouri River at St. Joseph, stage | not published | ft | no data |
| Colorado River below Hoover Dam, flow (Hoover releases) | 5,170.00 | ft³/s | ok |
| Texas reservoirs, statewide percent full | 72.20 | % | ok |
| Laredo truck crossings, monthly | 258,700.00 | trucks | ok |
| Los Angeles + Long Beach container volume, annual | 10,513,167.00 | TEU | watch |
| Containerships waiting for a berth, all US ports | 7.00 | ships | ok |
| Shanghai to Los Angeles container rate | 7,848.00 | $ per 40 ft box | watch |
| US diesel retail price | not published | $ per gallon | no data |
| WTI crude oil, spot | 101.91 | $ per barrel | watch |
| 30-year fixed mortgage rate | 7.40 | % | watch |
| Housing starts, annual rate | 1,275.00 | thousands of units | ok |
| Building permits, annual rate | 1,403.00 | thousands of units | ok |
| Case-Shiller US home price index | 337.31 | index, Jan 2000 = 100 | ok |
| Unemployment rate | 4.20 | % | ok |
| US goods and services trade balance, monthly | -105,572.00 | $ millions | ok |
| Retail sales excluding food services, monthly | 652,115.00 | $ millions | ok |
lib/indicators has no geographic selection: every registry entry is a United States, gauge, Texas, port, crossing or world series, and no entry is metro-keyed. Reading these as this metro's own readings would be wrong.
What changed #
Salinas, CA: 9 findings, 2 at a watch level and 7 noted
watchSalinas, CA's price-to-rent ratio of 25.3 ranks 21st of 379 US metro areas, a watch level here: price-to-rent in the top tenth of US metro areas (position among the metro areas that published both ZHVI and ZORI this month; not an official level). The previous published period is not in this table, so this is a standing level rather than a change.
Period 2026-09.Show the arithmetic
- test: priceToRent percentile = 94.70899470899471 >= 90
- typical home value / (typical rent × 12); Zillow ZHVI over ZORI, same month
position among the metro areas that published both ZHVI and ZORI this month; not an official level
watchSalinas, CA's price-to-rent ratio is 25.3, a watch level here: typical home value worth 25 or more years of typical rent (typical home value / (typical rent × 12), Zillow ZHVI over ZORI, same month; convention chosen for this dashboard, not an official level). The previous published period is not in this table, so this is a standing level rather than a change.
Period 2026-09.Show the arithmetic
- test: priceToRent = 25.29397899515275 >= 25
- typical home value / (typical rent × 12); Zillow ZHVI over ZORI, same month
typical home value / (typical rent × 12), Zillow ZHVI over ZORI, same month; convention chosen for this dashboard, not an official level
noteSalinas, CA's typical asking rent fell 0.8% from $2,792 in August 2026 to $2,771 in September 2026, on Zillow ZORI.
Period 2026-09.Show the arithmetic
- -0.8% = (2771.189907579994 - 2792.355750069447) / 2792.355750069447 × 100
- 2771.189907579994 = Zillow ZORI, 2026-09
- 2792.355750069447 = Zillow ZORI, 2026-08
noteSalinas, CA's typical home value rose 0.3% from $838,900 in August 2026 to $841,133 in September 2026, on Zillow ZHVI.
Period 2026-09.Show the arithmetic
- +0.3% = (841133.0317668918 - 838899.6590417257) / 838899.6590417257 × 100
- 841133.0317668918 = Zillow ZHVI, 2026-09
- 838899.6590417257 = Zillow ZHVI, 2026-08
noteSalinas, CA's typical home value of $841,133 ranks 12th of 379 US metro areas, against a median of $305,707.
Period 2026-09.Show the arithmetic
- 97 on the 0-to-100 scale across 379 US metro areas that published home.latest
position among the entities that published this metric this period; not an official level
The full Salinas, CA brief, with the arithmetic behind every sentence.
Metro briefs are thinner by construction: with no QCEW metro path, their findings come from Zillow's metro home value and rent rows, the county rollup, and nearby crossings and ports.