Merced County, CA: 8 findings, 5 at a watch level and 3 noted

8 findings fired for Merced County, CA this run, against a typical home value of $413,640 in September 2026 and covered employment of 83,506 in 2026 Q1.

This is the water & ecology lens: Biologists, hydrologists, water utilities, conservation It keeps the findings whose subject matches that interest and drops the rest, so it is a subset of the full brief and never a different set of numbers. The full brief is the canonical version of this page.

8 findings #

currentretrieved 2026-10-21

  1. watchMerced County, CA's years of wages of 7.3 ranks 292nd of 3,063 US counties, a watch level here: years of wages in the top tenth of US counties (position among the counties that published both a ZHVI value and a QCEW average weekly wage; 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: yearsOfWages percentile = 90.49640757674723 >= 90
    • typical home value / (average weekly wage × 52); one average covered job, not a household

    position among the counties that published both a ZHVI value and a QCEW average weekly wage; not an official level

  2. watchMerced County, CA's typical home value is -0.3% against a year earlier, a watch level here: typical home value below a year ago (arithmetic on Zillow ZHVI, county and metro files; 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: home.yoyPct = -0.2736465802544115 < 0

    arithmetic on Zillow ZHVI, county and metro files; not an official level

  3. watchMerced County, CA's typical home value of $413,640 scores 88 on the 0-to-100 scale across US counties but 37 across California counties, a gap of 51 points.

    Period 2026-09.
    Show the arithmetic
    • 51 = |88 across US counties - 37 across California counties|

    position among the entities that published this metric this period; not an official level

  4. watchMerced County, CA's typical asking rent of $2,059 scores 86 on the 0-to-100 scale across US counties but 36 across California counties, a gap of 50 points.

    Period 2026-09.
    Show the arithmetic
    • 50 = |86 across US counties - 36 across California counties|

    position among the entities that published this metric this period; not an official level

  5. watchMerced County, CA's years of wages of 7.3 scores 90 on the 0-to-100 scale across US counties but 51 across California counties, a gap of 40 points.

    Period 2026-09.
    Show the arithmetic
    • 40 = |90 across US counties - 51 across California counties|
    • typical home value / (average weekly wage × 52); one average covered job, not a household

    position among the entities that published this metric this period; not an official level

  6. noteMerced County, CA's typical asking rent fell 0.5% from $2,070 in August 2026 to $2,059 in September 2026, on Zillow ZORI.

    Period 2026-09.
    Show the arithmetic
    • -0.5% = (2059.301036682616 - 2069.822010703454) / 2069.822010703454 × 100
    • 2059.301036682616 = Zillow ZORI, 2026-09
    • 2069.822010703454 = Zillow ZORI, 2026-08

  7. noteThe next Zillow ZHVI typical home value (monthly) covering Merced County, CA is due between 2026-11-14 and 2026-11-21, estimated from the publisher's past release pattern.

    Show the arithmetic
    • window = 2026-11-14 to 2026-11-21, estimated from the publisher's past release pattern

    estimated from the publisher's past release pattern; not an announced date

  8. noteThe next Zillow ZORI typical rent (monthly) covering Merced County, CA is due between 2026-11-14 and 2026-11-21, estimated from the publisher's past release pattern.

    Show the arithmetic
    • window = 2026-11-14 to 2026-11-21, estimated from the publisher's past release pattern

    estimated from the publisher's past release pattern; not an announced date

A lens narrows which numbers are shown, not which holes are admitted to: a withheld figure or a pending release survives every lens, because a gap is a fact about the place rather than about one reader's subject.

Subscribe to this lens #

currentretrieved 2026-10-21

The same narrowed findings as a feed.

Sources #

  • estimateQuarterly Census of Employment and WagesU.S. Bureau of Labor Statisticsopen the source
    · retrieved 2026-10-21 · typical home value / (average weekly wage × 52); one average covered job, not a household
  • publishedZillow Home Value Index (ZHVI)Zillow Researchopen the source
    County_zhvi_uc_sfrcondo_tier_0.33_0.67_sm_sa_month.csv · period 2026-09 · retrieved 2026-10-21
  • publishedZillow Observed Rent Index (ZORI)Zillow Researchopen the source
    County_zori_uc_sfrcondomfr_sm_month.csv · period 2026-09 · retrieved 2026-10-21
  • estimateZillow Home Value Index (ZHVI)Zillow Researchopen the source
    · retrieved 2026-10-21 · month-over-month percent change = (newest month − previous month) / |previous month| × 100, from Zillow's own published month columns
  • publishedQuarterly Census of Employment and WagesU.S. Bureau of Labor Statisticsopen the source
    area 06047, all ownerships, all industries · period 2026-Q1 · retrieved 2026-10-21
  • estimateZillow Home Value Index (ZHVI)Zillow Researchopen the source
    · retrieved 2026-10-21 · momentum = Σ wᵢ · clip(changeᵢ / scaleᵢ, −1, 1) / Σ wᵢ over the terms present; weights and scales: home value 1-yr change 0.3 (±10%), rent 1-yr change 0.15 (±10%), jobs over-the-year change 0.3 (±3%), avg weekly wage over-the-year change 0.25 (±6%)
  • estimateZillow Home Value Index (ZHVI)Zillow Researchopen the source
    · retrieved 2026-10-21 · typical home value / (typical rent × 12); Zillow ZHVI over ZORI, same month
  • estimateZillow Observed Rent Index (ZORI)Zillow Researchopen the source
    · retrieved 2026-10-21 · month-over-month percent change = (newest month − previous month) / |previous month| × 100, from Zillow's own published month columns

Citations

  • U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages. https://www.bls.gov/cew/. accessed 2026-10-21. estimate computed by Embedding Atlas: typical home value / (average weekly wage × 52); one average covered job, not a household.
  • Zillow Research. Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI). series County_zhvi_uc_sfrcondo_tier_0.33_0.67_sm_sa_month.csv. period 2026-09. https://files.zillowstatic.com/research/public_csvs/zhvi/County_zhvi_uc_sfrcondo_tier_0.33_0.67_sm_sa_month.csv. accessed 2026-10-21.
  • Zillow Research. Zillow Observed Rent Index (ZORI). series County_zori_uc_sfrcondomfr_sm_month.csv. period 2026-09. https://files.zillowstatic.com/research/public_csvs/zori/County_zori_uc_sfrcondomfr_sm_month.csv. accessed 2026-10-21.
  • Zillow Research. Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI). https://www.zillow.com/research/data/. accessed 2026-10-21. estimate computed by Embedding Atlas: month-over-month percent change = (newest month − previous month) / |previous month| × 100, from Zillow's own published month columns.
  • U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages. series area 06047, all ownerships, all industries. period 2026-Q1. https://data.bls.gov/cew/data/api/2026/1/area/06047.csv. accessed 2026-10-21.
  • Zillow Research. Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI). https://www.zillow.com/research/data/. accessed 2026-10-21. estimate computed by Embedding Atlas: momentum = Σ wᵢ · clip(changeᵢ / scaleᵢ, −1, 1) / Σ wᵢ over the terms present; weights and scales: home value 1-yr change 0.3 (±10%), rent 1-yr change 0.15 (±10%), jobs over-the-year change 0.3 (±3%), avg weekly wage over-the-year change 0.25 (±6%).
  • Zillow Research. Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI). https://www.zillow.com/research/data/. accessed 2026-10-21. estimate computed by Embedding Atlas: typical home value / (typical rent × 12); Zillow ZHVI over ZORI, same month.
  • Zillow Research. Zillow Observed Rent Index (ZORI). https://www.zillow.com/research/data/. accessed 2026-10-21. estimate computed by Embedding Atlas: month-over-month percent change = (newest month − previous month) / |previous month| × 100, from Zillow's own published month columns.

What these numbers are not

  • The newest BLS QCEW file carries no year-earlier level, only the over-the-year percent change BLS publishes itself. Every employment and wage comparison here states that published change; none of them is a move from one level to another, because the two levels are not both in the file.
  • A percentile here is a min-max scaling of average rank across the entities that published the metric this period: the smallest published value scores 0 and the largest scores 100. It is not the share of entities below the value, and entities that did not publish the metric are counted in neither the rank nor its denominator.
  • The named indicators shown beside this brief are national or basin-level series, not measurements of Merced County, CA; none is at a watch or alert level. They are context.
  • The occupation mix is the 32900 metro area's, from the bundled BLS OEWS release: OEWS does not publish a county table.
  • Water rows are everything within 75 km of this place's internal point (150 km for reservoirs), not everything inside its boundary: lib/water searches discs, and every row prints its own distance.
  • Server report: satellite turbidity is only computed in a browser, so that term is absent here.
  • USGS gauges did not answer.
  • USGS wells did not answer.
  • Stress uses 1 of 4 terms (drought); missing terms are left out, not assumed.
  • Groundwater has no trend term: one latest level cannot say whether an aquifer is being drawn down.
  • USAspending did not answer for recipients, awarding agencies and NAICS.
  • Obligations are what agencies committed in FY2026 by place of performance: not outlays, and not the recipient's own location.
  • FY2026 closed 21 days ago; agencies report with up to a 45-day lag, so totals are still filling in.
  • The indicator block is the NATIONAL set, filtered only by lens. None of these series is keyed to this place: they are United States, gauge, single-state or port series and they are shown as context, not as this place's own readings.

Page assembled 2026-10-21T05:44:11.411Z. Place identity tables pulled 2026-10-01.