Bookkeeping, Accounting, And Auditing Clerks Salary: Santa Maria-Santa Barbara, CA vs San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA
Bookkeeping, Accounting, And Auditing Clerks earn a median of $58,650 in Santa Maria-Santa Barbara, CA and $64,480 in San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA. That is a nominal gap of $5,830 (-9.0%), with San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA paying more before any cost-of-living adjustment.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey, May 2024 estimates. Cost-of-living adjustment uses BEA Regional Price Parities, most recent release.
The story behind the numbers
On raw wages, San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA pays $5,830 more per year than Santa Maria-Santa Barbara, CA for bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks, a gap of +9.0%.
After adjusting for cost of living, San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA still comes out ahead, with roughly $1,865 of extra purchasing power (+3.3% real gap). Local prices do not reverse the nominal advantage.
Full breakdown by location
Detailed wage, employment, and cost-of-living figures for bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks in each location. Click through to the full local salary page for percentiles, outlook, and peer areas.
Bookkeeping, Accounting, And Auditing Clerks
Santa Maria-Santa Barbara, CA
- Median salary
- $58,650
- Mean salary
- $59,990
- Employment
- 1,800
- Location quotient
- 0.95
- Jobs per 1,000
- 8.9
- COL-adjusted median
- $53,907
- Regional Price Parity
- 108.8%
Exact metro RPP match.
Full Bookkeeping, Accounting, And Auditing Clerks page for Santa Maria-Santa Barbara, CA →
Bookkeeping, Accounting, And Auditing Clerks
San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA
- Median salary
- $64,480
- Mean salary
- $68,330
- Employment
- 17,670
- Location quotient
- 0.78
- Jobs per 1,000
- 7.3
- COL-adjusted median
- $55,772
- Regional Price Parity
- 115.6%
Exact metro RPP match.
Full Bookkeeping, Accounting, And Auditing Clerks page for San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA →
Related pages
Keep digging into bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks from a different angle.
- National Bookkeeping, Accounting, And Auditing Clerks salary page
- Compare a different occupation or location
Common questions about this comparison
What does the cost-of-living adjustment actually do? +
It divides each location's nominal median wage by its Regional Price Parity (RPP), which measures how local prices compare to the national average (100 = national). A wage of $100,000 in an area with RPP 120 has the same purchasing power as roughly $83,000 nationally.
Why would the nominal and adjusted winners disagree? +
High-cost metros often pay higher salaries, but not by enough to fully offset the higher cost of housing, goods, and services. When that happens, the location with the lower nominal wage actually offers more real purchasing power.
What is a location quotient? +
The location quotient measures how concentrated an occupation is in a given area versus the national average. A value of 2.0 means the occupation is twice as common there as nationally. It is a signal of what a metro specializes in.