Los Angeles County, CA
County Profile
9,808,667 residents. Safety, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Los Angeles County, CA.
Several figures AreaProfile publishes are measured by county and nowhere finer — death rates by intent among them. On this page those describe the geography they are printed on, which is not true of the city and ZIP pages that inherit them.
Employment conditions sit below most comparable published profiles: unemployment is 5.2% and the Opportunity signal places Los Angeles County in the bottom 29%.
Buying strains local incomes far more than renting does — the median home is 9.3 times median household income, against a historic benchmark near three — while rent takes 26% of it.
Physical-risk exposure is above the national median, driven mainly by earthquake, inland flooding and wildfire.
At a glance
Jobs & opportunity
Unemployment of 5.2% is lower than 17% of the 1,255 measured US locations.
Employment fell 1.8% over the past year, to 4,679,684 employed residents.
36% of adults hold a four-year degree, higher than 87% of measured US locations.
Household income is higher than at least 91% of measured US locations.
| Metric | Value | Compared nationally | Source period |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median household income ±$392 | $90,112 | Top 9%of 3,222 | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Per capita income ±$239 | $45,792 | Top 11%of 3,222 | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Per-capita personal income | $78,745 | Top 10%of 1,206 | 2023 |
| Poverty rate | 13.7% | Top 48%of 3,222 | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Average commute | 33.0 min | Top 12%of 3,222 | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Bachelor's degree or higher | 36.0% | Top 13%of 3,222 | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Employment | 4,679,684 | Top 1%of 1,255 | July 2026 |
| Employment change (3 years) | -2.1% | Bottom 20%of 1,255 | July 2026 |
| Employment change (year over year) | -1.8% | Bottom 25%of 1,255 | July 2026 |
| Labor force | 4,937,408 | Top 1%of 1,255 | July 2026 |
| Labor force participation | 64.8% | Top 19%of 3,222 | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Unemployment change (year over year) | -1.0% | Bottom 5%of 1,255 | July 2026 |
| Unemployment rate | 5.2% | Top 17%of 1,255 | July 2026 |
| Occupation | People employed | Median annual wage |
|---|---|---|
| Home Health and Personal Care Aides | 385,530 | $34,320 |
| Fast Food and Counter Workers | 160,270 | $42,110 |
| Retail Salespersons | 130,650 | $37,700 |
| Laborers and Freight, Stock, and Material Movers, Hand | 120,720 | $42,390 |
| Office Clerks, General | 112,270 | $48,100 |
| Cashiers | 109,940 | $36,980 |
Occupational employment and wages are published for metropolitan areas rather than for individual cities or ZIP areas, so these describe the wider labor market this location sits in. 2025 OEWS, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Schools
How it’s calculated →There are 21.5 students for every full-time teacher, more than in most measured places.
| School | District | Students | Per teacher | Math | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Granada Hills Charter · charter | Granada Hills Charter District | 5,927 | 24.7 | — | — |
| Downey High | Downey Unified | 4,051 | 24.0 | — | — |
| Polytechnic High | Long Beach Unified | 3,890 | 23.4 | — | — |
| Warren (Earl) High | Downey Unified | 3,609 | 24.4 | — | — |
| Millikan High | Long Beach Unified | 3,408 | 25.2 | — | — |
| Paramount High | Paramount Unified | 3,400 | 19.3 | — | — |
| Options For Youth - Duarte Inc · charter | Options For Youth - Duarte Inc District | 3,369 | 28.1 | — | — |
| Wilson High | Long Beach Unified | 3,349 | 22.9 | — | — |
| Quartz Hill High | Antelope Valley Union High | 3,175 | 27.9 | — | — |
| Birmingham Community Charter High · charter | Birmingham Community Charter High District | 3,162 | 22.7 | — | — |
| El Camino Real Charter High · charter | El Camino Real Charter High District | 3,046 | 26.3 | — | — |
| Assurance Learning Academy · charter | Assurance Learning Academy District | 3,014 | 26.2 | — | — |
69.7% of students here are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. That describes the circumstances families arrive with rather than how the schools perform, which is why AreaProfile shows it and does not score it.
Public schools only, from the NCES Common Core of Data. Schools are placed by ZIP code, so this is which schools are in this place rather than which one a particular address is zoned for — district boundaries do not follow municipal ones, and enrollment zones change. Fully virtual schools are excluded: they enroll students from across the state while reporting one administrative address, and counting them here would describe a school population this place does not have. The assessment covers grades 3 through 8, so a high school shows no proficiency figure — a dash in those columns means the test was not given at that school, not that it performed badly. Proficiency is measured against California’s own standard, so it compares cleanly within the state and only broadly against other states; AreaProfile therefore ranks it within state. The directory is current, while the proficiency figures are from the last school year with national coverage before the pandemic interrupted testing.
Housing & affordability
How it’s calculated →Median rent of $1,954 takes 26% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.
A median home costs 9.3 times median household income here, well above the historic benchmark, at a level conventionally described as seriously unaffordable.
| Metric | Value | Compared nationally | Source period |
|---|---|---|---|
| Home price to income | 9.26 | Top 1%of 3,219 | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Homeownership rate | 45.9% | Bottom 1%of 3,222 | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Housing units ±972 | 3,650,466 | Top 1%of 3,222 | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Median gross rent ±$6 | $1,954 | Top 2%of 3,216 | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Median home value ±$2,194 | $834,200 | Top 1%of 3,219 | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Rent as a share of income | 26.0% | Top 3%of 3,216 | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Vacancy rate | 6.4% | Bottom 11%of 3,222 | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
Both affordability measures come from the same ACS release as the income they are compared with, so the comparison is like for like. They describe housing cost against local earnings and are not a cost-of-living index — transport, groceries, healthcare, insurance and taxes are not included, and a place can look affordable here and still be expensive to live in for reasons this does not capture.
Growth & development
How it’s calculated →An AreaProfile calculation combining permit volume per resident, its direction over one and three years, population change and employment growth. Permit volume alone is not the measure.
Population has fallen 2% since 2020, reaching 9,757,179 in 2024.
Permitting has turned upward after moving the other way the year before.
At 2.9 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is below the median for measured US locations.
Weather & climate
12 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 87°F and January a low of 45°F.
Normal annual precipitation is 13.9 inches.
Air quality measures a median index of 80, in the Moderate band, and about 133 days a year pass 100, the threshold at which the air is unhealthy for sensitive groups.
| Metric | Value | Source period |
|---|---|---|
| 90th percentile air quality index | 164.0 | 2024 calendar year |
| Annual precipitation | 13.9" | 1991-2020 Normals |
| Average January low | 45°F | 1991-2020 Normals |
| Average July high | 87°F | 1991-2020 Normals |
| Comfortable months | 12 | 1991-2020 Normals |
| Days above AQI 100 | 133 | 2024 calendar year |
| Median air quality index | 80.0 | 2024 calendar year |
| Seasonal temperature swing | 22°F | 1991-2020 Normals |
A comfortable median and a bad tail are different problems. Wildfire smoke and summer ozone show up in the worst tenth of days, not in the middle of the year.
Climate figures are thirty-year normals, not current conditions. They describe what a typical year looks like rather than what the weather is doing today. Air quality is measured rather than modelled, by EPA monitors, and published by county only where a monitor sits — roughly half the counties AreaProfile publishes have one, and the rest show nothing rather than an estimate. Air masses are regional, so a county reading describes the air over a place reasonably well, but it is still the county reading.
Physical risk
The hazards accounting for most of this area's expected annual loss are earthquake, inland flooding and wildfire.
Low or minimal exposure: heat wave, landslide, tornado, lightning, hail, avalanche, coastal flooding, strong wind, winter weather, tsunami, drought, cold wave.
Hazard ratings are AreaProfile calculations derived from the FEMA National Risk Index v1.20.0 (December 2025). FEMA National Risk Index county record. FEMA does not endorse this presentation. Higher physical resilience means lower exposure.
Safety
How it’s measured →These are deaths, not offences — they say nothing about burglary, theft or assault.
Los Angeles County records 4.7 homicide deaths per 100,000 residents a year, near the middle of counties measured. The CDC does not publish this below county level.
Firearm deaths of all intents run at 6.3 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.
Drug overdose deaths run at 17.8 per 100,000 residents in Los Angeles County.
Firearm deaths count every intent together, and nationally the majority are suicides rather than homicides. The two columns overlap and should not be added.
Age-adjusted rates from provisional death certificate records, published by the CDC for Los Angeles County as a whole — these rates are not published below county level. A county can hold both a dense city centre and a suburb whose experience of it is nothing alike, so this describes the county around Los Angeles County rather than Los Angeles County itself. That is why AreaProfile shows these figures and does not put them in the Area Score. Where fewer than ten deaths were recorded the count is suppressed at source, and a rate built on single figures moves sharply between releases. What this measure has that reported crime does not: a death certificate is filed whether or not the local police agency submitted a return that year, so the figures stay comparable between places and over time.
What this profile does not cover
Three things people look for are missing from every AreaProfile page, and each is missing for a reason rather than by oversight. The Area Score is calculated without them and the weighting is documented on the methodology page.
- Reported crime
- Offences reported to police are published by department rather than by town, and only where a department reported every month of the year. No municipal department reports for this place — many smaller communities are policed by the county — so there is no figure to show. A partial year is never scaled up to look complete, and arrest counts or news volume are never substituted for it.
- Taxes
- Taxes are not published: no source covers them nationally with a method open enough to check. Cost of living now is — the index above is the Bureau of Economic Analysis price parity for this area — but it is a price level for all consumption rather than a budget for a household, its spread is driven mostly by housing, and it excludes taxes. Housing affordability is computed separately from rent, price and income, because that answers a narrower and more actionable question. Nothing here is individualised tax advice.
- Anything about a specific address
- Every figure describes an area, not a street or a house. School attendance zones, insurance pricing and the character of a neighbourhood all vary within the places measured here.
Access
7 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 13 miles away.
| Airport | Code | Distance | Longest runway |
|---|---|---|---|
| Van Nuys | VNY | 13 mi | 8,001 ft |
| Los Angeles Intl | LAX | 19 mi | 12,923 ft |
| Long Beach (Daugherty Fld) | LGB | 27 mi | 10,000 ft |
Airport identity, position and runway data come from the FAA. “Major airport” is an AreaProfile classification — a public-use civil airport with a paved runway of at least 8,000 feet — not an FAA hub designation. Distances are straight-line, not driving distance.
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Data & methodology
| Used for | Source | Source period | Updated |
|---|---|---|---|
| Access | Federal Aviation Administration Airports (NASR) — Aeronautical Data Delivery Service | NASR current cycle | 28-day NASR cycle |
| Physical risk | Federal Emergency Management Agency National Risk Index | National Risk Index December 2025 (v1.20.0) | Periodic dataset versions (v1.20.0 current) |
| Climate | NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information U.S. Climate Normals 1991–2020 (Monthly) | 1991-2020 Normals | Every ten years (next release follows the 2001–2030 period) |
| Income | U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis Regional price parities and county personal income | 2023 | Annually, each December |
| Jobs | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Local Area Unemployment Statistics | July 2026 | Monthly |
| Demographics | U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program | July 1, 2024 estimate | Annual (vintage released each spring) |
| Development | U.S. Census Bureau Building Permits Survey | 12 months ending July 2026 | Monthly, roughly three weeks after the reference month |
| Demographics, Housing, Income, Jobs | U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates (Table-Based Summary File) | 2024 ACS 5-Year | Annual (5-year estimates released each December) |
| safety | U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics Provisional county-level mortality by intent | April, 2025 to March, 2026 | Quarterly, with a rolling twelve-month window alongside complete calendar years |
| schools | U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics Common Core of Data and EDFacts assessments | 2024-25 school year | Directory annually; assessment results as EDFacts releases them |
| Climate | U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Air Quality System Daily Air Quality Index by county | 2024 calendar year | Annually, once a calendar year is complete |
Profile recalculated August 30, 2026. Recalculation is not the same as new source data — each figure above shows the period its source actually covers. Read the full methodology or browse every source.