S.F. ZIP code has state’s highest average income
One of San Francisco’s smallest ZIP codes has the highest average income in California.
The 94104 ZIP code, which includes a handful of blocks in the city’s Financial District with such buildings as 555 California St. and the Ritz-Carlton residences, had an average household income of about $5.5 million in 2021, according to recently released tax data from the IRS. Only one ZIP code in the United States had a higher average household income: 33109 of Fisher Island, Fla., where about 300 filers, totaling 500 people, made an average of $6 million.
The IRS tax data, based on information provided on individuals and couples who filed taxes in 2022, is available only as an aggregate amount, meaning high averages could be skewed upward by the presence of a few very wealthy people. The IRS also cautions that some tax filers might not use their home addresses for their returns. That could help explain why about 1,500 people, including dependents, were listed on filings from Financial District addresses even though the ZIP code’s population is less than 600.
Still, the IRS data provides perhaps the most detailed breakdown of U.S. income available, including not only earnings but also interest payments and capital gains.
The Financial District isn’t the only part of the Bay Area with a seven-figure average income. Many of the highest incomes were concentrated in the Silicon Valley, with the 94027 ZIP code that makes up the uber-wealthy city of Atherton having an average income of $3.5 million.
Two Palo Alto ZIP codes, 94304 and 94301, had average incomes exceeding $2 million.
Those ZIP codes had some of the highest average incomes in California. Just two of the state’s 10 highest-income ZIP codes — 90067 and 90272, which contain Los Angeles’ wealthy Century City and Pacific Palisades neighborhoods — weren’t in the Bay Area.
Only seven California ZIP codes had average incomes exceeding $1 million, six of them in the Bay Area.
Most Bay Area neighborhoods — though higher-income than most California ZIP codes — came nowhere close to that level. Excluding the Financial District, the average income of San Francisco ZIP codes ranged widely, from as little as Treasure Island’s $55,000 to as much as the Embarcadero’s $732,000.
Indeed, the high incomes of the Bay Area’s richest neighborhoods stood even starker when compared with the rest of the state. California ZIP codes that had average incomes of at least $400,000 tended to be concentrated in and around major cities such as San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego.
ZIP codes in parts of the San Joaquin Valley and near Sacramento also had higher average incomes.
That doesn’t necessarily mean the typical worker in those areas received a large salary. In many of the highest-income ZIP codes, the largest share of total income comes from sources other than wages or salaries, IRS data shows. For example, about 39% of total income reported by all tax filers in the Financial District was from capital gains — the selling of stock or property — while just 13% came from earnings and 6% came from investment payments.
IRS data doesn’t specify where much of the remaining 42% of total income came from, though possibilities include business and rental income, pension payments and some sales of stock options.
In Atherton, as well as Palo Alto’s 93404 and 94301 ZIP codes, more than half of total income came from capital gains.
Because the IRS data is available only through 2021, it might not reflect more recent economic trends in the Bay Area, such as the boom in housing values in 2022 and the wave of tech layoffs that’s raised the region’s unemployment rate.
Many wealthy San Francisco residents also left the city in 2020 and 2021, though its overall population loss started reversing in 2022.