Report: Bay Area has the highest wages in nation

Weekly earnings in all nine counties above national average at end of 2019

Bay Area workers went into the early stages of the coronavirus outbreak with some of the highest wages in the nation — and in the case of the South Bay, the highest wages — a new federal report shows.

Average weekly wages in Santa Clara County during the final three months of 2019 were tops in the nation, a report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows.

Nationwide, the top three counties with the highest average weekly wages were all located in the Bay Area: the counties of Santa Clara, San Mateo, and San Francisco.

Rounding out the top five are No. 4, New

York County, which contains Manhattan; and No. 5, Suffolk County in Massachusetts, whose primary city is Boston. Those five are all tech hubs, this news organization’s assessment of the federal statistics shows. Also in the top 10 is King County, a Washington State community that contains Seattle.

“In some ways, the high wages would have helped the Bay Area economy against the coronavirus,” said Mark Vitner, senior economist with Wells Fargo Bank. “The Bay Area had tremendous momentum provide to COVID 19.”

The statistics were contained in the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, or QCEW report, that the Bureau of Labor Statistics compiles.

Santa Clara County’s average weekly wage in the fourth quarter of 2019 was $2,825, the report determined. South Bay wages were 138 percent higher than the national average weekly wage of $1,185, or more than twice as great.

South Bay wages also were 94 percent higher, or nearly double, the average for California, which was $1,457 in the final three months of 2019, the survey determined.

San Mateo County posted an average weekly wage of $2,622, while San Francisco County came in at an average of $2,523 during the October-through-December quarter of 2019.

“A lot of tech companies were scrambling to find workers before the coronavirus hit, so that drove wages higher,” Vitner said. “Even though tech is holding up relatively well, in this environment, wages could soften.”

New York County posted a weekly average wage of $2,502, while the Boston area of Suffolk County achieved a weekly wage of $2,146 in the fourth quarter.

In the East Bay, average weekly wages were $1,577 in Alameda County and $1,415 in Contra Costa County.

In the North Bay, average wages in the fourth quarter were $1,499 in Marin

County, $1,201 in Sonoma County, $1,200 in Solano County, and $1,188 in Napa County, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported.

Weekly wages in all nine of the Bay Area’s counties were above the nationwide average.

Six of the nine Bay Area counties were above the statewide wage average. Only Napa County, Solano County, and Sonoma County were below the California wage average, the federal report determined.

Coronavirus-linked business shutdowns ordered by state and local government agencies have battered the job market in the Bay Area, California, and nationwide.

The Bay Area posted huge gains in jobs in May and June, on the heels of mammoth employment losses in March and April. Despite the recent gains, the Bay Area has a long way to go before it regains the jobs it lost during the worst months of the coronavirus shutdowns.

“No area has come out of this unscathed,” Vitner said. “But it’s nice to know that the Bay Area had very strong momentum going into the coronavirus crisis.”