How much less do women earn than men in Modesto and California? What the numbers show

Women in the Modesto area earn salaries among the bottom half of similarly sized metro areas across the country, according to a recent analysis of the best- and worst-paying cities nationwide.

The report by Smartest Dollar, an online financial and insurance website, estimated that the annual median earnings for women working full-time, year-round jobs in the Modesto area was $44,995 when adjusted to account for differences in cost of living for areas across the country ($46,336 when not adjusted). That is more than $8,000 less than the median adjusted earning of all workers in the area, which was $53,059.

The figures used in the Smartest Dollar analysis reflect that the cost of living in Modesto is estimated to be about 3% higher than the national average, pushing the estimates down from the actual amounts.

The Smartest Dollar report used data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2021 American Community Survey and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. The median earnings figure represents the midpoint at which half of workers earned more money and half earned less.

Modesto ranked No. 61 out of 94 midsize metropolitan cities in the U.S. Among other California midsize cities on the list, Santa Rosa (No. 7), Vallejo (No. 18), Oxnard/Thousand Oaks/Ventura (No. 21), Santa Maria/Santa Barbara (No. 34) and Stockton (No. 35) all ranked higher than Modesto on the earnings list. Ranking lower were three cities: Salinas (No. 74), Bakersfield (No. 86) and Visalia (No. 93).

Wage gaps across California

By contrast, California’s larger major metropolitan areas reflected significantly higher pay for women – even as the median earnings for women were in most instances substantially lower than what men earned:

San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara – No. 1 nationwide with adjusted median earnings for women of $74,714, accounting for a cost of living that’s 11.6% more than the national average. The unadjusted median was $83,414 per year, compared to $111,773 for men.

San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley – No. 2 nationwide with adjusted median earnings for women of $67,175, accounting for a 19.8% higher cost of living. The unadjusted median for women was $80,497, compared to $96,860 for men.

Sacramento-Roseville-Folsom – No. 13 nationwide with adjusted median earnings for women of $54,681, accounting for a 6.3% higher cost of living. The unadjusted median for women was $58,121, compared to $70,142 for men.

San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad – No. 30 nationwide with adjusted median earnings for women of $50,428, accounting for a 15.1% higher cost of living. The unadjusted median for women was $58,067, compared to $66,346 for men.

Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim – No. 39 nationwide with adjusted median earnings for women of $48,746, accounting for a 13.8% higher cost of living. The unadjusted median for women was $55.483, compared to $61,649 for men.

Fresno – No. 51 nationwide with adjusted median earnings for women of $44,326, accounting for a 1.6% higher cost of living. The unadjusted median for women was $45,016, compared to $50,875 for men.

Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario – No. 54 nationwide with adjusted median earnings for women of $43,703, accounting for a 5.5% higher cost of living. The unadjusted median for women was $46,120, compared to $55,325 for men.

“Women’s earnings are stronger in certain parts of the country than others, and the mix of occupations may be one reason why,” the report’s authors wrote. “States in the Northeast and on the West Coast tend to have higher median earnings for women after adjusting for cost of living.”

The differences are not only in large metro areas

“At the local level as well, cities with more professional occupations in fields like business, technology, finance and law tend to offer higher wages for women,” according to the Smartest Dollar analyst. “Additionally, these locations with higher median wages for women tend to also have smaller wage gaps between women and men.”

Across the broader Central San Joaquin Valley, however, much of the workforce is concentrated in lower-skill jobs that also tend to offer some of the lowest wages in fields including agriculture, retail, hospitality/food service and home health care.

The gaps in unadjusted median earnings between men and women are not confined only to large metro areas in California. Amid two dozen other communities in the state, from small and midsize metropolitan areas and a handful of “micropolitan” areas, there’s only one – Napa County – in which the median pay for women is higher than for men.

There, the median annual earnings for women were more than $64,200, compared to about $62,600 for men.

In the Central Valley and Central Coast

Among metro areas in the greater Central Valley and on the Central Coast, median earnings and gaps between men and women in the Census data included (actual numbers, not adjusted):

Chico – Median annual earnings for women were $48,267, about 83% of the $58,191 in median earnings for men.

Yuba City – Median annual earnings for women were $47,349, about 92% of the $51,552 in median earnings for men.

Stockton – Median annual earnings for women were $50,335, about 83% of the $60,495 in median earnings for men.

Modesto – Median annual earnings for women were $46,336, about 78% of the $59,671 in median earnings for men.

Merced – Median annual earnings for women were $46,070, about 92% of the $50,253 in median earnings for men.

Madera – Median annual earnings for women were $40,038, about 77% of the $51,788 in median earnings for men.

Hanford-Corcoran – Median annual earnings for women were $40,528, about 87% of the $46,674 in median earnings for men.

Visalia – Median annual earnings for women were $37,842, about 81% of the $46,496 in median earnings for men.

Bakersfield – Median annual earnings for women were $41,227, about 79% of the $51.842 in median earnings for men.

Santa Cruz-Watsonville – Median annual earnings for women were $60,071, about 78% of the $77,163 in median earnings for men.

San Luis Obispo-Paso Robles – Median annual earnings for women were $56,384, about 89% of the $63,707 in median earnings for men.

Santa Maria-Santa Barbara – Median earnings for women were $53,928, about 99.7% of the $54,065 in median earnings for men.