San Jose wages after inflation, September 2026
economy
labor
Private-sector workers in the San Jose metro averaged $53.28 an hour in September 2026. Adjusted for inflation that is $53.28 in today’s money, down 5.0% from a year earlier.
The two lines are the post. The real series peaked at $64.27 in November 2020.
An average, not a median, so it is pulled upward by high earners. It also moves with who is working: a month that sheds low-wage jobs raises the average without raising anyone’s pay, which is much of what happened in 2020.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Employment Statistics, average hourly earnings of all private employees, San Jose–Sunnyvale–Santa Clara MSA, via FRED; real series deflated by CPI-U to the latest available period. Auto-generated each build.