Pediatrician Salary in Los Angeles, CA 2026,
$176,900 Median | BLS + Market Data

Los Angeles paediatricians earn a BLS median of $176,900/yr across the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim metro, with a published band from $96,810 to $306,670. That is 15.8% below the US median for general paediatricians. BLS counts 3,080 paediatricians in the metro, 7.82% of national employment in the speciality.

No — the metro sits 17.4% below the California statewide figure, which is a wide gap and reflects both the county's payer mix and the concentration of academic paediatric appointments here. Among peer metros Los Angeles sits below Chicago at $188,340 and Miami at $186,620, and above Austin at $175,680, Denver at $173,950 and Seattle at $165,350.

Payer mix and employment composition. A majority of children in this county are covered by Medi-Cal, whose paediatric reimbursement sits well below commercial insurance, and the employers serving them — county clinics, federally qualified health centres, safety-net hospitals — pay from what they collect. Layer on a very large academic paediatric sector that trades compensation for research and teaching, and a below-national median follows. It is a statement about how paediatric care is funded here, not about how much of it is needed.

Yes, and they occupy most of the space between the median and the $306,670 at the top of this band. Subspecialty paediatrics requires a three-year fellowship on top of residency, and this region's tertiary children's services employ subspecialists across essentially every field. The awkward economics still apply: several paediatric subspecialties pay less than adult equivalents despite equal or longer training, because paediatric volumes are lower and paediatric payer mix leans public.

Through the Medical Board of California, which issues a general physician and surgeon licence — there is no paediatrics-specific credential. The clinical route is a medical degree, the national licensing examination sequence and a three-year accredited paediatrics residency, with board certification through the American Board of Pediatrics expected by essentially every employer here. Subspecialty practice requires a further three-year fellowship. Licensure is statewide; Los Angeles issues nothing municipal.

7.82% of the country's paediatricians work in this one metro, an extraordinary share, and they are paid 15.8% below the national median. Those facts are connected rather than contradictory. A region with this much academic paediatric infrastructure trains and retains a large paediatric workforce, and academic and safety-net posts pay below private practice everywhere. Concentration in this speciality is a measure of teaching capacity and public need rather than of market strength — which is precisely the opposite of what concentration usually signals.

Paediatric care in this county is funded substantially through Medi-Cal, and Medi-Cal's reimbursement for paediatric services sits materially below commercial rates. Practices with heavily public panels therefore generate less revenue per patient than practices in the coastal communities, and they cannot pay comparably. The visible consequence is geographic: paediatric access is thinnest in exactly the neighbourhoods with the most children on public insurance. Any paediatrician choosing this market is choosing a funding structure as much as a city.

Paediatrics requires the same medical degree and comparable training length as far better-paid specialities, and in this metro it pays below the national median while facing the highest state income tax in the country and one of the most expensive housing markets. That is a genuinely hard equation, and it is discussed openly among trainees here. Those who stay generally do so for the clinical work, the institutions and the population served — which is a legitimate choice, but one that should be made with the numbers understood.