Costa Mesa is a larger medium-sized city located in the state of California. With a population of 109,521 people and 25 associated neighborhoods, Costa Mesa is the 58th largest community in California. Costa Mesa home prices are not only among the most expensive in California, but Costa Mesa real estate also consistently ranks among the most expensive in America.Costa Mesa is a decidedly white-collar city, with fully 85.34% of the workforce employed in white-collar jobs, well above the national average. Overall, Costa Mesa is a city of sales and office workers, managers, and professionals. There are especially a lot of people living in Costa Mesa who work in management occupations (14.70%), sales jobs (13.15%), and office and administrative support (9.66%). Of important note, Costa Mesa is also a city of artists. Costa Mesa has more artists, designers and people working in media than 90% of the communities in America. This concentration of artists helps shape Costa Mesa’s character. Also of interest is that Costa Mesa has more people living here who work in computers and math than 95% of the places in the US. One interesting thing about the economy is that relatively large numbers of people worked from their home: 16.87% of the workforce. While this number may seem small overall, as a fraction of the total workforce this is high compared to the rest of the county. These workers are often telecommuters who work in knowledge-based, white-collar professions. For example, Silicon Valley has large numbers of people who telecommute. Other at-home workers may be self-employed people who operate small businesses out of their homes. The education level of Costa Mesa ranks among the highest in the nation. Of the 25-and-older adult population in Costa Mesa, 42.52% have at least a bachelor's degree. The typical US community has just 21.84% of its adults holding a bachelor's degree or graduate degree. The per capita income in Costa Mesa in 2022 was $53,888, which is upper middle income relative to California, and wealthy relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $215,552 for a family of four. However, Costa Mesa contains both very wealthy and poor people as well. Costa Mesa is an extremely ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Costa Mesa home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Costa Mesa residents report their race to be White, followed by Asian. Costa Mesa also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 36.23% of the city’s residents. Important ancestries of people in Costa Mesa include German, Irish, English, Italian, and European. Foreign born people are also an important part of Costa Mesa's cultural character, accounting for 23.20% of the city’s population. The most common language spoken in Costa Mesa is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Vietnamese.
