It's ZIP code 90071, which is part of downtown's financial district, where the average wage for 35,975 workers was $104,072. Next highest were the 35,861 workers in Century City's 90067 ZIP, where the average wage was $98,385 (Among the large corporations in 90067: Northrop Grumman, 20th Century Fox, AIG, MGM and Univision.) George Huang, an economist at the L.A. County Economic Development Corp., gathered the data using the decennial census. Further down was 91522 in Burbank, with an average annual wage of $94,677 for 7,815 workers (think movie studios), 90232 in Culver City (more studios), and 90212 in Beverly Hills.

See the jump for the breakouts in L.A., Orange and Ventura counties.

Los Angeles County
90071 Los Angeles $104,072
90067 Los Angeles $96,137
91522 Burbank $94,677
90232 Culver City $89,599
90212 Beverly Hills $89,413
90245 El Segundo $81,257

Orange County
92660 Newport Beach $71,090
92602 Irvine $63,818
92823 Brea $63,249
92612 Irvine $60,454
92614 Irvine $60,392
92618 Irvine $57,338

Ventura County
91320 Newbury Park $85,803
91362 Thousand Oaks $63,000
93042 Point Mugu NAWC
(Naval Air Warfare Center) $62,332
93012 Camarillo $49,401
93036 Oxnard $40,790

The EDC ignores ZIP codes with fewer than 100 employees and P.O. box-only ZIPs. A few high-paying executives or celebrities can significantly skew the results. P.O. box-only ZIP codes involve no physical geographic area and therefore have a lower chance that the workers are actually nearby. The Business Patterns data (County, ZIP code, or Metro) are available at: http://censtats.census.gov/cbpnaic/cbpnaic.shtml