Home Health and Personal Care Aides in New Mexico
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$24,792
after federal, FICA and New Mexico tax
Tax takes
$3,728
13.1% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$27,429
New Mexico costs less than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in New Mexico — roughly, since only five points along the band are published.
One filer, standard deduction, no dependants and nothing paid in before tax — the same household the rest of this page uses, so the comparison holds. City and school-district income taxes are not included.
Median here
$28,520
Kept after tax
$24,792
Worth in national money
$27,429
State rank
44
of 51 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Pay for home health and personal care aides is on the low side in New Mexico. The middle earner gets $28,520. That is 44 of 51 states, and about 20.34% under the national figure. Whether that matters depends on what things cost here.
- Against 485 occupations New Mexico publishes, home health and personal care aides lands at 481. That is the lower quarter. That is the comparison people actually feel, more than any national table.
- Cheaper living works in this state's favor. From $28,520 you keep $24,792 after tax, and local prices stretch that to the equivalent of $27,429 at national prices. Averages run higher here, $30,120, since top earners drag the number up.
- For home health and personal care aides, New Mexico sits in the lower band at $28,520, ranking 44 of 51 and trailing the national median by about 20.34%. Nominal rankings routinely invert once tax and regional price level are applied, so this position should not be read as the conclusion.
- Within New Mexico, this work ranks 481 of 485 occupations by median pay, in the bottom quartile. The within-state position is the more salient one for anyone weighing this job against alternatives available to them locally.
- Retained pay in New Mexico is $24,792 after the full tax stack, from $28,520. Because the state's price level runs below the national average, the price-adjusted equivalent is $27,429 — a real-terms figure describing purchasing power rather than compensation, and not a number that appears on any pay stub. Mean pay of $30,120 exceeds the median, so the upper tail is doing the work.
Compare this career across states
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Pay band: Home Health and Personal Care Aides
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $26,400 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $28,520 |
| Top tenth earn over | $36,440 |
| This salary | $28,520 |
Positions between the published tenth, quarter, half, three-quarter and ninetieth points are estimated by straight line.
The same pay, somewhere else
The state median for this job
| Take-home in New Mexico | $24,792 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $25,096 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | −$1,604 |
The raise and the real gain point in opposite directions here.
State income tax and state price levels only. No city income tax, and no housing market.
What you would need there
The state median for this job
| To match take-home only | $28,150 |
|---|---|
| Raise you would need | +$1,939 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 90 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- A median is the middle, not an offer. Half of home health and personal care aides in New Mexico earn under $28,520 and half over. The published range runs $26,400 at the tenth percentile to $36,440 at the ninetieth. Experience and employer move an individual a long way inside that.
- One filer, no dependants, no pension contributions — that is the household behind New Mexico's $24,792, worked from $28,520. That is on purpose. It lets states be compared with each other, not with each other's family circumstances. Local city taxes are left out. Locally this work ranks 481 of 485.
- Two cautions on $27,429, the adjusted value of that $28,520 median. It levels out prices with a single number for all of New Mexico. No actual address matches that. The wage figures and price figures are also from different years. Each is published on its own timetable. This work sits at 481 of 485 locally.
- Figures are distribution medians for home health and personal care aides in New Mexico, not entry or offer rates. The published band runs $26,400 to $36,440; within-state dispersion of that width routinely exceeds the dispersion between states, so tenure, employer and metropolitan area predict an individual's pay better than geography does.
- The New Mexico take-home of $24,792, on $28,520 for work ranking 481 of 485 locally, models the simplest household deliberately: holding it constant is what makes the interstate comparison meaningful. It also means the absolute figure overstates liability for most real filers, and municipal income taxes are outside the model entirely. The occupation ranks 481 of 485 in the state.
- This $27,429 adjusted figure, worked from $28,520, rests on a state-level price parity averaging over within-state dispersion larger than much of the between-state dispersion. Wage and price vintages differ by publication schedule. The result is directionally sound and not address-specific, for work at 481 of 485 in the state. The occupation ranks 481 of 485 locally.
Questions people ask
Is this the average pay for the job?
No — it is the middle. Half of these workers earn more and half earn less. The average is $30,120, pulled upward by the top of the range, which is why the middle is the fairer number to plan against.
How much does pay for this job actually vary?
Less than you might expect. The bottom tenth earn $26,400 and the top tenth $36,440, so most people doing this work in New Mexico sit within a fairly tight band.
What does this pay actually buy where I live?
More than the figure suggests. Prices in New Mexico sit below the national level, so take-home here stretches like $27,429 would elsewhere. The wage is the same; the ground it covers is larger.
Where does the difference between the wage and my paycheck go?
Three of them are federal and one is not. After income tax, Social Security, Medicare and New Mexico's own levy, $24,792 remains.
Can I compare this job across every state?
This occupation is published everywhere — all 51 of them — so comparing states measures real differences rather than gaps in the data.
How does the published median differ from the mean for this occupation?
The median is the midpoint of the distribution; the mean for this occupation in New Mexico is $30,120. Wage distributions are right-skewed, so the mean exceeds the median wherever a minority earn substantially more. BLS publishes both because substituting one for the other misstates a typical worker's pay.
What is the dispersion of this occupation's wage distribution?
The tenth-to-ninetieth percentile span ($26,400 to $36,440) sits at or below the family's median dispersion, indicating relatively standardized compensation. Percentiles are published per state, so this dispersion is specific to New Mexico rather than a national figure.
What is this occupation's price-adjusted compensation in this state?
New Mexico's regional price parity is at or below the national average, so nominal wages understate purchasing power. Take-home deflated by the state price level is $27,429 in national-average terms. The adjustment uses an all-items index and does not isolate housing.
What accounts for the gap between gross wage and take-home here?
Take-home of $24,792 reflects federal income tax, OASDI, Medicare and New Mexico income tax for a single filer with no adjustments. The state layer is levied in addition to the federal one; only its rate and base differ between states.
Is this occupation's state coverage complete?
State-level estimates are published for all 51 jurisdictions for this occupation, so cross-state comparison is not confounded by suppression. ⚠️ Estimates remain survey-based and carry sampling error; small differences between adjacent states should not be over-read.