Human Resources Assistants, Except Payroll and Timekeeping
What the pay figures show
- The District of Columbia pays this job the most on paper: $59,050. Two things happen before that money is yours. State tax takes a share, which puts Washington in front. Then local prices decide what is left, and North Dakota wins at $50,541. The best offer and the best deal are not the same place.
- For human resources assistants, except payroll and timekeeping, the District of Columbia's $59,050 median leads nominally and survives neither adjustment. State income tax differentials alone are sufficient to promote Washington; regional price parity then promotes North Dakota, whose $50,541 real figure is the highest purchasing power available in this occupation. Nominal wage comparisons across states are therefore a poor guide to relocation, and the error compounds rather than cancels.
Compare this career across states
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Pay by state · May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
National median
$50,610
People doing it
90,220
Highest paid
$59,050
DC
Best off, really
$50,541
ND, after tax and prices
Lowest tenth
$37,340
Highest tenth
$68,280
Lowest, really
$36,320
HI
States with data
51
National average
$52,250
mean, not median
Prices where it goes furthest
88.57%
ND, against a national 100
Where this job actually pays best
- Pay for this job is fairly steady around the country. Count tax and local prices and the states bunch closer still, from $36,320 to $50,541. For work like this, where you live changes your life more than it changes your pay.
- Only 90,220 people do this job in the whole country. It is a small field, so the pay figures rest on fewer reports.
- Coverage is complete — all 51 jurisdictions publish this, on a middle wage of $50,610. Nothing is missing.
- Geographic dispersion in human resources assistants, except payroll and timekeeping is moderate by national standards. Tax and price adjustment compress the distribution further, to a real range of $36,320 through $50,541. Where nominal spread is this contained, relocation decisions in the occupation turn on non-wage factors, because the wage differential does not survive the adjustments in a form large enough to drive them.
- National employment in human resources assistants, except payroll and timekeeping is 90,220. ⚠️ At this headcount the state-level medians rest on comparatively thin samples, and year-to-year movement in any one state reflects sampling as much as wages.
- Coverage for human resources assistants, except payroll and timekeeping is complete at 51 jurisdictions. No suppression applies, so the highest and lowest figures above are genuinely the national extremes.
Pay band: Human Resources Assistants, Except Payroll and Timekeeping
The national median for this job
50thpercentile, roughly
| Lowest tenth earn under | $37,340 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $50,610 |
| Top tenth earn over | $68,280 |
| This salary | $50,610 |
Positions between the published tenth, quarter, half, three-quarter and ninetieth points are estimated by straight line.
Where these numbers come from
| BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025 estimates, time-series bulk download (oe.data.0.Current) | as of 2025-05-01 |
|---|
Steps in Human Resources Assistants, Except Payroll and Timekeeping
The national median for this job
$50,610around the 50th percentile
| Lowest tenth | $37,340 |
|---|---|
| Middle | $50,610 |
| Top tenth | $68,280 |
The five points BLS publishes. Nothing between them is invented.
Human Resources Assistants, Except Payroll and Timekeeping, state by state
The national median for this job
51states publish pay for this job
| Lowest | Alabama · $42,140 |
|---|---|
| Highest | District of Columbia · $59,050 |
| Spread | $16,910 |
One dot per state that publishes this job. A missing state means suppressed data, not zero pay.
Best paid, and best off
The national median for this job
| Texas pays | $47,540 |
|---|---|
| Worth, after local prices | $48,922 |
Median pay against the same pay once BEA price parities are applied.
Every state, three ways
Sorted by what the money is actually worth. "Kept" is take-home for a single filer after federal, FICA and state income tax. "Really worth" divides that by the state's own price level, so a dollar in each row buys the same thing. Tap a state to put your own salary into it. States BLS does not publish for this job are absent — that means no published figure, not no work.
| State | Median pay | Kept after tax | Really worth |
|---|---|---|---|
| ND | $53,000 | $44,766 | $50,541 |
| AK | $56,510 | $47,586 | $46,783 |
| WY | $49,660 | $42,082 | $46,321 |
| ID | $51,770 | $41,887 | $45,815 |
| KY | $50,400 | $41,030 | $45,353 |
| NM | $49,650 | $40,906 | $45,257 |
| MT | $50,070 | $40,815 | $45,227 |
| RI | $56,370 | $45,779 | $45,142 |
| IA | $48,490 | $39,911 | $44,961 |
| MN | $54,520 | $43,803 | $44,507 |
| WA | $57,390 | $48,293 | $44,484 |
| LA | $47,490 | $39,300 | $44,484 |
| KS | $49,630 | $39,577 | $43,991 |
| OH | $48,310 | $40,385 | $43,987 |
| AR | $46,190 | $38,043 | $43,977 |
| CO | $54,880 | $44,570 | $43,962 |
| MD | $56,880 | $45,545 | $43,808 |
| VT | $51,810 | $42,330 | $43,804 |
| SD | $45,150 | $38,458 | $43,655 |
| MO | $47,960 | $39,399 | $42,936 |
| NE | $47,130 | $38,608 | $42,719 |
| WI | $48,690 | $39,756 | $42,703 |
| DC | $59,050 | $47,235 | $42,629 |
| IN | $47,850 | $39,245 | $42,573 |
| TN | $45,760 | $38,948 | $42,099 |
| NC | $48,190 | $39,487 | $41,945 |
| NV | $47,900 | $40,668 | $41,934 |
| CT | $54,130 | $43,446 | $41,901 |
| MS | $44,780 | $36,462 | $41,770 |
| OK | $44,950 | $36,775 | $41,654 |
| CA | $57,590 | $46,806 | $41,575 |
| MI | $48,250 | $39,149 | $41,566 |
| TX | $47,540 | $40,378 | $41,552 |
| VA | $51,950 | $41,695 | $41,385 |
| ME | $49,710 | $40,087 | $41,285 |
| NH | $51,400 | $43,480 | $41,274 |
| MA | $55,840 | $44,575 | $41,183 |
| DE | $50,850 | $40,783 | $41,090 |
| PA | $48,800 | $39,893 | $40,916 |
| NJ | $54,410 | $44,440 | $40,814 |
| SC | $45,300 | $37,891 | $40,666 |
| FL | $48,330 | $41,013 | $39,645 |
| WV | $42,990 | $35,574 | $39,627 |
| NY | $52,920 | $42,441 | $39,433 |
| AZ | $47,890 | $39,865 | $39,429 |
| GA | $46,830 | $38,070 | $39,369 |
| OR | $53,550 | $41,072 | $39,220 |
| IL | $48,310 | $38,751 | $39,199 |
| UT | $45,790 | $36,935 | $38,878 |
| AL | $42,140 | $34,241 | $38,059 |
| HI | $49,260 | $39,447 | $36,320 |
Sources and assumptions
- A median is the middle of the range, not a starting salary and not an offer. Half of this job earn less than the figures here and half earn more, and experience, employer and city move an individual a long way from the middle. Nationally the middle earns $50,610.
- The take-home numbers here use the simplest possible household: one filer for this job, no children, no pension contributions, standard deduction. Real life usually reduces the tax bill below this. City and school-district income taxes are left out, and in Ohio or Pennsylvania that is a real omission. The best after-tax state here is Washington, at $48,293.
- One price figure per state stands behind the real-terms numbers for this job. Inside any state, a big city costs far more than a small town, so this is a fair way to compare states with each other and a poor way to price a specific move. The wage figures and the price figures are also from different years. At the bottom of the range sits Hawaii, on $36,320.
- Figures are medians of the published wage distribution for human resources assistants, except payroll and timekeeping, not entry-level or offer wages. The national median is $50,610, with half of workers below it; dispersion within a state routinely exceeds the dispersion between states, driven by tenure, employer size, sector and metropolitan area. An individual's position in the distribution is not predictable from geography alone.
- Retained-pay figures for human resources assistants, except payroll and timekeeping model a single filer taking the standard deduction with no dependants and no pre-tax deferrals — deliberately the simplest household, so the comparison across states isolates geography rather than personal circumstances. Local income taxes are outside the model; Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland residents should expect a meaningfully lower figure than $48,293, which leads in Washington.
- Real-terms results for human resources assistants, except payroll and timekeeping rest on statewide regional price parities, which average over intra-state variation that is itself larger than much of the interstate variation. They support comparison between states and not the pricing of an individual relocation; Hawaii anchors the distribution at $36,320. Wage and price series are published on separate cycles and therefore carry different reference periods.