Legal Support Workers, All Other

A sunlit research desk with a laptop, reference books, an abacus and a magnifying glass.

What the pay figures show

  • Virginia pays legal support workers, all other the most, at $179,960. Unusually, it stays on top. Tax does not overturn it. Nor do local prices — it is still first at $123,755 once levelled out. That is rarer than it sounds. For most jobs the leader changes.
  • Virginia leads for legal support workers, all other at $179,960 and retains the position through both adjustments, finishing first at $123,755 in price-deflated terms. That robustness is the minority case: across the largest occupations, state income tax reorders the leader roughly a third of the time and price level does so more often still. Where the nominal leader survives both, the wage premium is large enough to absorb the state's own tax and price levels.

Compare this career across states

Choose your filing status and local taxes, compare pay, and keep a shortlist.Compare wage and personal-pay outcomes by state, with selected resident local taxes and saved career choices.

Pay by state · May 2025 wages · tax year 2026

National median

$72,110

People doing it

46,760

Highest paid

$179,960

VA

Best off, really

$123,755

VA, after tax and prices

Lowest tenth

$43,800

Highest tenth

$179,960

Lowest, really

$41,495

IA

States with data

45

National average

$89,660

mean, not median

Prices where it goes furthest

100.75%

VA, against a national 100

Where this job actually pays best

  • Geography does a lot of the work in this job. Pay roughly doubles between the lowest state and the highest. Tax and prices narrow that gap. They come nowhere near closing it — the real range is still $41,495 up to $123,755.
  • Just 46,760 Americans work in this job. Small fields move around more from year to year.
  • This job is not published everywhere — 45 jurisdictions have a figure, with $72,110 in the middle. Where one is missing, it was never released. Virginia tops the ones that are.
  • The nominal spread for legal support workers, all other approaches a factor of two across states. Deflating for tax and price level compresses it substantially but leaves a real range of $41,495 to $123,755, indicating that most of the dispersion is real purchasing power rather than compensation for local costs.
  • 46,760 are employed nationally in legal support workers, all other — a small occupation, where the state spread above is more sensitive to sample composition than it would be in a large one.
  • 45 jurisdictions carry a published median for legal support workers, all other. ⚠️ Suppression is not random: it correlates with small state-level samples, so the reported set skews toward larger employers of this occupation.

Pay band: Legal Support Workers, All Other

The national median for this job

50thpercentile, roughly
Lowest tenth earn under$43,800
Half earn under$72,110
Top tenth earn over$179,960
This salary$72,110

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 Legal Support Workers, All Other

The national median for this job

$72,110around the 50th percentilep10median · you are herep90you
Lowest tenth$43,800
Middle$72,110
Top tenth$179,960

The five points BLS publishes. Nothing between them is invented.

Legal Support Workers, All Other, state by state

The national median for this job

45states publish pay for this jobVirginia — $179,960District of Columbia — $88,480Kansas — $88,210New Jersey — $88,210Minnesota — $86,940California — $85,830Washington — $85,630Alaska — $85,000New Hampshire — $82,890Delaware — $81,170Rhode Island — $79,350Massachusetts — $77,830New York — $76,520Pennsylvania — $75,190Maine — $72,110Missouri — $69,350Nebraska — $69,010Kentucky — $68,220Ohio — $67,230Colorado — $66,660Michigan — $66,280Vermont — $66,100Idaho — $64,480Utah — $64,380Illinois — $63,250North Carolina — $63,170Arizona — $63,160Texas — $63,140Wisconsin — $63,130Hawaii — $62,530Oregon — $60,860Nevada — $60,820Georgia — $60,620Tennessee — $58,610New Mexico — $57,780Indiana — $56,990Florida — $56,880Mississippi — $55,930West Virginia — $55,890Montana — $55,850Oklahoma — $55,330North Dakota — $53,980Louisiana — $51,230Arkansas — $44,670Iowa — $44,470Texas · $63,140lowest $44,470highest $179,960
LowestIowa · $44,470
HighestVirginia · $179,960
Spread$135,490

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

PayAfter pricesVA: → VAVADC: → DCDCKS: → KSNJ: → MN: → MNCA: → WA: → AK: → TX: → TXTX
Texas pays$63,140
Worth, after local prices$64,976

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.

Legal Support Workers, All Other pay by state
StateMedian payKept after taxReally worth
VA$179,960$124,682$123,755
KS$88,210$66,252$73,642
AK$85,000$68,628$67,470
MN$86,940$65,604$66,659
NH$82,890$67,143$63,736
WA$85,630$69,071$63,623
DE$81,170$61,807$62,272
NJ$88,210$67,457$61,953
RI$79,350$62,097$61,232
PA$75,190$59,418$60,941
NE$69,010$54,942$60,793
KY$68,220$54,553$60,301
MO$69,350$55,296$60,260
DC$88,480$66,523$60,037
OH$67,230$54,994$59,898
CA$85,830$65,321$58,022
ME$72,110$56,012$57,687
ID$64,480$51,426$56,249
MI$66,280$52,870$56,135
MA$77,830$60,012$55,444
NY$76,520$59,127$54,937
VT$66,100$53,039$54,886
TX$63,140$52,913$54,451
WI$63,130$50,612$54,365
NC$63,170$50,925$54,096
UT$64,380$51,044$53,730
TN$58,610$49,273$53,260
CO$66,660$53,501$52,771
NV$60,820$51,049$52,639
NM$57,780$47,056$52,061
MS$55,930$44,975$51,522
ND$53,980$45,553$51,430
AZ$63,160$51,753$51,187
IL$63,250$50,015$50,595
OK$55,330$44,648$50,572
WV$55,890$45,395$50,567
IN$56,990$46,320$50,247
GA$60,620$48,462$50,116
MT$55,850$45,187$50,072
LA$51,230$42,193$47,759
FL$56,880$47,883$46,285
HI$62,530$49,114$45,221
OR$60,860$46,306$44,218
AR$44,670$36,878$42,630
IA$44,470$36,834$41,495
Sources and assumptions
  • Treat the numbers for legal support workers, all other as a midpoint, not a promise. The national middle is $72,110, which means half of everyone doing this work earns less than that. Where you land depends on how long you have done it, who you do it for, and which city you do it in.
  • The take-home numbers here use the simplest possible household: one filer for legal support workers, all other, 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 Virginia, at $124,682.
  • One price figure per state stands behind the real-terms numbers for legal support workers, all other. 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 Iowa, on $41,495.
  • These are distribution medians for legal support workers, all other, with a national value of $72,110. They describe a midpoint rather than an expected offer, and the within-occupation spread — visible in the tenth and ninetieth percentile figures — is wide enough that a state-level median is a weak predictor for any individual worker.
  • Retained-pay figures for legal support workers, all other 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 $124,682, which leads in Virginia.
  • Real-terms results for legal support workers, all other 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; Iowa anchors the distribution at $41,495. Wage and price series are published on separate cycles and therefore carry different reference periods.