Medical Assistants
What the pay figures show
- For once the obvious answer is right. Washington pays medical assistants best, at $59,290. It keeps that lead after tax. It keeps it after local prices too — $45,890 in comparable money. Most jobs are not this tidy.
- The nominal leader for medical assistants is also the real leader: Washington at $59,290, holding through tax and through price deflation to $45,890. Both adjustments leave the ordering at the top intact, which indicates a wage premium large enough to dominate the state's tax burden and price level rather than merely offset them.
Compare this career across states
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Pay by state · May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
National median
$45,690
People doing it
817,870
Highest paid
$59,290
WA
Best off, really
$45,890
WA, after tax and prices
Lowest tenth
$36,050
Highest tenth
$59,310
Lowest, really
$32,960
AL
States with data
51
National average
$46,120
mean, not median
Prices where it goes furthest
108.56%
WA, against a national 100
Where this job actually pays best
- Nationally, this job pays within a fairly narrow band. Adjust for tax and for local prices and the band tightens again, to between $32,960 and $45,890. Geography is not the main lever on pay here.
- 817,870 people do this job across the country, and the middle one earns $45,690. Common work, though not one of the giants.
- Every state reports this one. All 51 jurisdictions publish a figure, and the middle wage is $45,690, so the comparison above leaves nobody out.
- Wages for medical assistants cluster comparatively tightly across states, and the clustering strengthens after tax and price deflation — a real range of $32,960 to $45,890. Occupation-level factors such as specialisation and employer type therefore explain more of an individual's pay here than location does.
- National employment in medical assistants is 817,870 — a substantial occupation, though an order of magnitude below the largest. Regional differentials here move real aggregate sums without dominating any single state's wage bill.
- All 51 jurisdictions publish an occupational median for medical assistants, so the spread described above is a complete national range rather than a range across a reported subset.
Pay band: Medical Assistants
The national median for this job
50thpercentile, roughly
| Lowest tenth earn under | $36,050 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $45,690 |
| Top tenth earn over | $59,310 |
| This salary | $45,690 |
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 Medical Assistants
The national median for this job
$45,690around the 50th percentile
| Lowest tenth | $36,050 |
|---|---|
| Middle | $45,690 |
| Top tenth | $59,310 |
The five points BLS publishes. Nothing between them is invented.
Medical Assistants, state by state
The national median for this job
51states publish pay for this job
| Lowest | Mississippi · $35,360 |
|---|---|
| Highest | Washington · $59,290 |
| Spread | $23,930 |
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 | $39,520 |
|---|---|
| Worth, after local prices | $40,669 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| WA | $59,290 | $49,820 | $45,890 |
| ND | $45,980 | $39,125 | $44,173 |
| AK | $52,560 | $44,412 | $43,663 |
| NE | $47,370 | $38,790 | $42,921 |
| WI | $48,680 | $39,748 | $42,695 |
| MT | $46,820 | $38,356 | $42,503 |
| IA | $45,480 | $37,607 | $42,366 |
| MN | $50,480 | $40,831 | $41,488 |
| SD | $41,870 | $35,823 | $40,664 |
| IN | $45,110 | $37,125 | $40,272 |
| VT | $47,250 | $38,819 | $40,171 |
| ID | $44,700 | $36,581 | $40,012 |
| NV | $45,200 | $38,498 | $39,697 |
| ME | $47,580 | $38,519 | $39,671 |
| NC | $45,140 | $37,158 | $39,471 |
| OH | $42,810 | $36,117 | $39,338 |
| CO | $48,400 | $39,648 | $39,108 |
| NH | $48,020 | $40,764 | $38,696 |
| WY | $40,920 | $35,059 | $38,591 |
| UT | $45,360 | $36,608 | $38,534 |
| RI | $47,190 | $38,748 | $38,208 |
| AZ | $45,940 | $38,347 | $37,928 |
| IL | $46,090 | $37,077 | $37,506 |
| DC | $51,050 | $41,302 | $37,275 |
| SC | $41,160 | $34,725 | $37,268 |
| OR | $50,410 | $38,824 | $37,074 |
| PA | $43,920 | $36,121 | $37,048 |
| CT | $47,430 | $38,406 | $37,039 |
| MA | $49,460 | $39,768 | $36,741 |
| MO | $40,440 | $33,710 | $36,737 |
| TN | $39,570 | $33,974 | $36,723 |
| AR | $37,760 | $31,582 | $36,507 |
| NM | $39,230 | $32,982 | $36,490 |
| CA | $49,660 | $40,910 | $36,338 |
| OK | $38,750 | $32,072 | $36,328 |
| DE | $44,490 | $36,025 | $36,297 |
| MD | $46,410 | $37,630 | $36,194 |
| VA | $44,740 | $36,317 | $36,047 |
| FL | $43,680 | $37,277 | $36,033 |
| NY | $48,000 | $38,753 | $36,007 |
| KY | $39,270 | $32,477 | $35,898 |
| NJ | $47,210 | $39,053 | $35,867 |
| HI | $48,410 | $38,826 | $35,748 |
| KS | $39,510 | $32,010 | $35,581 |
| GA | $41,600 | $34,129 | $35,294 |
| TX | $39,520 | $33,934 | $34,921 |
| MI | $39,870 | $32,772 | $34,796 |
| LA | $36,320 | $30,660 | $34,705 |
| WV | $37,180 | $31,100 | $34,643 |
| MS | $35,360 | $29,269 | $33,530 |
| AL | $36,100 | $29,654 | $32,960 |
Sources and assumptions
- These are middle-of-the-range figures for medical assistants, not what a new starter is offered. Half the people doing this job earn under $45,690 nationally, half over. Your own experience and employer will move you well away from that midpoint in either direction.
- One filer, no dependants, nothing paid into a pension before tax — that is the household behind every take-home figure for medical assistants. It is the simplest case on purpose, so the states can be compared against each other rather than against each other's family circumstances. City income taxes are not counted. On that household, Washington keeps the most at $49,820.
- One price figure per state stands behind the real-terms numbers for medical assistants. 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 Alabama, on $32,960.
- All wage figures for medical assistants are medians rather than entry or offer rates; the national median is $45,690. Within-state dispersion typically exceeds between-state dispersion in this data, so an individual's expected wage is determined more by experience, sector and employer than by the state comparisons presented here.
- The household modeled for medical assistants is a single filer, standard deduction, no dependants, no pre-tax contributions. Holding the household constant is what makes the interstate comparison meaningful; it also means the absolute figures overstate liability for most real filers. On that basis Washington retains the most, $49,820. Municipal and school-district income taxes are not included in any state.
- Real-terms results for medical assistants 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; Alabama anchors the distribution at $32,960. Wage and price series are published on separate cycles and therefore carry different reference periods.