Occupational Therapy Assistants
What the pay figures show
- Maryland pays this job the most on paper: $82,010. Two things happen before that money is yours. State tax takes a share, which puts Texas in front. Then local prices decide what is left, and Arkansas wins at $71,557. The best offer and the best deal are not the same place.
- For occupational therapy assistants, Maryland's $82,010 median leads nominally and survives neither adjustment. State income tax differentials alone are sufficient to promote Texas; regional price parity then promotes Arkansas, whose $71,557 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
$72,300
People doing it
51,290
Highest paid
$82,010
MD
Best off, really
$71,557
AR, after tax and prices
Lowest tenth
$51,490
Highest tenth
$89,780
Lowest, really
$44,429
AK
States with data
50
National average
$70,710
mean, not median
Prices where it goes furthest
86.51%
AR, against a national 100
Where this job actually pays best
- The state you work in changes what this job pays, but less than you would expect. Level out tax and prices and the whole country sits between $44,429 and $71,557. That is a real difference. It is not usually a moving-house difference.
- Only 51,290 people do this job in the whole country. It is a small field, so the pay figures rest on fewer reports.
- Not every state reports this one. The figures here cover 50 jurisdictions, and the middle wage across them is $72,300. A state you do not see is one with no published number, not one paying nothing. Of those published, Maryland pays most.
- Interstate variation for occupational therapy assistants is contained relative to other occupations, and narrows further under adjustment: the real range is $44,429 to $71,557. A differential of this magnitude is real but rarely decisive on its own, which is worth stating plainly against wage tables that present nominal gaps without either adjustment.
- National employment in occupational therapy assistants is 51,290. ⚠️ 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.
- BLS publishes an occupational median for occupational therapy assistants in 50 jurisdictions, short of the full set. ⚠️ Absence reflects estimate suppression — small samples or disclosure rules — rather than absence of employment, so the state comparison above is over the published subset.
Pay band: Occupational Therapy Assistants
The national median for this job
50thpercentile, roughly
| Lowest tenth earn under | $51,490 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $72,300 |
| Top tenth earn over | $89,780 |
| This salary | $72,300 |
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 Occupational Therapy Assistants
The national median for this job
$72,300around the 50th percentile
| Lowest tenth | $51,490 |
|---|---|
| Middle | $72,300 |
| Top tenth | $89,780 |
The five points BLS publishes. Nothing between them is invented.
Occupational Therapy Assistants, state by state
The national median for this job
50states publish pay for this job
| Lowest | Alaska · $53,530 |
|---|---|
| Highest | Maryland · $82,010 |
| Spread | $28,480 |
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 | $81,500 |
|---|---|
| Worth, after local prices | $83,869 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| AR | $78,940 | $61,902 | $71,557 |
| TX | $81,500 | $66,165 | $68,089 |
| NM | $77,020 | $60,559 | $67,001 |
| NV | $79,510 | $64,765 | $66,782 |
| MT | $72,800 | $57,293 | $63,486 |
| SC | $73,740 | $58,132 | $62,389 |
| GA | $75,920 | $59,050 | $61,066 |
| LA | $66,090 | $53,687 | $60,770 |
| DE | $78,640 | $60,194 | $60,647 |
| MD | $82,010 | $62,992 | $60,590 |
| OK | $66,520 | $53,134 | $60,184 |
| NC | $69,390 | $55,386 | $58,834 |
| IA | $64,140 | $51,891 | $58,458 |
| PA | $71,590 | $56,996 | $58,457 |
| AZ | $73,490 | $59,095 | $58,450 |
| CO | $75,340 | $59,225 | $58,418 |
| WA | $77,590 | $63,415 | $58,413 |
| IN | $66,660 | $53,788 | $58,349 |
| KY | $65,230 | $52,427 | $57,951 |
| WY | $62,750 | $52,600 | $57,898 |
| MO | $66,070 | $53,099 | $57,866 |
| ND | $60,970 | $51,169 | $57,772 |
| VA | $74,960 | $58,015 | $57,583 |
| FL | $71,630 | $59,222 | $57,246 |
| ID | $65,330 | $52,063 | $56,947 |
| KS | $65,010 | $51,077 | $56,774 |
| TN | $62,420 | $52,334 | $56,569 |
| MS | $61,650 | $49,342 | $56,525 |
| NE | $63,180 | $50,774 | $56,181 |
| OH | $62,700 | $51,552 | $56,149 |
| CA | $81,770 | $62,843 | $55,820 |
| UT | $66,080 | $52,335 | $55,088 |
| AL | $62,250 | $49,515 | $55,035 |
| CT | $72,780 | $56,778 | $54,758 |
| WV | $60,370 | $48,806 | $54,366 |
| OR | $76,850 | $56,720 | $54,163 |
| NJ | $74,960 | $58,971 | $54,160 |
| MA | $75,040 | $58,189 | $53,760 |
| SD | $56,180 | $47,321 | $53,715 |
| MI | $63,260 | $50,572 | $53,694 |
| NH | $67,790 | $56,520 | $53,653 |
| RI | $66,710 | $53,679 | $52,931 |
| ME | $64,270 | $50,803 | $52,322 |
| MN | $64,920 | $51,452 | $52,280 |
| WI | $59,960 | $48,253 | $51,831 |
| HI | $72,710 | $55,899 | $51,468 |
| IL | $64,120 | $50,671 | $51,258 |
| NY | $68,530 | $53,937 | $50,115 |
| DC | $66,390 | $52,656 | $47,521 |
| AK | $53,530 | $45,191 | $44,429 |
Sources and assumptions
- These are middle-of-the-range figures for this job, not what a new starter is offered. Half the people doing this job earn under $72,300 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 this job. 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, Texas keeps the most at $66,165.
- The price adjustment for this job uses a statewide figure, and states are not uniform. A city and a rural county in the same state can differ more from each other than two states do, so treat the real-terms comparison as a direction rather than a precise answer — Alaska anchors the bottom at $44,429. The wage data and the price data also come from different years, because that is how each is published.
- All wage figures for occupational therapy assistants are medians rather than entry or offer rates; the national median is $72,300. 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 occupational therapy 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 Texas retains the most, $66,165. Municipal and school-district income taxes are not included in any state.
- Real-terms figures for occupational therapy assistants deflate take-home by a statewide regional price parity, which conceals substantial intra-state variation — metropolitan and non-metropolitan price levels within one state frequently differ by more than two states differ from each other. The wage and price series also carry different reference periods, as each is published on its own schedule, so the adjustment is directionally sound rather than precisely dated.