Paralegals and Legal Assistants in New Hampshire
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$52,029
after federal, FICA and New Hampshire tax
Tax takes
$10,011
16.1% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$49,389
New Hampshire costs more than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in New Hampshire — 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
$62,040
Kept after tax
$52,029
Worth in national money
$49,389
State rank
25
of 51 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Neither high nor low. New Hampshire is 25 of 51 states for this job, with a middle wage of $62,040. What that is worth is the question the rest of this page answers.
- Against other work in New Hampshire, this sits in the middle: 245 of 488 occupations with published pay. Solidly ordinary for the state, which is not the same as ordinary nationally.
- Costs eat into it here. Of $62,040, tax leaves $52,029 — and because New Hampshire is dearer than average, that stretches only as far as $49,389 would nationally. Averages run higher here, $66,940, since top earners drag the number up.
- New Hampshire ranks 25 of 51 for paralegals and legal assistants at $62,040. The nominal figure is unremarkable; the adjusted figures are where the state's actual position for this occupation is determined.
- Paralegals and legal assistants ranks 245 of 488 occupations in New Hampshire by median pay, in the middle bands. Within-state and national positions are separate measurements and a job commonly sits in different quartiles on each.
- After tax, $52,029 remains from the New Hampshire median of $62,040 for this occupation. Applying the state's above-average price parity yields $49,389 in national-average terms — the quantity relevant to a relocation decision, and the one absent from essentially every published wage comparison. Mean pay of $66,940 exceeds the median, so the upper tail is doing the work.
Compare this career across states
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Pay band: Paralegals and Legal Assistants
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $46,870 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $62,040 |
| Top tenth earn over | $86,190 |
| This salary | $62,040 |
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 Hampshire | $52,029 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $52,029 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$4,152 |
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 | $62,040 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$5,022 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 105 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Treat $62,040 as a midpoint for New Hampshire, not a promise. The tenth percentile is $46,870 and the ninetieth is $86,190 — a wide band, and where you land in it depends on far more than the state.
- In New Hampshire the take-home figure of $52,029, from $62,040, assumes one filer, no dependants, and nothing paid into a pension before tax. Each of those lowers the bill, so treat it as the plain case. City and school-district income taxes are not included either, and in a few states those are real money. It ranks 245 of 488 occupations here.
- Two cautions on $49,389, the adjusted value of that $62,040 median. It levels out prices with a single number for all of New Hampshire. 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 245 of 488 locally.
- The New Hampshire median of $62,040 describes the midpoint of a distribution spanning $46,870 to $86,190. Because that spread is typically larger than the interstate spread, a state median is a weak predictor for any individual worker in this occupation.
- Take-home for New Hampshire is computed for a single filer taking the standard deduction with no dependants and no pre-tax contributions, giving $52,029 from $62,040. Each omitted item reduces taxable income, so the figure is a lower bound on retained pay for this household shape. Municipal and school-district income taxes are excluded, which understates the burden materially in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland. The occupation ranks 245 of 488 locally.
- This $49,389 adjusted figure, worked from $62,040, 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 245 of 488 in the state. The occupation ranks 245 of 488 locally.
Questions people ask
Is this the average pay for the job?
Half earn more than this and half earn less. The average sits at $66,940 because a long tail of high pay lifts it, so the two answer different questions.
How much does pay for this job actually vary?
The range here is narrow. From $46,870 at the bottom tenth to $86,190 at the top, pay for this work clusters rather than spreads.
Does a bigger number here mean I am better off?
The number and the value are different things. New Hampshire costs more than the national average, so this take-home stretches like $49,389 rather than its face figure.
Is most of this wage taxed away?
Less than people assume. $52,029 of this wage reaches your account, because New Hampshire takes no income tax from wages — but federal tax, Social Security and Medicare still apply exactly as they do everywhere else.
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 Hampshire is $66,940. 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 ($46,870 to $86,190) 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 Hampshire rather than a national figure.
How does the state price level affect real compensation?
New Hampshire's regional price parity sits above the national average, so nominal wages overstate purchasing power. Deflating take-home by the state price level gives $49,389 in national-average terms. ⚠️ RPPs are an all-items index; housing parities vary far more widely than the headline figure.
Why is the take-home ratio comparatively high in this state?
New Hampshire levies no personal income tax on wages, so take-home of $52,029 reflects the federal layer and FICA alone. Federal income tax and FICA are unchanged; states without a wage income tax generally recover revenue through consumption and property bases instead.
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.