How much do medical assistants make?

Updated January, 8 2019
There are various sources for salary data. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) offers the official salary estimate. Current data is available for 2017. PayScale.com is a private company that collects large amounts of salary data and whose information should be more current. Likewise, Indeed.com, the large job search website collects and aggregates salary data from current job offers.

According to these three data sources, the average national salary for medical assistants is:

Medical Assistants are health care support workers. Their salaries can be compared to those of other health care support staff. According to BLS and Payscale, Medical Assistants make more than Nursing Aides and Personal Care Aides, but less than Medical Secretaries. Indeed.com shows Medical Assistants earning more than Medical Secretaries.

Various factors influence Medical Assistant wage rates:

1. Setting
2. Location
3. Experience and training

How much Medical Assistants earn in different settings.

According to the BLS (2014), the largest employers of Medical Assistants are, in order of importance: offices of physicians (60.32%), hospitals (12.36%), outpatient care centers (9.48%), offices of other health practitioners (9.03%), offices of chiropractors (4.1%) and nursing and residential care facilities (3.1%).

In which States do Medical Assistants Earn Most?

Medical Assistant earnings vary widely depending on the state and whether or not the setting is rural or metropolitan. You can expect to earn more in a large city than in a small town, and coastal states tend to have higher wages than inland states. The states with the highest employment levels are, as you would expect, the most populous – California (89,910), Texas (58,090), Florida (54,220), Pennsylvania (28,260) and New York (25,140). These are not, however, the states where you can expect to earn most. They are:

In which Cities do Medical Assistants Earn Most?

If you want to earn more as a Medical Assistant, it helps to live in a wealthy city. This does not however mean that you will feel better off, as the cost of living is likely to be higher.

As you would expect, the cities wide the highest pay are mainly in California, and centered around the Bay Area and Silicon Valley. Also included in this list, however, are a couple of surprises such as Rochester, MN and Fairbanks, AK. Part of the reason for Rochester making it onto the list is the presence of the Mayo Clinic which employs more than 30,000 people and draws more than 2 million visitors each year to the city. Fairbanks on the other hand is a small city with a total population which is similar to staff numbers at the Mayo Clinic.

Where Am I Most Likely to Get a Job as a Medical Assistant?

The following metropolitan areas offer the highest employment levels for this profession. This is a good place to start when considering where you are most likely to get a job. It is not, however, the whole picture, as I’ll explain next. This table is ordered by annual mean wage, and not by employment. The cities with the highest employment are Los Angeles, New York and Dallas-Fort Worth.

When considering where it might be easiest to find a job, it may be more interesting to consider the employment in medical assisting per thousand jobs. The reveals a different picture. Again, this table is ordered by salary level. The cities with the highest employment per thousand jobs are Rochester, MN, Grants Pass, OR and Gainesville, GA.

For information on salaries by state, see these pages: