Executive Secretaries and Executive Administrative Assistants

A midpoint of $76,590 against $50,020 means Executive Secretaries and Executive Administrative Assistants pays $2,214 a month more than the typical American job. At that distance the entry requirement is the real subject, because it is what the premium is buying.

459,910 people work as Executive Secretaries and Executive Administrative Assistants — large enough that the occupation is always hiring somewhere and always losing people somewhere else. Constant demand is security; it is rarely leverage.

Administrative assistant work suits people who make an organisation function and are content that this is mostly invisible when done well and highly visible when not.

How long it takes to become one of the 459,910 people doing this is not something we have a source for. BLS counts and pays them; it does not record how they got there, and we would rather say so than guess.

A quarter earn below $61,390 and a quarter above $94,390: a 1.5x ratio, $33,000 between the ends. That is an ordinary working spread, which also means experience and location explain most of it and there is no shortcut through the middle.

At $61,390, or $29.51 an hour, the 25th percentile sits $11,370 above the $50,020 the typical American job pays. Occupations with floors this high almost always have a requirement holding them there.

Avoid it if you want a visible career ladder; the routes up out of administration are narrow and mostly sideways first.

You will not find a "what share make it" figure here. 459,910 is a headcount of the employed, which is a numerator without a denominator — everyone who qualified and never got hired is missing from it, and we will not estimate them to complete a percentage.

A 1.5x ratio is the most common shape in this data: some room to move, none of it quick. Read $76,590 as where you might be after years in Executive Secretaries and Executive Administrative Assistants, and $61,390 as where you would start.

In cash terms the middle half of Executive Secretaries and Executive Administrative Assistants runs $61,390 to $94,390 — $33,000 a year between the 25th and 75th percentiles, against a midpoint of $76,590.

Between $61,390 and $94,390 — the two ends of the middle half — sits $76,590. Moving from the midpoint to the upper quarter is worth $17,800; the whole climb from the lower quarter is $33,000.

The climb from $76,590 to $94,390 is $17,800; the drop to $61,390 is $15,200. A little more room above the midpoint than below it is the normal shape for Executive Secretaries and Executive Administrative Assistants and for most paid work, and it is the reason the median is the honest summary rather than the average.

Converted to an hourly rate over a full-time year: $29.51 at the bottom quarter, $36.82 at the midpoint, $45.37 at the top quarter. The typical American job works out at $24.04 on the same basis.