Occupation / job
Medical Assistants
Median annual pay. Half earn less than this.
Hourly at a standard 2,080-hour year. We do not yet have unpaid-time or cost data for this, so this is not an adjusted figure.
The middle half. A quarter earn below this range.
Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 · view
What this figure cannot tell you
It covers people EMPLOYED in this occupation. Anyone who trained for it and was never hired is not in the median above, and neither is anyone doing the work self-employed. No verified count of qualified people exists for this occupation, so this page shows none rather than an estimate. Why that matters · The occupations where we could source it
Who this suits
Medical Assistants pays $45,690 where the typical job pays $50,020 — $2.08 an hour apart. That is close enough to average that the interesting numbers on this page are the percentiles, not the median.
At 817,870 workers, Medical Assistants is one of the largest occupations in the country. Jobs at this scale are the labour market’s floor — always hiring, rarely bidding, and first to absorb people leaving somewhere else.
These support roles suit people who want clinical work without the years of schooling, and who understand that the physical demands and the patient contact are the clinician’s while the pay is not.
No verified preparation time is on file for Medical Assistants. The wage survey behind every figure on this page asks employers what they pay, not what they required, so the honest answer here is that we do not know.
Who should not do this
$10,710 separates the bottom quarter at $38,470 from the top quarter at $49,180, a ratio of 1.3x. In a band that tight, moving up inside Medical Assistants pays less than moving out of it would.
A quarter of Medical Assistants earn under $38,470, which is $11,550 short of the $50,020 national midpoint. Assume you start there and check whether the arithmetic still works.
Avoid it if you need the pay to reflect the clinical responsibility you actually carry; in these roles it does not.
You will not find a "what share make it" figure here. 817,870 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.
What the spread tells you
At 1.3x between $38,470 and $49,180, this is a narrow distribution. $45,690 is a reliable number to plan around, which is worth something — but so is knowing that outperforming the field will not be paid for.
The middle half of this field earns between $38,470 and $49,180. That is $10,710 of range, with $45,690 sitting inside it as the point half the field is above and half below.
Between $38,470 and $49,180 — the two ends of the middle half — sits $45,690. Moving from the midpoint to the upper quarter is worth $3,490; the whole climb from the lower quarter is $10,710.
Getting from $38,470 to the $45,690 midpoint is $7,220; getting from there to $49,180 is only $3,490. The hard part of the range is the lower half, which is also the half a newcomer starts in.
Per hour at a standard full-time year that is $21.96 at the midpoint for Medical Assistants, $18.49 at the 25th percentile and $23.64 at the 75th, against $24.04 for the typical American job.
What these figures are, and what they are not
Employers reported these wages for people already working as Medical Assistants. The self-employed are excluded, so $45,690 does not describe an independent doing the same work.
The hourly number on this page is $45,690 divided by a 2,080-hour year and nothing more. We hold no unpaid-hours or cost data for Medical Assistants, so it is arithmetic rather than an effective rate.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else