Occupation / job
Occupational Therapy 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
A midpoint of $72,300 against $50,020 means Occupational Therapy Assistants pays $1,856 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.
51,290 people are employed in this work. Big enough for a real market in every major metro, small enough that experience in Occupational Therapy Assistants is still a distinguishing thing to have.
Therapy assistant roles suit people who like watching someone regain a capability over weeks, and who are comfortable being the person who insists on the repetitions.
No verified preparation time is on file for Occupational Therapy 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
$17,450 separates the bottom quarter at $61,710 from the top quarter at $79,160, a ratio of 1.3x. In a band that tight, moving up inside Occupational Therapy Assistants pays less than moving out of it would.
At $61,710, or $29.66 an hour, the 25th percentile sits $11,690 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 would find it hard to keep pushing a patient who is in pain and would rather stop for the day.
You will not find a "what share make it" figure here. 51,290 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
A 1.3x ratio from $61,710 to $79,160 makes $72,300 a dependable planning number. Dependable is the whole offer here — there is not much room above it.
Put in money rather than ratios: $61,710 at the 25th percentile, $72,300 at the midpoint, $79,160 at the 75th. $17,450 separates the quarter of Occupational Therapy Assistants at the bottom from the quarter at the top.
Between $61,710 and $79,160 — the two ends of the middle half — sits $72,300. Moving from the midpoint to the upper quarter is worth $6,860; the whole climb from the lower quarter is $17,450.
Getting from $61,710 to the $72,300 midpoint is $10,590; getting from there to $79,160 is only $6,860. The hard part of the range is the lower half, which is also the half a newcomer starts in.
Converted to an hourly rate over a full-time year: $29.66 at the bottom quarter, $34.75 at the midpoint, $38.05 at the top quarter. The typical American job works out at $24.04 on the same basis.
What these figures are, and what they are not
This is payroll data: it comes from employers, about people they employ. Anyone doing the work of Occupational Therapy Assistants for themselves is not in it, and there is no reason to assume $72,300 describes them.
With no unpaid-hours or cost data for Occupational Therapy Assistants, the hourly figure is $72,300 over a 2,080-hour year — a unit conversion, not an adjustment.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else