Medical Assistant Salary: What to Expect by Experience and Location

What This Job Pays

Start with the median annual pay for medical assistants in the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook pay summary (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025). Read it from the BLS occupation page rather than a repost — the value changes with each release, and the page states the reference year beside it.

For the fuller picture, use the BLS OEWS release for Medical Assistants, SOC 31-9092 (2023). It publishes:

• the national mean (average) hourly wage and its annual equivalent;
• the 10th percentile annual wage, roughly the bottom of the market, where many first clinical jobs sit;
• the 25th percentile, median (50th percentile), 75th percentile and 90th percentile annual wages.

Read the median if you want the midpoint: half of medical assistants earn above it, half below. The mean is pulled upward by the highest-paying states and settings. The spread from the 10th to the 90th percentile in the 2023 OEWS table is the most useful thing on the page, because it shows how much room there is to grow without changing occupation.

One caveat on what those figures include. OEWS estimates are straight-time pay. They exclude overtime, shift differentials, on-call pay, bonuses, and the value of health coverage, paid leave and tuition assistance. Medical assistants are usually paid hourly and are generally overtime-eligible, so regular extra hours can push annual earnings above the published annual wage at the same hourly rate. Tips and commission are not part of this job.

Self-reported sources such as Payscale and Glassdoor also publish medical assistant pay and are worth checking for a specific employer or city. Treat them as a second opinion: they reflect who chose to respond, and the figures are revised continuously, so note the date on the page.

Salary by Experience and Location

Use this as a lookup table. Each row names the exact published figure to pull and where it lives.

Two notes on location. State and metro means differ inside the same state — the Vallejo-Fairfield figure and the California statewide figure in the 2023 OEWS tables are not the same number, and the metro figure is the more relevant one for a local commute. Second, state minimum wage law sets a floor that varies by state, and some cities set a higher local minimum, which lifts the bottom of the range. Your state labor department publishes the current minimum.

What Affects Pay in This Field

• Certification. AAMA reports an average annual salary for full-time medical assistants holding a current CMA (AAMA) credential and a lower average for those without it (AAMA, 2025). Read both figures from the AAMA salary page and take the difference yourself — that difference is the dollar case for sitting the exam. Ask HR whether your employer also pays a per-hour add-on for a current credential.
• Work setting. In the 2023 BLS OEWS industry table, Outpatient Care Centers show the highest mean annual wage among the major industries employing medical assistants, while Offices of Physicians employ the largest share at a different mean. AAMA's 2025 data points the same way among certified respondents, with physician practices averaging more than inpatient settings.
• State and metro. Compare the Washington state mean (the highest in the 2023 OEWS state table) with the California and Texas means, then with the Vallejo-Fairfield, CA and New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA metro means in the same release. The gap between a top metro and a mid-market one is usually wider than a single year of experience buys.
• Experience. AAMA's 2025 figures for CMA (AAMA)-certified respondents in New England show average annual pay rising from the least-experienced bracket to the most-experienced. Nationally, the same progression appears as the distance between the 25th and 75th percentiles in the 2023 OEWS table.
• Specialty and scope. Assistants doing injections, EKGs, point-of-care testing or procedure setup tend to sit higher in the percentile range than front-desk-weighted roles. Scope of practice is set by state law and varies by state; check your state's medical board or health department.
• Hours and differentials. Published OEWS wages are straight-time. Urgent care and hospital-based roles often add evening, weekend or on-call differentials as an extra amount per hour, which the annual wage does not include. Ask for the rate in writing.
• Employer type and union coverage. Large health systems and public employers use posted pay grades with step increases; independent practices more often negotiate individually. Where a bargaining unit covers medical assistants, the contract sets the scale — ask the union local or HR for the current wage table.

How This Job's Pay Compares

If you are choosing between entry routes into clinical work, compare the published medians directly rather than relying on reputation.

• Medical assistants — median annual pay in the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook pay summary (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025), with the full percentile spread in the BLS OEWS release for SOC 31-9092 (2023).
• Phlebotomists — median annual pay in the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook pay summary (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025). This is the job most often confused with medical assisting; training is usually shorter and narrower. The two Handbook pages are formatted identically, so the comparison is direct.
• Medical secretaries and administrative assistants — median annual wage for SOC 43-6013 in the BLS OEWS release (2023). Compare it with the medical assistant median in the same 2023 release so you are using one survey and one year.

Medical assisting is the broader clinical role, which is why its percentile range runs further at the top — the 90th percentile in the 2023 OEWS table is where lead and specialty roles sit. Phlebotomy is often the faster entry but stays narrower. Administrative roles may offer steadier hours with no patient-contact premium.

If your longer plan is nursing or imaging, look up the median for that occupation in the same BLS Handbook (2025) before committing, and check whether your employer offers tuition assistance — that benefit appears in no wage figure but often changes the maths more than a dollar an hour.