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Pay · 31-2012

Occupational Therapy Aides earn $39,160 a year at the midpoint

A small field — roughly 4,310 people nationwide — with a midpoint of $39,160. Pay runs from about $29,430 at the low end to $70,200 at the top, per the 2025 federal survey.

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$39,160median a year · United States
$18.83an hour $44,110average 4,310people
Nine in ten people in this work earn between the two ends. The shaded part is the middle half — where most people are.
$35,92025th $39,160median $46,78075th
$29,43010th percentile $70,20090th percentile
$35,920a year at the 25th percentile, nearer a first job
$66,190best-paying state · North Carolina
$24,300lowest-paying state · Mississippi
+69%top state against the national median
  • Read the spread, not the middle. The median is the midpoint across everyone in the occupation, most of them years into the work. A beginner starts nearer the 10th to 25th percentile, which is why the spread is published alongside it.
  • What the figure counts. The figure counts base pay plus tips, commissions and production bonuses. It leaves out the self-employed, unpaid family workers, private household workers, and the value of benefits or profit sharing.
  • The annual figure is arithmetic. For hourly occupations the annual figure is the hourly rate times 2080 hours. It is a calculation, not observed earnings: part time is the norm in retail and food service.
  • Where you live moves it more than your resume does. National figures. A state or metro area can sit far from the national number, and that gap is usually larger than any difference a resume makes.
  • Not in these numbers. Growth and annual openings are not in this dataset. They come from the separate Employment Projections tables, where an opening is a modelled ten year average and not a posted vacancy.

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, 2025. Retrieved through the BLS Public Data API on 2026-08-13. bls.gov/oes “BLS.gov cannot vouch for the data or analyses derived from these data after the data have been retrieved from BLS.gov.”

A short climbThe 25th percentile, $35,920, is within 8% of the median.
State matters a lotThe same job pays $66,190 in North Carolina and $24,300 in Mississippi — a gap of $41,890 a year.

Occupational therapy aide earnings, from starting pay to the top 10%

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Occupational therapy aide wages, state by state

The 26 states where the most people do this work, of 27 with a published figure: their medians range by 2.72 times. Figures are the 2025 survey.

State Median a year Where most start 10th to 90th Employed
North Carolina $66,190 $29,570 $29,570 — $77,980 250
New York $46,220 $32,610 $32,610 — $61,370 250
Washington $45,890 $38,550 $38,550 — $70,200 190
Nebraska $44,980 $34,730 $34,730 — $52,940 90
Connecticut $44,840 $37,930 $37,930 — $49,170 110
New Jersey $44,470 $38,980 $38,980 — $46,270 —
California $43,480 $36,710 $36,710 — $68,550 330
New Mexico $43,170 $37,480 $37,480 — $85,040 50
Massachusetts $40,160 $35,340 $35,340 — $53,540 90
Colorado $40,110 $38,530 $38,530 — $71,750 40
District of Columbia $39,620 $39,610 $39,610 — $45,840 —
Michigan $39,050 $29,650 $29,650 — $50,160 60
Missouri $38,890 $31,540 $31,540 — $47,210 110
Indiana $38,250 $36,200 $36,200 — $43,220 —
Georgia $38,090 $33,700 $33,700 — $47,160 200
Texas $37,180 $22,100 $22,100 — $77,230 410
Pennsylvania $37,100 $34,420 $34,420 — $68,230 320
Wisconsin $36,760 $31,360 $31,360 — $45,850 40
Nevada $36,440 $34,690 $34,690 — $63,790 100
Ohio $36,380 $23,180 $23,180 — $56,130 200
Oklahoma $34,670 $31,810 $31,810 — $52,520 90
Idaho $32,590 $23,500 $23,500 — $46,110 120
South Carolina $31,950 $18,290 $18,290 — $82,800 50
Louisiana $28,560 $23,070 $23,070 — $77,200 70
Tennessee $27,840 $25,700 $25,700 — $40,090 40
Mississippi $24,300 $21,770 $21,770 — $30,780 50

Number 704 of 788 by median pay

Better paid than 11% of the occupations in the survey.

  1. 702 Mail Clerks and Mail Machine Operators, Except Postal Service $39,280
  2. 703 Couriers and Messengers $39,200
  3. 704 Occupational Therapy Aides $39,160
  4. 705 Landscaping and Groundskeeping Workers $39,150
  5. 706 Helpers--Production Workers $39,070

A resume for occupational therapy aides

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  • Encouraged patients and attend to their physical needs to facilitate the attainment of therapeutic goals.
  • Reported to supervisors or therapists, verbally or in writing, on patients' progress, attitudes, attendance, and accomplishments.
  • Observed patients' attendance, progress, attitudes, and accomplishments and record and maintained information in client records.

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This page includes information from the O*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. The owner of tiersi.com has modified all or some of this information. USDOL/ETA has not approved, endorsed, or tested these modifications.

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Occupational therapy aide pay rate, from hourly to yearly

Starts at this job’s median. Change the rate or the hours; a full-time year is 40 hours for 52 weeks.

$39,166a year

Questions people ask

What is an occupational therapy aide’s yearly income?

An occupational therapy aide makes a median of $39,160 a year (2025 survey). The middle half earn between $35,920 and $46,780.

What is an occupational therapy aide’s hourly pay rate?

The median pay rate is $18.83 an hour; the average is $44,110 a year.

What is the starting pay for an occupational therapy aide?

Starting pay is usually near the 25th percentile, $35,920 a year, and sometimes as low as the 10th, $29,430.

Which state pays occupational therapy aides the most?

North Carolina, with a median of $66,190 a year.

How many people work as occupational therapy aides?

About 4,310 in the United States — number 704 of 788 occupations by median pay.

Work that pays roughly the same

Median pay within $210 of what occupational therapy aides earn — $39,160 a year — but not always the same spread.

See all 788 occupations