Paramedics Salary and Pay

The national wage ladder (BLS OEWS, May 2024)

The five rows are five different workers in the same occupation, from the 10th percentile ($40,130) to the 90th ($82,420). BLS suppresses cells that fail its reliability rules (n/p here) and caps the highest wages at $239,200+ a year or $115.00+ an hour; in this ladder that top code appears at the very top rows only.

Employment and concentration

BLS counted 99,530 Paramedics jobs in May 2024, which is 0.06% of all U.S. employment in the survey. Work is most concentrated in West Virginia, where the location quotient is 2.49, meaning the occupation holds 2.49 times its national share of local jobs. Texas employs the most people outright, 8,560 of them, and the three largest state employers together account for 21.3% of the national total.

Pay inside the occupation is wide: $42,290 separates the ends of its ladder. The 90th percentile ($82,420) is 2.1 times the 10th percentile ($40,130), a gap of $42,290 a year. The mean of $60,610 sitting above the median of $58,410 tells you the top end pulls the average up: most workers cluster below the mean, and the high tail is thin.

Pay by state

The state spread for Paramedics runs from the $100,780 median in Washington down through every other publishing state. Employment concentrates in Texas (8,560 jobs). The complete table:

The occupation in context

Ranked against all 826 published occupations, Paramedics stands number 269 by employment and number 434 by median pay. Inside its own major group, Healthcare Practitioners and Technical Occupations, the group median wage is $98,340 across 71 detailed occupations, so this occupation pays 41% less than its group median, and it supplies 1.0% of the group's 9,592,720 jobs. In 24 of the 50 states with a published median, the state median beats the national median of $58,410, which is the single best quick test of whether this occupation's pay is set nationally or locally: a high count means local markets regularly outbid the national figure.

Metropolitan areas: where the jobs and the pay sit

New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ is the largest metro employer with 3,750 jobs, 3.8% of the national total. Employment rank and pay rank are different lists: the second table re-sorts metros with at least 500 jobs in this occupation by mean pay, the floor keeping a handful of workers from posing as a market.

Largest metro employers

Highest-paying metros (500+ jobs)

At the other end, San Juan-Bayamon-Caguas, PR posts the lowest mean pay among metros with at least 500 jobs, $29,030 a year, against $122,110 in Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA. That is the metro effect in one line: identical job title, materially different pay, decided mostly by which labor market the job sits in.

What the median pay looks like as a budget

As a household number, $58,410 a year is $4,868 a month gross, $2,247 every two weeks, $1,123 a week. Moving from the 25th percentile ($47,920) to the 75th ($68,420) is worth $20,500 a year, which is the realistic size of the experience and specialization premium inside this occupation. The next step from a gross figure is a net one: run the $4,868 monthly figure through the paycheck calculator applies your state's taxes, the salary calculator compares two offers in any unit, and the raise vs inflation calculator tells you whether a nominal raise is a real one.

To place a real offer: a salary of $64,251 would sit between the median ($58,410) and the 75th percentile ($68,420), inside the top half but outside the top quarter of this occupation's ladder. An offer at the 25th percentile, $47,920, is $10,490 under the median, the typical size of the discount attached to entry-level or low-cost-market postings in this field.

Related occupations in Healthcare Practitioners and Technical Occupations

Compare the ladder above with the closest relatives in the survey: General Internal Medicine Physicians, Cardiovascular Technologists and Technicians, Nurse Anesthetists, Pediatricians, General, Optometrists, Anesthesiologists. The Careers hub carries the whole branch, group by group.