Physical Therapist Assistants: pay and employment
A source-dated national profile of employment scale, hourly and annual pay, and the estimated wage distribution.
Reading the national estimate
Physical Therapist Assistants accounted for an estimated 112,430 wage-and-salary jobs nationally in May 2025. BLS reports a mean annual wage of $68,730 and a median of $68,380. The measures describe the same occupation and reference period but answer different questions: the mean averages the reported distribution, while the median marks its midpoint.
The reported mean hourly wage is $33.04. Annual and hourly figures use BLS conventions, so the annual measure is best compared with another annual OEWS estimate from the same release. A personal paycheck can differ because of hours, industry, experience, shift premiums, collective bargaining, and employer practices—factors this cross-industry estimate does not isolate.
BLS places the 10th-percentile annual wage at $47,750, the 25th percentile at $59,820, the 75th percentile at $78,680, and the 90th percentile at $89,510. The distance from the 10th to the 90th percentile is $41,760. Percentiles describe positions in the estimated distribution; they do not assign a worker to a pay level.
Physical Therapist Assistants belongs to the Healthcare Support Occupations major group. The classification follows work performed, not merely the wording of an employer’s title. Readers matching a job should compare duties with the SOC framework before treating this page as the correct occupational benchmark. Finding the right SOC code explains that check.
The mean is 0.5% above the median. That relationship can reflect the shape of the wage distribution, including the influence of relatively high or low observations. It should not be read as a raise expectation or a forecast. For a definition-first explanation, see mean wage and median wage.
This profile is based on the cross-industry national OEWS table for May 2025 and was checked on 2026-08-04. BLS sampling and estimation methods apply, and some detailed geography cells are suppressed when publication standards are not met. LaborBrief does not replace a suppressed value with a state average, national value, or modeled guess. See why BLS suppresses estimates and how we verify data.
Related occupations provide useful classification context without implying that the jobs are interchangeable: Home Health and Personal Care Aides, Nursing Assistants, Medical Assistants, Dental Assistants. Each linked page keeps its own SOC code and wage distribution. For a broader view, compare the ranking tables in largest occupations and highest-paying occupations.
This occupation is outside the initial set of complete state comparison pages, but the national profile still clears the eight-field publication gate. Use the state index to inspect broader labor-market context and the wage methods hub for consistent comparison rules.
Primary sources
- BLS OEWS tables — BLS OEWS, May 2025
- BLS OEWS questions and answers — coverage, methods, and downloads