How much do home health aides and caregivers make?

Research highlights: Home health and personal care aides earn a median of $17.21 an hour, or approximately $35,800 a year, in May 2025 wage data. Lower-paid aides, the bottom 10%, earned under $25,600 a year in the May 2024 percentile data, while the top 10% topped $44,190.

Registered nurses overall earn far more, a median near $97,550 across all settings, though RNs working specifically in home health care services may earn less than hospital-based nurses.

Pay swings hugely by state. In the 2023 reference period, Washington had the highest median wage at roughly $20.35 an hour and Louisiana the lowest at about $10.00 an hour. Newer May 2025 state data is now available.

Related research: How much does in-home care cost? | Home care workforce statistics | Does Medicaid pay for home care? | Who pays for home care?

How much does a home health aide make per hour?

A home health aide earns a national median of $17.21 an hour, which adds up to approximately $35,800 a year, based on May 2025 wage data. The mean sits a bit higher, at roughly $36,100 a year.

Home health aides, personal care aides and home care workers are reported as one occupational group, so the same median applies whether the title is caregiver, home care aide or personal care aide. It is one number to remember for the whole frontline workforce.

For perspective, that pay trails the field around it. The median for all healthcare support jobs was $38,300 in May 2025, and the median across every US occupation was approximately $51,000.

Home care aides sit well below both, despite being the single largest occupation in the country at roughly 4.3 million workers.

Home health and personal care aides (May 2025)	Hourly	Annual
Median pay	$17.21	~$35,800
All healthcare support jobs (median, for comparison)	$18.43	~$38,300
All US occupations (median, for comparison)	$24.51	~$51,000

What is the starting wage, and how high does aide pay go?

The pay ladder for aides is short. The bottom 10% of workers earned less than $25,600 a year, which is about $12.31 an hour.

That gives a useful lower-end benchmark, though the 10th percentile is a wage distribution measure, not a direct measure of starting pay or experience.

At the other end, the highest-paid 10% of aides earned more than $44,190 a year, or roughly $21.25 an hour.

The spread between the bottom and top 10% is only about $9 an hour, which shows how compressed the wage distribution is for this occupation.

Pay percentile	Hourly (approx.)	Annual
Lower-end pay (10th percentile, May 2024)	$12.31	Under $25,600
Median (50th percentile, May 2025)	$17.21	~$35,800
Top earners (90th percentile, May 2024)	$21.25	Over $44,190

How much do home health and home care nurses make?

When people picture a home care nurse, they usually mean a registered nurse (RN), and the pay gap with aides is dramatic. Across all settings, RNs earned a national median of approximately $97,550 a year, about $46.90 an hour, in May 2025 wage data.

The mean reached $101,420. These figures cover RNs in every setting, not home health specifically.

That is roughly 2.7 times an aide’s median pay. The difference reflects licensure: RNs deliver skilled clinical care, such as wound care, medication management and assessments, while aides handle non-medical, hands-on support.

RN pay ranged from under $66,030 for the bottom 10% to above $135,320 for the top 10%, based on May 2024 percentile data.

One nuance worth flagging. RNs who work specifically in the home health care services industry, which employed about 198,180 RNs in May 2025, tend to earn somewhat less than hospital-based nurses, since home health is among the lower-paying settings for the profession.

Still, even a home care RN out-earns an aide by a wide margin.

Role (May 2025)	Median hourly	Median annual (approx.)
Home health / personal care aide	$17.21	~$35,800
Registered nurse (all settings)	~$46.90	~$97,550

Do home health aides earn more than personal care aides?

National wage data does not cleanly separate the two. Home health aides and personal care aides are reported as one combined occupation in national wage tables, so there are no separate May 2025 national medians for each title.

If you are comparing the two job titles hoping one pays meaningfully more, the national data cannot confirm a gap.

The two roles differ mainly in training: home health aides may complete health-related instruction and competency checks that personal care aides often do not. Some datasets may show a small pay gap between the roles, but there are no separate May 2025 national medians for each title.

The practical takeaway for caregivers and agencies alike: title alone barely moves the wage. Location, setting and experience drive far more of the paycheck than whether the badge reads home health aide or personal care aide.

Role	How pay is reported
Home health aide (SOC 31-1121)	Reported within the combined group; modestly higher where split out
Personal care aide (SOC 31-1122)	Reported within the combined group; modestly lower where split out
Combined median (May 2025)	~$35,800 per year ($17.21 per hour)

Which states pay home health aides the most and least?

Geography is the biggest lever on caregiver pay. In the 2023 reference period, the highest-paying state was Washington, where aides earned a median around $20.35 an hour, and the lowest was Louisiana, at roughly $10.00 an hour.

That was a two-to-one gap for the same job.

The state figures in the table below reflect the 2023 reference period. They are now approximately two years old and may not yet capture the most recent shifts in state Medicaid reimbursement rates or local labor markets.

The top tier clusters in the Pacific Northwest and Northeast: Washington, Oregon, Massachusetts, alongside higher-demand states like Alaska, North Dakota and Colorado. Mean annual pay in the leaders runs close to $40,000 to $42,000.

The bottom tier sits across the South: Louisiana, West Virginia, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas and Oklahoma, where aides often make under $12 an hour.

Medicaid reimbursement rates can influence this spread, since Medicaid funds a large share of paid home care, but local labor markets and state wage laws also matter. See our breakdown of Medicaid home care coverage for more.

State pay extremes (2023 reference period)	Median hourly
Highest: Washington	~$20.35
Lowest: Louisiana	~$10.00
National median (May 2025)	$17.21

Other top-paying states: Oregon, Massachusetts, Alaska, North Dakota and Colorado. Other lowest-paying states: West Virginia, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas and Oklahoma.

Sources & additional resources

• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Occupational Employment and Wages, May 2025.” BLS OEWS Release USDL-26-0725.
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Home Health and Personal Care Aides.” Occupational Outlook Handbook (percentile data reflects May 2024).
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Registered Nurses.” Occupational Outlook Handbook.
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Healthcare Occupations.” Occupational Outlook Handbook.
• U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. “Wages of Direct Care Workers Continue to Be Lower Than Other Entry-Level Jobs.” ASPE (2023 BLS OEWS reference period).
• Economic Policy Institute. “All States Must Set Higher Wage Benchmarks for Home Health Care Workers.” EPI.
• PHI. “Direct Care Workers in the United States: Key Facts 2024.” PHI National.

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