CNA Salaries

By allied health world contributing writer
Published: March, 7 2010

A 2007 Center for Disease Control Prevention (CDC) report found that about a quarter of the paraprofessional workers in nursing facilities were CNAs. The turnover rate among CNAs, especially in some nursing homes, can exceed 100 percent, meaning that in any given year, more employees leave their jobs than join the nursing home staff. The CDC report counted over 52,000 nursing assistant vacancies in the United States.

Hospitals and other medical care providers are plagued with lack of qualified nurses as well as high turnover in their nursing staff. For a job that is so stressful (frequent direct contact with sick and injured patients and their families), the pay is among the lowest in the medical industry. As potential cuts in government-funded programs loom, the prospect that pay rates for CNAs will naturally rise to meet the demand is unlikely, according to the CDC report.

That being said, the pay range varies enormously based on experience and length of service, the type of facility in which the certified nursing assistant works and the combination of salary and benefits (insurance, vacation and paid time off, educational expense reimbursement, etc.)

A survey from indeed.com found advertised jobs for CNAs between $18,000 and $31,000. The U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics counted almost one and a half million nursing aides, orderlies and attendants in American in 2008 earning a mean annual wage of $24,620. North Dakota had the highest percentage of these workers, with almost two percent of the employed population doing these jobs, or 6,650 people. The next four states in this ranking were Rhode Island, Maine, South Dakota and Arkansas, in which 17,270 people were employed in these three vocations.

Alaska paid these healthcare workers the most. The 1,970 workers in the state earned an annual mean wage of $32,300. New York, Connecticut, Hawaii and Maryland followed in this ranking. The metropolitan region of San Francisco/San Mateo/Redwood City in California was the highest paid metropolitan region, where these employees earned an annual mean wage of $37,760. This was followed by Nassau/Suffolk, New York, then San Jose/Sunnyvale/Santa Clara in California, Fairbanks, Alaska and then New York City/White Plaines/Wayne area in New York and New Jersey.


Psychiatric aides are listed by the BLS alongside nursing aides and earn similar salaries, although some are paid much higher. Psychiatric aides work in many of the same facilities as CNAs, but help emotionally disturbed or mentally impaired patients. In fact, Psychiatric aides in Washington D.C., earned an annual mean wage of $40,110, according to the 2008 survey.

The areas around the nation’s capital (including Arlington and Alexandria, VA, Maryland and West Virginia) employed 400 of these workers and was the top paying metropolitan region. Alaska, California and New York had metropolitan regions that also enjoyed higher than average pay for psychiatric aides. Mississippi, however, employed the most psychiatric aides per capita. Nearly half a percent of the working population, or 5,160, were psychiatric aides. In Massachusetts, 7,190 employees in the state were psychiatric aides.