What a dispatcher costs in the US
The wage BLS measured across 202,810 jobs, what an employer pays on top of it, the pay in every state, and which of the job's core tasks already show up in AI use.
Medians for the whole US. Your own cost depends on where you hire, the benefits you offer and the hours worked.
- Median wage
- $50,340
- Hourly wage
- $24.20
- Loaded per hour
- $30.14
- Middle half earns
- $42,750 to $62,450
- Jobs in the US
- 202,810
Wage × 1.2455 for benefits and payroll taxes, from BLS.
A dispatcher in the US is paid a median $50,340 a year, $24.20 an hour, across 202,810 jobs. With benefits, a small employer pays about $62,700. Of its 10 core tasks, 2 showed up in Claude.ai conversations in May 2026, and in every one Claude mostly did the task rather than assisting.
The work, task by task
The 10 core tasks O*NET lists for dispatchers, except police, fire, and ambulance, most important first, and how each showed up in Claude.ai conversations in May 2026. The bar splits those conversations between Claude doing the task and Claude helping a person do it.
- 01Schedule or dispatch workers, work crews, equipment, or service vehicles to appropriate locations, according to customer requests, specifications, or needs, using radios or telephones.
- 02Prepare daily work and run schedules.
- 03Confer with customers or supervising personnel to address questions, problems, or requests for service or equipment.Claude.ai: 93% did the task, 7% helped · API: 98% did the task
- 04Relay work orders, messages, or information to or from work crews, supervisors, or field inspectors, using telephones or two-way radios.API: 100% did the task, 0% helped
- 05Receive or prepare work orders.
- 06Record and maintain files or records of customer requests, work or services performed, charges, expenses, inventory, or other dispatch information.Claude.ai: 71% did the task, 29% helped · API: 97% did the task
- 07Arrange for necessary repairs to restore service and schedules.
- 08Monitor personnel or equipment locations and utilization to coordinate service and schedules.
- 09Determine types or amounts of equipment, vehicles, materials, or personnel required, according to work orders or specifications.API: 100% did the task, 0% helped
- 10Advise personnel about traffic problems, such as construction areas, accidents, congestion, weather conditions, or other hazards.
2 of 10 tasks appear in the Claude.ai sample of the Anthropic Economic Index for May 2026, and 2 more only in its sample of API traffic, where businesses run Claude inside their own software. A task without a row had too few conversations for Anthropic to publish, which is not the same as none. Shares are of all sampled Claude.ai conversations, so small figures are normal: 0.01% of every conversation that month was about this occupation.
Pay by state
The median annual wage in each state and DC, and the same wage fully loaded. District of Columbia pays the most, $72,260; South Dakota the least, $43,920.
| State | Median wage | Fully loaded | Middle half | Jobs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | $48,790 | $60,770 | $39,140 to $58,530 | 1,780 |
| Alaska | $56,730 | $70,660 | $49,340 to $73,880 | 570 |
| Arizona | $47,880 | $59,630 | $42,340 to $58,000 | 5,690 |
| Arkansas | $47,130 | $58,700 | $37,240 to $59,010 | 1,780 |
| California | $52,350 | $65,200 | $46,120 to $63,160 | 23,970 |
| Colorado | $54,070 | $67,340 | $47,910 to $64,040 | 3,470 |
| Connecticut | $47,960 | $59,730 | $44,180 to $62,030 | 2,220 |
| Delaware | $57,170 | $71,210 | $47,840 to $62,990 | 670 |
| District of Columbia | $72,260 | $90,000 | $47,980 to $87,090 | 300 |
| Florida | $45,880 | $57,140 | $38,700 to $58,790 | 12,550 |
| Georgia | $49,180 | $61,250 | $39,830 to $61,140 | 6,190 |
| Hawaii | $52,570 | $65,480 | $44,980 to $66,560 | 950 |
| Idaho | $49,660 | $61,850 | $38,590 to $65,380 | 1,430 |
| Illinois | $57,240 | $71,290 | $46,750 to $71,410 | · |
| Indiana | $50,060 | $62,350 | $42,530 to $62,510 | 4,090 |
| Iowa | $47,000 | $58,540 | $43,200 to $60,340 | 1,460 |
| Kansas | $47,170 | $58,750 | $38,580 to $60,620 | 1,670 |
| Kentucky | $49,990 | $62,260 | $41,770 to $61,890 | 2,440 |
| Louisiana | $47,050 | $58,600 | $38,160 to $59,970 | 2,980 |
| Maine | $55,150 | $68,690 | $46,620 to $67,600 | 670 |
| Maryland | $51,350 | $63,960 | $43,980 to $64,360 | 3,310 |
| Massachusetts | $55,690 | $69,360 | $47,570 to $67,100 | 3,510 |
| Michigan | $49,490 | $61,640 | $42,390 to $62,040 | 5,390 |
| Minnesota | $59,220 | $73,760 | $46,960 to $72,210 | 2,760 |
| Mississippi | $45,660 | $56,870 | $36,150 to $59,400 | 2,000 |
| Missouri | $51,410 | $64,030 | $42,780 to $64,990 | 4,340 |
| Montana | $47,140 | $58,710 | $44,030 to $60,910 | 810 |
| Nebraska | $53,880 | $67,110 | $45,850 to $63,740 | 1,500 |
| Nevada | $47,920 | $59,680 | $40,630 to $58,630 | 2,840 |
| New Hampshire | $52,770 | $65,730 | $47,110 to $62,010 | 710 |
| New Jersey | $54,590 | $67,990 | $46,400 to $64,450 | 6,420 |
| New Mexico | $43,960 | $54,750 | $37,440 to $53,550 | 1,350 |
| New York | $55,810 | $69,510 | $44,410 to $74,840 | 11,160 |
| North Carolina | $48,230 | $60,070 | $41,390 to $59,110 | 5,740 |
| North Dakota | $57,580 | $71,720 | $46,800 to $68,640 | 600 |
| Ohio | $50,320 | $62,670 | $43,640 to $62,810 | 5,720 |
| Oklahoma | $44,950 | $55,990 | $36,940 to $56,620 | 2,180 |
| Oregon | $54,980 | $68,480 | $46,980 to $65,510 | 3,290 |
| Pennsylvania | $49,960 | $62,230 | $42,840 to $61,260 | 6,670 |
| Rhode Island | $49,320 | $61,430 | $46,170 to $60,380 | 530 |
| South Carolina | $47,550 | $59,220 | $39,110 to $61,120 | 2,440 |
| South Dakota | $43,920 | $54,700 | $31,200 to $49,490 | 860 |
| Tennessee | $49,660 | $61,850 | $41,350 to $59,040 | 4,190 |
| Texas | $47,320 | $58,940 | $37,630 to $59,980 | 23,920 |
| Utah | $51,010 | $63,530 | $42,740 to $61,780 | 2,040 |
| Vermont | $56,360 | $70,200 | $46,200 to $61,940 | 260 |
| Virginia | $50,710 | $63,160 | $43,830 to $62,100 | 5,830 |
| Washington | $59,330 | $73,900 | $49,920 to $72,240 | 4,920 |
| West Virginia | $46,620 | $58,070 | $35,780 to $59,080 | 880 |
| Wisconsin | $52,350 | $65,200 | $44,650 to $62,390 | 3,240 |
| Wyoming | $48,690 | $60,640 | $41,060 to $58,850 | 240 |
The same benefits ratio applies in every state, because BLS does not publish benefit costs by business size for each state. The middle half is the 25th to 75th percentile wage.
Where the numbers come from
Every figure is copied from a public file. The only arithmetic is the loaded cost: the wage times 1.2455.
- Wages
- BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, occupation 43-5032 (Dispatchers, Except Police, Fire, and Ambulance). Annual figures are the hourly wage times 2,080 hours, as BLS computes them, so they already include pay for paid leave.
- Fully loaded
- BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026 (2026 Q2), private businesses with 1 to 49 workers: $37.64 an hour in total compensation over $27.88 in wages plus $2.34 in paid leave gives 1.2455. Paid leave sits in the denominator because the annual wage already pays it.
- Tasks
- O*NET 31.0 core tasks for 43-5032.00, the ten most important by their importance rating. A few occupations list fewer core tasks.
- AI use
- Anthropic Economic Index, release of June 2026, conversations from May 2026. "Did the task" is Anthropic's automation share, where the user directs Claude to do the work; "helped" is augmentation, where the user works with Claude to learn, check or iterate.
- Not measured
- What a particular business pays, and whether an AI system can do a task well. The AI figures count conversations about a task, not jobs replaced.
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. AI use data from the Anthropic Economic Index by Anthropic, under CC BY. Wage and benefit data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
What would an AI system cost for this work?
Put $62,700 beside the running cost of a system doing the tasks above, with the build counted in year one.
BLS wages May 2025 · O*NET 31.0 · Anthropic Economic Index