What an executive assistant costs in the US
The wage BLS measured across 459,910 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
- $76,590
- Hourly wage
- $36.82
- Loaded per hour
- $45.86
- Middle half earns
- $61,390 to $94,390
- Jobs in the US
- 459,910
Wage × 1.2455 for benefits and payroll taxes, from BLS.
An executive assistant in the US is paid a median $76,590 a year, $36.82 an hour, across 459,910 jobs. With benefits, a small employer pays about $95,390. Of its 10 core tasks, 4 showed up in Claude.ai conversations in May 2026, and in 3 of those Claude mostly did the task rather than assisting.
The work, task by task
The 10 core tasks O*NET lists for executive secretaries and executive administrative assistants, 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.
- 01Manage and maintain executives' schedules.Claude.ai: 84% did the task, 16% helped
- 02Make travel arrangements for executives.
- 03Prepare invoices, reports, memos, letters, financial statements, and other documents, using word processing, spreadsheet, database, or presentation software.Claude.ai: 48% did the task, 52% helped · API: 82% did the task
- 04Coordinate and direct office services, such as records, departmental finances, budget preparation, personnel issues, and housekeeping, to aid executives.
- 05Answer phone calls and direct calls to appropriate parties or take messages.API: 100% did the task, 0% helped
- 06Prepare responses to correspondence containing routine inquiries.Claude.ai: 66% did the task, 34% helped · API: 96% did the task
- 07Open, sort, and distribute incoming correspondence, including faxes and email.Claude.ai: 100% did the task, 0% helped · API: 100% did the task
- 08Greet visitors and determine whether they should be given access to specific individuals.
- 09Prepare agendas and make arrangements, such as coordinating catering for luncheons, for committee, board, and other meetings.
- 10Perform general office duties, such as ordering supplies, maintaining records management database systems, and performing basic bookkeeping work.
4 of 10 tasks appear in the Claude.ai sample of the Anthropic Economic Index for May 2026, and 1 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: 0.30% 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, $90,850; Arkansas the least, $51,600.
| State | Median wage | Fully loaded | Middle half | Jobs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | $69,450 | $86,500 | $56,760 to $83,140 | 2,880 |
| Alaska | $66,210 | $82,460 | $56,490 to $79,500 | 1,320 |
| Arizona | $70,770 | $88,140 | $57,910 to $84,040 | 6,490 |
| Arkansas | $51,600 | $64,270 | $43,940 to $66,480 | 2,070 |
| California | $89,000 | $110,850 | $72,110 to $107,090 | 59,640 |
| Colorado | $65,850 | $82,020 | $57,920 to $82,620 | 10,340 |
| Connecticut | $82,520 | $102,780 | $69,570 to $101,060 | 6,490 |
| Delaware | $78,920 | $98,290 | $64,160 to $92,550 | 1,320 |
| District of Columbia | $90,850 | $113,150 | $77,990 to $102,310 | 4,560 |
| Florida | $64,710 | $80,600 | $51,590 to $81,190 | 19,220 |
| Georgia | $68,290 | $85,060 | $58,930 to $81,080 | 14,560 |
| Hawaii | $80,710 | $100,520 | $66,150 to $97,890 | 1,440 |
| Idaho | $60,200 | $74,980 | $51,030 to $79,430 | 1,180 |
| Illinois | $74,390 | $92,650 | $57,590 to $93,180 | 14,900 |
| Indiana | $59,080 | $73,580 | $49,740 to $73,450 | 5,060 |
| Iowa | $62,340 | $77,640 | $51,450 to $71,390 | 4,150 |
| Kansas | $64,860 | $80,780 | $57,090 to $78,220 | 2,750 |
| Kentucky | $62,410 | $77,730 | $52,050 to $75,650 | 2,700 |
| Louisiana | $53,240 | $66,310 | $43,710 to $63,500 | 9,270 |
| Maine | $64,100 | $79,840 | $54,570 to $75,650 | 2,320 |
| Maryland | $78,540 | $97,820 | $64,470 to $94,000 | 13,960 |
| Massachusetts | $82,650 | $102,940 | $69,560 to $100,170 | 14,820 |
| Michigan | $66,840 | $83,250 | $57,570 to $81,050 | 9,030 |
| Minnesota | $78,470 | $97,730 | $64,810 to $91,540 | 7,970 |
| Mississippi | $55,670 | $69,340 | $44,870 to $70,880 | 1,240 |
| Missouri | $60,320 | $75,130 | $50,650 to $76,820 | 8,500 |
| Montana | $59,750 | $74,420 | $51,140 to $67,720 | 550 |
| Nebraska | $66,210 | $82,460 | $56,100 to $79,380 | 1,860 |
| Nevada | $67,830 | $84,480 | $55,720 to $83,890 | 2,670 |
| New Hampshire | $71,650 | $89,240 | $57,090 to $86,810 | 1,210 |
| New Jersey | $89,520 | $111,500 | $74,840 to $103,290 | 11,690 |
| New Mexico | $73,890 | $92,030 | $64,870 to $82,840 | 2,800 |
| New York | $80,640 | $100,440 | $68,470 to $100,400 | 88,890 |
| North Carolina | $70,140 | $87,360 | $58,480 to $83,260 | 8,890 |
| North Dakota | $61,270 | $76,310 | $52,570 to $75,140 | 540 |
| Ohio | $69,600 | $86,690 | $57,640 to $82,460 | 10,940 |
| Oklahoma | $59,910 | $74,620 | $49,830 to $74,320 | 2,810 |
| Oregon | $75,480 | $94,010 | $63,940 to $86,870 | 6,000 |
| Pennsylvania | $75,270 | $93,750 | $59,890 to $85,970 | 12,910 |
| Rhode Island | $77,820 | $96,920 | $64,460 to $90,620 | 950 |
| South Carolina | $60,890 | $75,840 | $50,290 to $77,160 | 3,880 |
| South Dakota | $55,170 | $68,710 | $48,980 to $62,390 | 1,230 |
| Tennessee | $68,190 | $84,930 | $56,370 to $79,840 | 5,360 |
| Texas | $71,990 | $89,660 | $58,790 to $87,040 | 34,520 |
| Utah | $61,130 | $76,140 | $47,620 to $76,630 | 5,440 |
| Vermont | $70,770 | $88,140 | $63,880 to $80,450 | 770 |
| Virginia | $80,330 | $100,050 | $63,480 to $98,770 | 10,360 |
| Washington | $79,250 | $98,710 | $72,670 to $90,570 | 11,560 |
| West Virginia | $63,820 | $79,490 | $52,110 to $77,990 | 860 |
| Wisconsin | $68,920 | $85,840 | $59,270 to $78,400 | 4,480 |
| Wyoming | $52,210 | $65,030 | $48,380 to $59,800 | 560 |
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 43-6011 (Executive Secretaries and Executive Administrative Assistants). 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 43-6011.00, 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 $95,390 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