What an HR assistant costs in the US
The wage BLS measured across 90,220 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
- $50,610
- Hourly wage
- $24.33
- Loaded per hour
- $30.30
- Middle half earns
- $44,030 to $59,800
- Jobs in the US
- 90,220
Wage × 1.2455 for benefits and payroll taxes, from BLS.
An HR assistant in the US is paid a median $50,610 a year, $24.33 an hour, across 90,220 jobs. With benefits, a small employer pays about $63,030. Of its 10 core tasks, 4 showed up in Claude.ai conversations in May 2026, and in 2 of those Claude mostly did the task rather than assisting.
The work, task by task
The 10 core tasks O*NET lists for human resources assistants, except payroll and timekeeping, 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.
- 01Process, verify, and maintain personnel related documentation, including staffing, recruitment, training, grievances, performance evaluations, classifications, and employee leaves of absence.
- 02Record data for each employee, including such information as addresses, weekly earnings, absences, amount of sales or production, supervisory reports on performance, and dates of and reasons for terminations.
- 03Explain company personnel policies, benefits, and procedures to employees or job applicants.Claude.ai: 27% did the task, 73% helped · API: 67% did the task
- 04Provide assistance in administering employee benefit programs and worker's compensation plans.
- 05Answer questions regarding examinations, eligibility, salaries, benefits, and other pertinent information.Claude.ai: 37% did the task, 63% helped · API: 60% did the task
- 06Prepare and set up for new employee orientations.
- 07Gather personnel records from other departments or employees.
- 08Examine employee files to answer inquiries and provide information for personnel actions.Claude.ai: 63% did the task, 38% helped
- 09Search employee files to obtain information for authorized persons and organizations, such as credit bureaus and finance companies.API: 100% did the task, 0% helped
- 10Compile and prepare reports and documents pertaining to personnel activities.Claude.ai: 62% did the task, 38% helped · API: 98% did the task
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: 0.01% 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, $59,050; Alabama the least, $42,140.
| State | Median wage | Fully loaded | Middle half | Jobs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | $42,140 | $52,490 | $34,270 to $51,630 | 960 |
| Alaska | $56,510 | $70,380 | $50,360 to $64,350 | 260 |
| Arizona | $47,890 | $59,650 | $42,340 to $56,460 | 1,490 |
| Arkansas | $46,190 | $57,530 | $38,770 to $51,240 | 720 |
| California | $57,590 | $71,730 | $48,470 to $65,560 | 11,490 |
| Colorado | $54,880 | $68,350 | $47,750 to $63,160 | 1,660 |
| Connecticut | $54,130 | $67,420 | $47,100 to $61,740 | 910 |
| Delaware | $50,850 | $63,330 | $45,720 to $58,720 | 290 |
| District of Columbia | $59,050 | $73,550 | $50,450 to $66,870 | 610 |
| Florida | $48,330 | $60,200 | $42,060 to $56,310 | 3,210 |
| Georgia | $46,830 | $58,330 | $40,330 to $55,450 | 2,510 |
| Hawaii | $49,260 | $61,350 | $44,330 to $56,570 | 450 |
| Idaho | $51,770 | $64,480 | $45,500 to $58,160 | 280 |
| Illinois | $48,310 | $60,170 | $44,750 to $58,050 | 4,140 |
| Indiana | $47,850 | $59,600 | $41,600 to $55,950 | 1,870 |
| Iowa | $48,490 | $60,390 | $38,940 to $56,660 | 920 |
| Kansas | $49,630 | $61,810 | $41,940 to $55,540 | 660 |
| Kentucky | $50,400 | $62,770 | $43,940 to $57,750 | 1,240 |
| Louisiana | $47,490 | $59,150 | $38,560 to $53,880 | 750 |
| Maine | $49,710 | $61,910 | $44,450 to $56,340 | 490 |
| Maryland | $56,880 | $70,840 | $48,080 to $62,880 | 1,480 |
| Massachusetts | $55,840 | $69,550 | $48,160 to $63,810 | 1,400 |
| Michigan | $48,250 | $60,100 | $42,640 to $55,020 | 1,890 |
| Minnesota | $54,520 | $67,900 | $49,040 to $60,040 | 3,380 |
| Mississippi | $44,780 | $55,770 | $35,770 to $52,650 | 1,010 |
| Missouri | $47,960 | $59,730 | $41,910 to $55,850 | 1,090 |
| Montana | $50,070 | $62,360 | $45,940 to $59,070 | 140 |
| Nebraska | $47,130 | $58,700 | $40,750 to $52,790 | 440 |
| Nevada | $47,900 | $59,660 | $41,340 to $54,790 | 1,390 |
| New Hampshire | $51,400 | $64,020 | $45,440 to $60,040 | 470 |
| New Jersey | $54,410 | $67,770 | $47,350 to $60,940 | 4,000 |
| New Mexico | $49,650 | $61,840 | $43,000 to $52,980 | 620 |
| New York | $52,920 | $65,910 | $46,290 to $63,350 | 8,800 |
| North Carolina | $48,190 | $60,020 | $41,410 to $55,430 | 2,790 |
| North Dakota | $53,000 | $66,010 | $47,020 to $61,680 | 110 |
| Ohio | $48,310 | $60,170 | $42,840 to $58,510 | 2,770 |
| Oklahoma | $44,950 | $55,990 | $39,330 to $53,510 | 600 |
| Oregon | $53,550 | $66,700 | $47,760 to $59,200 | 1,050 |
| Pennsylvania | $48,800 | $60,780 | $43,710 to $57,530 | 2,700 |
| Rhode Island | $56,370 | $70,210 | $49,090 to $62,110 | 150 |
| South Carolina | $45,300 | $56,420 | $38,850 to $52,420 | 1,190 |
| South Dakota | $45,150 | $56,230 | $39,110 to $51,440 | 190 |
| Tennessee | $45,760 | $56,990 | $39,860 to $54,210 | 3,930 |
| Texas | $47,540 | $59,210 | $39,760 to $57,160 | 5,890 |
| Utah | $45,790 | $57,030 | $37,340 to $53,290 | 700 |
| Vermont | $51,810 | $64,530 | $46,830 to $57,190 | 140 |
| Virginia | $51,950 | $64,700 | $45,510 to $60,840 | 2,160 |
| Washington | $57,390 | $71,480 | $50,530 to $65,370 | 2,350 |
| West Virginia | $42,990 | $53,540 | $36,690 to $49,940 | 480 |
| Wisconsin | $48,690 | $60,640 | $43,440 to $57,430 | 1,890 |
| Wyoming | $49,660 | $61,850 | $40,330 to $59,010 | 90 |
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 43-4161 (Human Resources Assistants, Except Payroll and Timekeeping). 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 43-4161.00, 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 $63,030 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