What a medical transcriptionist costs in the US
The wage BLS measured across 41,550 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
- $40,410
- Hourly wage
- $19.43
- Loaded per hour
- $24.20
- Middle half earns
- $34,150 to $48,000
- Jobs in the US
- 41,550
Wage × 1.2455 for benefits and payroll taxes, from BLS.
A medical transcriptionist in the US is paid a median $40,410 a year, $19.43 an hour, across 41,550 jobs. With benefits, a small employer pays about $50,330. Of its 10 core tasks, 1 showed up in Claude.ai conversations in May 2026, and there Claude mostly did the task rather than assisting.
The work, task by task
The 10 core tasks O*NET lists for medical transcriptionists, 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.
- 01Return dictated reports in printed or electronic form for physician's review, signature, and corrections and for inclusion in patients' medical records.
- 02Produce medical reports, correspondence, records, patient-care information, statistics, medical research, and administrative material.API: 95% did the task, 5% helped
- 03Identify mistakes in reports and check with doctors to obtain the correct information.
- 04Review and edit transcribed reports or dictated material for spelling, grammar, clarity, consistency, and proper medical terminology.API: 97% did the task, 3% helped
- 05Transcribe dictation for a variety of medical reports, such as patient histories, physical examinations, emergency room visits, operations, chart reviews, consultation, or discharge summaries.API: 90% did the task, 10% helped
- 06Distinguish between homonyms and recognize inconsistencies and mistakes in medical terms, referring to dictionaries, drug references, and other sources on anatomy, physiology, and medicine.
- 07Set up and maintain medical files and databases, including records such as x-ray, lab, and procedure reports, medical histories, diagnostic workups, admission and discharge summaries, and clinical resumes.Claude.ai: 63% did the task, 37% helped
- 08Translate medical jargon and abbreviations into their expanded forms to ensure the accuracy of patient and health care facility records.
- 09Perform data entry and data retrieval services, providing data for inclusion in medical records and for transmission to physicians.API: 98% did the task, 2% helped
- 10Take dictation using shorthand, a stenotype machine, or headsets and transcribing machines.
1 of 10 tasks appear in the Claude.ai sample of the Anthropic Economic Index for May 2026, and 4 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: 0.02% 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. Minnesota pays the most, $50,030; Oklahoma the least, $27,740. BLS publishes no figure where its sample is too small, which leaves 1 gap here.
| State | Median wage | Fully loaded | Middle half | Jobs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | $35,340 | $44,020 | $30,560 to $42,270 | 410 |
| Alaska | $48,360 | $60,230 | $35,140 to $53,870 | 110 |
| Arizona | $36,550 | $45,520 | $34,600 to $45,710 | 700 |
| Arkansas | $35,100 | $43,720 | $30,640 to $40,610 | 280 |
| California | $45,050 | $56,110 | $38,650 to $53,040 | 5,860 |
| Colorado | $43,080 | $53,660 | $37,510 to $56,810 | 610 |
| Connecticut | $48,190 | $60,020 | $45,980 to $55,950 | 390 |
| Delaware | $34,070 | $42,430 | $31,200 to $34,820 | · |
| District of Columbia | $45,110 | $56,180 | $37,460 to $46,910 | 70 |
| Florida | $42,050 | $52,370 | $35,610 to $49,340 | 2,650 |
| Georgia | $28,330 | $35,290 | $24,530 to $43,680 | 950 |
| Hawaii | $44,310 | $55,190 | $33,570 to $48,530 | · |
| Idaho | $38,140 | $47,500 | $35,400 to $45,920 | 400 |
| Illinois | $45,490 | $56,660 | $36,070 to $50,840 | 970 |
| Indiana | $41,400 | $51,560 | $27,850 to $47,860 | 790 |
| Iowa | $45,010 | $56,060 | $39,350 to $48,040 | 180 |
| Kansas | $35,390 | $44,080 | $28,530 to $45,910 | 420 |
| Kentucky | $39,000 | $48,570 | $30,230 to $44,260 | 690 |
| Louisiana | $38,040 | $47,380 | $35,040 to $39,800 | 420 |
| Maine | $48,600 | $60,530 | $42,380 to $54,980 | 80 |
| Maryland | $39,900 | $49,700 | $32,580 to $47,030 | 230 |
| Massachusetts | $36,910 | $45,970 | $36,440 to $40,800 | 400 |
| Michigan | $37,280 | $46,430 | $33,280 to $45,230 | 1,130 |
| Minnesota | $50,030 | $62,310 | $47,480 to $57,680 | 270 |
| Mississippi | $38,600 | $48,080 | $29,300 to $43,490 | 300 |
| Missouri | $37,480 | $46,680 | $34,540 to $46,010 | 310 |
| Montana | $41,340 | $51,490 | $38,400 to $47,210 | 80 |
| Nebraska | $45,880 | $57,140 | $40,340 to $50,030 | 230 |
| Nevada | $39,350 | $49,010 | $37,470 to $50,370 | 210 |
| New Hampshire | Not published | · | · | · |
| New Jersey | $39,020 | $48,600 | $34,010 to $44,930 | 1,710 |
| New Mexico | $37,480 | $46,680 | $33,570 to $44,300 | 210 |
| New York | $43,260 | $53,880 | $38,330 to $46,200 | 2,710 |
| North Carolina | $39,300 | $48,950 | $28,140 to $44,860 | 1,020 |
| North Dakota | $44,660 | $55,620 | $33,700 to $45,670 | 120 |
| Ohio | $37,060 | $46,160 | $29,960 to $46,050 | 680 |
| Oklahoma | $27,740 | $34,550 | $23,130 to $37,440 | 560 |
| Oregon | $46,280 | $57,640 | $39,560 to $55,950 | 510 |
| Pennsylvania | $41,510 | $51,700 | $32,070 to $47,870 | 1,130 |
| Rhode Island | $34,790 | $43,330 | $31,880 to $44,300 | 80 |
| South Carolina | $33,870 | $42,190 | $31,970 to $43,280 | 390 |
| South Dakota | $46,070 | $57,380 | $40,000 to $51,540 | 240 |
| Tennessee | $44,720 | $55,700 | $36,410 to $50,790 | 1,450 |
| Texas | $42,900 | $53,430 | $29,330 to $46,160 | 7,520 |
| Utah | $39,630 | $49,360 | $37,020 to $45,030 | 210 |
| Vermont | $33,030 | $41,140 | $32,060 to $33,030 | · |
| Virginia | $35,130 | $43,750 | $29,980 to $38,710 | · |
| Washington | $38,690 | $48,190 | $35,780 to $49,090 | 620 |
| West Virginia | $37,440 | $46,630 | $34,790 to $43,900 | 90 |
| Wisconsin | $49,150 | $61,220 | $46,120 to $52,980 | 590 |
| Wyoming | $48,100 | $59,910 | $48,040 to $60,480 | 40 |
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 31-9094 (Medical Transcriptionists). 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 31-9094.00, 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 $50,330 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