What an office manager costs in the US
The wage BLS measured across 1,436,680 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
- $69,500
- Hourly wage
- $33.41
- Loaded per hour
- $41.61
- Middle half earns
- $55,950 to $85,090
- Jobs in the US
- 1,436,680
Wage × 1.2455 for benefits and payroll taxes, from BLS.
An office manager in the US is paid a median $69,500 a year, $33.41 an hour, across 1,436,680 jobs. With benefits, a small employer pays about $86,560. Of its 10 core tasks, 3 showed up in Claude.ai conversations in May 2026, and in 1 of those Claude mostly did the task rather than assisting.
The work, task by task
The 10 core tasks O*NET lists for first-line supervisors of office and administrative support workers, 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.
- 01Supervise the work of office, administrative, or customer service employees to ensure adherence to quality standards, deadlines, and proper procedures, correcting errors or problems.
- 02Resolve customer complaints or answer customers' questions regarding policies and procedures.Claude.ai: 41% did the task, 59% helped · API: 86% did the task
- 03Provide employees with guidance in handling difficult or complex problems or in resolving escalated complaints or disputes.
- 04Review records or reports pertaining to activities such as production, payroll, or shipping to verify details, monitor work activities, or evaluate performance.Claude.ai: 64% did the task, 36% helped · API: 92% did the task
- 05Discuss job performance problems with employees to identify causes and issues and to work on resolving problems.
- 06Prepare and issue work schedules, deadlines, and duty assignments for office or administrative staff.
- 07Recruit, interview, and select employees.
- 08Interpret and communicate work procedures and company policies to staff.Claude.ai: 33% did the task, 67% helped · API: 79% did the task
- 09Evaluate employees' job performance and conformance to regulations and recommend appropriate personnel action.
- 10Train or instruct employees in job duties or company policies or arrange for training to be provided.
3 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: 0.38% 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. Washington pays the most, $79,480; West Virginia the least, $53,660.
| State | Median wage | Fully loaded | Middle half | Jobs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | $60,360 | $75,180 | $47,730 to $76,540 | 20,140 |
| Alaska | $69,840 | $86,990 | $59,600 to $80,750 | 5,690 |
| Arizona | $64,250 | $80,020 | $53,640 to $79,250 | 31,930 |
| Arkansas | $58,100 | $72,360 | $46,500 to $70,970 | 13,630 |
| California | $77,590 | $96,640 | $62,660 to $97,080 | 149,230 |
| Colorado | $76,600 | $95,410 | $61,850 to $95,590 | 26,100 |
| Connecticut | $78,200 | $97,400 | $62,770 to $97,470 | 24,420 |
| Delaware | $75,220 | $93,690 | $60,830 to $93,640 | 5,480 |
| District of Columbia | $79,200 | $98,640 | $62,480 to $101,770 | 4,080 |
| Florida | $64,360 | $80,160 | $51,930 to $80,520 | 93,850 |
| Georgia | $64,620 | $80,480 | $52,400 to $81,860 | 42,630 |
| Hawaii | $63,080 | $78,570 | $49,990 to $78,350 | 10,090 |
| Idaho | $61,390 | $76,460 | $49,990 to $76,240 | 8,360 |
| Illinois | $69,010 | $85,950 | $55,530 to $84,600 | 42,400 |
| Indiana | $69,490 | $86,550 | $55,650 to $84,840 | 21,780 |
| Iowa | $64,400 | $80,210 | $51,130 to $80,130 | 10,190 |
| Kansas | $64,000 | $79,710 | $52,560 to $79,170 | 12,010 |
| Kentucky | $63,180 | $78,690 | $48,560 to $80,470 | 19,670 |
| Louisiana | $57,180 | $71,220 | $46,010 to $71,560 | 20,810 |
| Maine | $67,530 | $84,110 | $56,960 to $82,780 | 6,000 |
| Maryland | $74,140 | $92,340 | $58,680 to $88,920 | 27,860 |
| Massachusetts | $76,770 | $95,620 | $62,200 to $94,900 | 34,520 |
| Michigan | $64,720 | $80,610 | $52,490 to $81,340 | 30,690 |
| Minnesota | $76,440 | $95,210 | $61,600 to $91,050 | 21,690 |
| Mississippi | $58,380 | $72,710 | $46,000 to $73,720 | 13,680 |
| Missouri | $63,050 | $78,530 | $49,730 to $79,960 | 22,360 |
| Montana | $62,550 | $77,910 | $51,940 to $75,540 | 4,030 |
| Nebraska | $61,980 | $77,200 | $51,420 to $76,310 | 9,930 |
| Nevada | $63,090 | $78,580 | $52,170 to $78,590 | 14,380 |
| New Hampshire | $73,250 | $91,230 | $58,650 to $90,200 | 7,600 |
| New Jersey | $76,640 | $95,460 | $61,220 to $96,890 | 55,210 |
| New Mexico | $62,640 | $78,020 | $49,950 to $77,960 | 8,330 |
| New York | $79,170 | $98,610 | $64,060 to $99,490 | 83,110 |
| North Carolina | $62,340 | $77,640 | $51,020 to $79,090 | 35,830 |
| North Dakota | $68,720 | $85,590 | $53,830 to $85,090 | 1,830 |
| Ohio | $64,220 | $79,990 | $52,140 to $79,250 | 45,070 |
| Oklahoma | $60,870 | $75,810 | $48,330 to $77,810 | 19,860 |
| Oregon | $74,300 | $92,540 | $60,600 to $85,220 | 12,200 |
| Pennsylvania | $65,270 | $81,290 | $54,150 to $80,520 | 56,600 |
| Rhode Island | $76,030 | $94,700 | $60,900 to $89,870 | 5,090 |
| South Carolina | $62,920 | $78,370 | $49,930 to $80,010 | 26,710 |
| South Dakota | $62,530 | $77,880 | $53,350 to $74,610 | 1,750 |
| Tennessee | $66,390 | $82,690 | $52,370 to $84,840 | 49,870 |
| Texas | $64,940 | $80,880 | $51,160 to $82,700 | 160,600 |
| Utah | $66,900 | $83,320 | $53,680 to $84,170 | 18,890 |
| Vermont | $68,790 | $85,680 | $59,600 to $78,920 | 1,710 |
| Virginia | $67,170 | $83,660 | $54,900 to $84,600 | 35,160 |
| Washington | $79,480 | $98,990 | $66,180 to $97,590 | 31,790 |
| West Virginia | $53,660 | $66,830 | $44,940 to $64,180 | 6,900 |
| Wisconsin | $70,560 | $87,880 | $58,670 to $84,330 | 22,950 |
| Wyoming | $63,050 | $78,530 | $50,970 to $75,640 | 1,980 |
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 43-1011 (First-Line Supervisors of Office and Administrative Support Workers). 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 43-1011.00, 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 $86,560 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