What a paralegal costs in the US
The wage BLS measured across 392,880 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
- $62,890
- Hourly wage
- $30.24
- Loaded per hour
- $37.66
- Middle half earns
- $50,340 to $80,080
- Jobs in the US
- 392,880
Wage × 1.2455 for benefits and payroll taxes, from BLS.
A paralegal in the US is paid a median $62,890 a year, $30.24 an hour, across 392,880 jobs. With benefits, a small employer pays about $78,330. Of its 6 core tasks, 3 showed up in Claude.ai conversations in May 2026, and in each Claude mostly assisted a person.
The work, task by task
The 6 core tasks O*NET lists for paralegals and legal 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.
- 01Prepare affidavits or other documents, such as legal correspondence, and organize and maintain documents in paper or electronic filing system.
- 02Prepare, edit, or review legal documents, including legislation, briefs, pleadings, appeals, wills, contracts, and real estate closing statements.Claude.ai: 36% did the task, 64% helped · API: 75% did the task
- 03Investigate facts and law of cases and search pertinent sources, such as public records and internet sources, to determine causes of action and to prepare cases.
- 04Prepare for trial by performing tasks such as organizing exhibits.Claude.ai: 42% did the task, 58% helped
- 05Meet with clients and other professionals to discuss details of cases.
- 06Gather and analyze research data, such as statutes, decisions, and legal articles, codes, and documents.Claude.ai: 41% did the task, 59% helped · API: 85% did the task
3 of 6 tasks appear in the Claude.ai sample of the Anthropic Economic Index for May 2026. 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: 0.20% 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, $89,750; Mississippi the least, $46,180.
| State | Median wage | Fully loaded | Middle half | Jobs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | $47,260 | $58,860 | $38,150 to $63,490 | 5,700 |
| Alaska | $68,700 | $85,570 | $61,100 to $84,880 | 570 |
| Arizona | $61,630 | $76,760 | $48,840 to $79,250 | 7,890 |
| Arkansas | $47,420 | $59,060 | $43,670 to $61,880 | 1,610 |
| California | $77,390 | $96,390 | $60,170 to $98,430 | 47,130 |
| Colorado | $78,190 | $97,390 | $62,560 to $95,070 | 5,620 |
| Connecticut | $63,820 | $79,490 | $50,180 to $80,580 | 5,210 |
| Delaware | $63,110 | $78,600 | $55,190 to $78,360 | 2,480 |
| District of Columbia | $89,750 | $111,780 | $72,240 to $114,920 | 6,400 |
| Florida | $61,000 | $75,980 | $48,230 to $75,780 | 40,950 |
| Georgia | $62,400 | $77,720 | $48,940 to $81,120 | 14,160 |
| Hawaii | $62,840 | $78,270 | $52,670 to $75,120 | 1,170 |
| Idaho | $49,690 | $61,890 | $43,990 to $62,540 | 2,030 |
| Illinois | $63,670 | $79,300 | $56,160 to $81,970 | 14,130 |
| Indiana | $57,030 | $71,030 | $46,870 to $74,240 | 5,910 |
| Iowa | $54,550 | $67,940 | $47,820 to $66,560 | 2,980 |
| Kansas | $55,000 | $68,500 | $47,000 to $64,170 | 2,210 |
| Kentucky | $59,830 | $74,520 | $47,220 to $70,920 | 3,540 |
| Louisiana | $60,250 | $75,040 | $47,520 to $72,790 | 4,890 |
| Maine | $62,420 | $77,740 | $57,840 to $71,500 | 1,210 |
| Maryland | $65,640 | $81,750 | $51,660 to $84,700 | 6,460 |
| Massachusetts | $77,640 | $96,700 | $62,580 to $96,820 | 7,800 |
| Michigan | $62,170 | $77,430 | $51,280 to $76,820 | 7,730 |
| Minnesota | $75,570 | $94,120 | $56,230 to $83,420 | 7,400 |
| Mississippi | $46,180 | $57,520 | $36,900 to $58,790 | 2,270 |
| Missouri | $61,410 | $76,490 | $47,520 to $75,980 | 7,130 |
| Montana | $57,290 | $71,350 | $48,560 to $66,960 | 1,010 |
| Nebraska | $63,250 | $78,780 | $49,390 to $73,940 | 1,630 |
| Nevada | $64,680 | $80,560 | $55,410 to $76,980 | 3,620 |
| New Hampshire | $62,040 | $77,270 | $53,540 to $77,040 | 1,430 |
| New Jersey | $71,500 | $89,050 | $60,040 to $80,920 | 12,010 |
| New Mexico | $59,840 | $74,530 | $48,130 to $72,520 | 1,740 |
| New York | $68,410 | $85,200 | $57,430 to $94,200 | 34,220 |
| North Carolina | $57,500 | $71,620 | $47,640 to $71,930 | 13,650 |
| North Dakota | $59,430 | $74,020 | $49,290 to $66,120 | 730 |
| Ohio | $60,420 | $75,250 | $49,500 to $77,360 | 9,270 |
| Oklahoma | $53,170 | $66,220 | $40,330 to $61,840 | 3,110 |
| Oregon | $61,490 | $76,590 | $55,490 to $80,950 | 4,870 |
| Pennsylvania | $63,370 | $78,930 | $50,710 to $78,980 | 14,670 |
| Rhode Island | $56,250 | $70,060 | $44,860 to $66,120 | 2,070 |
| South Carolina | $53,880 | $67,110 | $46,630 to $61,620 | 7,420 |
| South Dakota | $58,320 | $72,640 | $53,730 to $67,200 | 600 |
| Tennessee | $58,820 | $73,260 | $47,270 to $67,470 | 6,080 |
| Texas | $62,310 | $77,610 | $47,410 to $77,740 | 29,540 |
| Utah | $63,220 | $78,740 | $48,790 to $80,160 | 3,250 |
| Vermont | $67,160 | $83,650 | $58,530 to $78,620 | 660 |
| Virginia | $63,990 | $79,700 | $56,050 to $81,590 | 10,250 |
| Washington | $79,400 | $98,890 | $62,670 to $100,960 | 9,460 |
| West Virginia | $59,000 | $73,480 | $41,410 to $78,360 | 1,660 |
| Wisconsin | $58,500 | $72,860 | $47,690 to $71,130 | 4,780 |
| Wyoming | $49,490 | $61,640 | $47,390 to $56,420 | 600 |
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 23-2011 (Paralegals and Legal 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 23-2011.00, 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 $78,330 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