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Medical Assistants

SOC 31-9092 · 2024-2034

Perform administrative and certain clinical duties under the direction of a physician. Administrative duties may include scheduling appointments, maintaining medical records, billing, and coding information for insurance purposes. Clinical duties may include taking and recording vital signs and medical histories, preparing patients for examination, drawing blood, and administering medications as directed by physician.

How the U.S. Department of Labor describes this work. Published in English only.

What California expects of this job

Typical pay in California
$50,918per year
Projected openings
175,850
Projected change
+22.7%
Usually needs
Postsecondary non-degree award

Bright Outlook — a U.S. Department of Labor designation
Rapid Growth · Numerous Job Openings

The Department's own designation, made from its national projections. It is not this project's assessment and it is not California's: every other figure on this page comes from California's projection, which can point the other way and for some occupations does.

Skills this work uses most

O*NET, the U.S. Department of Labor's occupation database, rates how important each of these is to this work, and they are listed in that order, most important first. The ratings themselves are not shown, because the data carries the number without the scale it was measured on. The names are as published, in English.

  1. Social Perceptiveness
  2. Active Listening
  3. Speaking
  4. Reading Comprehension
  5. Critical Thinking
  6. Monitoring

Pay by region

RegionTypical pay in CaliforniaProjected openings
Vallejo MSA (Solano County)$77,3172,020
Santa Rosa-Petaluma MSA (Sonoma County)$64,6882,480
Sacramento-Roseville-Folsom MSA (El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento, and Yolo Counties)$64,34912,320
San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara MSA (San Benito and Santa Clara Counties)$64,0619,570
San Rafael MD (Marin County)$63,8121,490
Oakland-Fremont-Berkeley MD (Alameda and Contra Costa Counties)$62,55713,970
San Francisco-San Mateo-Redwood City MD (San Francisco and San Mateo Counties)$60,1737,750
Napa MSA (Napa County)$59,927470
Santa Maria-Santa Barbara MSA (Santa Barbara County)$51,1232,170
Santa Cruz-Watsonville MSA (Santa Cruz County)$50,4651,330
North Coast Region (Del Norte, Humboldt, Lake, and Mendocino Counties)$49,889870
Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura MSA (Ventura County)$49,7142,900
Eastern Sierra-Mother Lode Region (Alpine, Amador, Calaveras, Inyo, Mariposa, Mono, and Tuolumne Counties)$49,560440
San Luis Obispo-Paso Robles MSA (San Luis Obispo County)$49,5091,370
San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad MSA (San Diego County)$49,13813,410
Yuba City MSA (Sutter and Yuba Counties)$48,974610
Salinas MSA (Monterey County)$48,8811,280
North Valley-Northern Mountains Region (Colusa, Glenn, Lassen, Modoc, Nevada, Plumas, Sierra, Siskiyou, Tehama, and Trinity Counties)$48,511850
Stockton-Lodi MSA (San Joaquin County)$48,0792,240
Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale MD (Los Angeles County)$47,38735,860
Chico MSA (Butte County)$47,308860
Hanford-Corcoran MSA (Kings County)$47,174660
Visalia MSA (Tulare County)$47,1432,360
Anaheim-Santa Ana-Irvine MD (Orange County)$46,94915,950
Redding MSA (Shasta County)$46,670820
Bakersfield-Delano MSA (Kern County)$46,5263,960
Fresno MSA (Fresno and Madera Counties)$45,9715,150
Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario MSA (Riverside and San Bernardino Counties)$43,93516,890
El Centro MSA (Imperial County)$40,695680
Merced MSA (Merced County)$40,3141,030
Modesto MSA (Stanislaus County)$40,3142,490

What the pay actually ranges across

The lowest-paid tenth earn under
$40,285
A quarter earn under
$47,411
Half earn under
$50,918
Three quarters earn under
$63,437
The highest-paid tenth earn over
$79,258

A median is one point. These are the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics' 2026 figures for California, and they say how far apart the people doing this job actually are. Read them as the spread across everyone already in the work — not as a starting wage and not as a promise about where anyone lands.

Similar work

O*NET, the U.S. Department of Labor's occupation database, names these as occupations involving work similar to this one — its own reading of the job, not a grouping by code. They keep O*NET's order, and only those California publishes a projection for are shown.

OccupationTypical pay in CaliforniaProjected openingsProjected change
Licensed Practical and Licensed Vocational Nurses$81,98281,600+15%
Ophthalmic Medical Technicians$56,0154,340+33.3%
Registered Nurses$144,197228,840+13.5%
Cardiovascular Technologists and Technicians$80,3584,280+15.5%
Physical Therapist Aides$39,30112,050+20.3%
Dental Assistants$51,37981,180+10%

Programs that train for this job — 196