---
title: "Home Health Aide"
description: "Monitor the health status of an individual with disabilities or illness, and address their health-related needs, such as changing bandages, dressing…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/home-health-aide"
last-updated: "2026-08-23T15:56:39.581Z"
---

# Home Health Aide

**Category:** Healthcare Support · **SOC code:** 31-1121 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 31-1121.00

Monitor the health status of an individual with disabilities or illness, and address their health-related needs, such as changing bandages, dressing wounds, or administering medication. Work is performed under the direction of offsite or intermittent onsite licensed nursing staff. Provide assistance with routine healthcare tasks or activities of daily living, such as feeding, bathing, toileting, or ambulation. May also help with tasks such as preparing meals, doing light housekeeping, and doing laundry depending on the patient's abilities.

Also advertised as: Caregiver; Certified Home Health Aide (CHHA); Certified Medical Aide (CMA); Certified Nurses Aide (CNA); Home Attendant; Home Care Aide; Home Health Aide (HHA); Home Health Provider.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $35,800 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $17.21/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $27,040 to $45,040, with the middle half between $31,920 and $39,470
- **Total US employment:** 4,305,810
- **Typical entry education:** High school
- **Preparation required:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +17.0% over 2024–2034 (BLS EP, 2024–2034)
- **Annual job openings:** 765,800 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 51/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 4,305,810 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $27,040 |
| 25th | $31,920 |
| 50th (median) | $35,800 |
| 75th | $39,470 |
| 90th | $45,040 |
| Mean (average) | $36,120 |

### Pay by state

The 15 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| WA | $47,730 | $44,602 | 103,260 |
| OR | $44,410 | $42,966 | 42,330 |
| RI | $43,680 | $42,706 | 7,490 |
| DC | $42,700 | $38,853 | 12,810 |
| VT | $41,600 | $42,467 | 7,700 |
| MA | $40,910 | $38,683 | 117,940 |
| AK | $39,740 | $38,824 | 6,530 |
| NY | $39,620 | $36,712 | 663,140 |
| ND | $39,440 | $44,335 | 7,730 |
| CT | $38,990 | $37,632 | 49,510 |
| NH | $38,760 | $37,210 | 9,440 |
| ME | $38,580 | $39,753 | 18,630 |
| CO | $38,540 | $37,399 | 44,650 |
| MN | $38,370 | $38,907 | 128,680 |
| HI | $38,110 | $34,661 | 6,150 |

39 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 54 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/home-health-aide/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/home-health-aide.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 4,347,700 in the 2024–2034 base year to 5,087,500 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 739,800 jobs, or +17.0%. Much faster than average: 17.0% against 3.1% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 765,800 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2024–2034.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** High school diploma or equivalent (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** Short-term on-the-job training.

### Education people in this job actually hold

O\*NET surveys incumbents, so this distribution describes who is in the job today and can differ from the BLS entry requirement above.

| Education level | Share of workers |
| --- | --- |
| High School Diploma | 62.6% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 20.9% |
| Associate's Degree (or other 2-year degree) | 8.8% |
| Some College Courses | 7.0% |
| Less than a High School Diploma | 0.6% |

## What the work involves

- Care for patients by changing bed linens, washing and ironing laundry, cleaning, or assisting with their personal care.
- Provide patients with help moving in and out of beds, baths, wheelchairs, or automobiles and with dressing and grooming.
- Bathe patients.
- Maintain records of patient care, condition, progress, or problems to report and discuss observations with supervisor or case manager.
- Entertain, converse with, or read aloud to patients to keep them mentally healthy and alert.
- Plan, purchase, prepare, or serve meals to patients or other family members, according to prescribed diets.
- Check patients' pulse, temperature, and respiration.
- Perform a variety of duties as requested by client, such as obtaining household supplies or running errands.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Active Listening — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Service Orientation — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Customer and Personal Service — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Psychology — importance 2.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Public Safety and Security — importance 2.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 2.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Medicine and Dentistry — importance 2.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Expression — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Near Vision — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Inductive Reasoning — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Deductive Reasoning — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Social (S), Realistic (R), Conventional (C).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| S — Social | 6.33 |
| R — Realistic | 4.23 |
| C — Conventional | 3.51 |
| I — Investigative | 3.18 |
| E — Enterprising | 1.77 |
| A — Artistic | 1.48 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| ISFJ | 74.9 |
| ESFJ | 70.8 |
| ISFP | 62.6 |
| ESFP | 61.6 |
| ESTJ | 56.6 |

Best-fitting types: ISFJ, ESFJ.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [Nursing Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/nursing-assistant) — median $42,260
- [Personal Care Aide](https://nuecareer.com/careers/personal-care-aide) — median $35,800
- [Paramedic](https://nuecareer.com/careers/paramedic) — median $60,600
- [Psychiatric Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/psychiatric-technician) — median $45,130
- [Occupational Therapy Aide](https://nuecareer.com/careers/occupational-therapy-aide) — median $39,160
- [Psychiatric Aide](https://nuecareer.com/careers/psychiatric-aide) — median $44,910
- [Licensed Practical Nurse](https://nuecareer.com/careers/licensed-practical-nurse) — median $64,400
- [Physical Therapist Aide](https://nuecareer.com/careers/physical-therapist-aide) — median $35,240
- [Emergency Medical Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/emergency-medical-technician) — median $44,470
- [Physical Therapist Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/physical-therapist-assistant) — median $68,380

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 30.3 Database, May 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2024–2034. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BLS OOH** — BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2024–2034 edition. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 30.3 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/home-health-aide