Best States for Nursing Assistants in 2026: California Leads, but Top Pay Is in Washington and New York

For nursing assistants, national context matters alongside location choice. Nationally, the median annual salary for this occupation is $42,260, with 1,448,910 people employed and a projected national employment growth rate of 2.3%. Against that backdrop, LaborCove’s best-state rankings highlight how individual states combine pay, employment counts, and Geography Scores in different ways. Several of the top-ranked states have median salaries above the national median, while two in the top 10 fall below that benchmark. Some states with relatively high salaries have smaller employment counts, while others with larger employment totals sit closer to the national pay level. The LaborCove Geography Scores bring these measures together, producing a ranking where the top state by pay is not necessarily the top-ranked state overall. Taken together, the data shows that nursing assistants weighing relocation or comparing states can expect to see trade-offs between higher median salaries, larger employment counts, and where each state lands in the LaborCove ranking. The sections that follow walk through those trade-offs for the 10 highest-ranked states in 2026.

Before comparing states, it helps to see how they relate to the national benchmark for nursing assistants. Nationally, nursing assistants have a median annual salary of $42,260 and total employment of 1,448,910 in the supplied data. The occupation’s projected employment growth of 2.3% is a national figure and does not describe any individual state’s future growth. Instead, it provides a general national context for the role. Within that context, each of the 10 highlighted states has its own combination of median salary, employment count, and LaborCove Geography Score. Several top-ranked states have median salaries above the $42,260 national median, while Texas and Florida have salaries that are below this national level. The following sections focus on how those figures vary among the individual states and how that variation aligns with the LaborCove Geography Scores.

California holds the #1 rank with a LaborCove Geography Score of 83.49, while New York ranks #2 with a score of 78.03. California also has the largest supplied employment count among these states, at 110,060 nursing assistants, compared with 87,990 in New York. On median annual salary, New York is higher than California. New York’s median salary is $48,590, while California’s is $47,630. Both are above the national median salary of $42,260, indicating that each state’s typical pay level for nursing assistants exceeds the national benchmark even though New York’s figure is numerically higher than California’s. These comparisons illustrate that California’s top LaborCove rank is associated with the highest Geography Score and the largest employment count in this group, while New York pairs the second-highest Geography Score with a higher median salary than California and a somewhat smaller, but still large, employment count.

Illinois, Pennsylvania, Washington, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Colorado occupy ranks #3 through #9, and each has a median salary above the national median of $42,260. Illinois ranks #3 with a LaborCove Geography Score of 63.20, a median salary of $45,960, and employment of 68,640. Pennsylvania, at #4, has a slightly lower Geography Score of 62.96, a median salary of $44,590, and employment of 67,740. Illinois therefore has a higher Geography Score, a higher median salary, and a marginally higher employment count than Pennsylvania. Washington stands at #5 with a Geography Score of 61.47, a median salary of $49,180, and employment of 30,270. Washington’s median salary is higher than those in California and New York, even though Washington ranks below both by Geography Score and has a smaller employment count. Massachusetts (#6) has a median salary of $46,680 and employment of 38,130, while New Jersey (#7) has a similar median salary of $46,830 and employment of 32,400. Colorado, ranked #9, posts a median salary of $47,380 and employment of 22,240. All six states in this middle group combine Geography Scores from 55.88 to 63.20 with salaries that are numerically above the national median.

Texas and Florida are notable because, unlike most of the top 10, their median salaries for nursing assistants are below the national median. Texas ranks #8 with a LaborCove Geography Score of 56.22, a median salary of $37,500, and employment of 88,680. Florida ranks #10 with a Geography Score of 54.90, a median salary of $37,510, and employment of 96,960. Both states’ median salaries are below the national median of $42,260. Even though Texas and Florida sit lower in the top-10 ranking than several other states, their employment counts are comparatively large. Florida’s employment count of 96,960 is smaller than California’s 110,060 but higher than the employment totals in New York and Illinois. Texas, at 88,680, also has a larger employment count than New York and Illinois. This pairing of relatively large employment counts with below-national median salaries sets Texas and Florida apart from many of the other top-ranked states.

LaborCove’s Geography Scores show how the top states compare on an aggregate basis, even when salary and employment point in different directions. California’s Geography Score of 83.49 is the highest among these states, followed by New York’s 78.03. The next cluster of scores—Illinois at 63.20, Pennsylvania at 62.96, Washington at 61.47, Massachusetts at 60.76, and New Jersey at 58.15—illustrates that these mid-ranked states are relatively close to one another in LaborCove’s scoring. Colorado (55.88), Texas (56.22), and Florida (54.90) complete the top 10. The rankings demonstrate that the highest salary does not automatically correspond to the highest LaborCove ranking. Washington, for example, has a higher median salary ($49,180) than California and New York but ranks #5, below both by Geography Score. Similarly, New York has a higher median salary than California but ranks below California overall. These comparisons highlight that LaborCove’s Geography Score reflects a broader combination of metrics than salary alone.

LaborCove’s state rankings for nursing assistants draw on authoritative labor-market data for this occupation, combined into a LaborCove Geography Score for each state. For this article, we use the supplied median annual salary, employment count, and Geography Score for the top 10 states, along with national salary, employment, and national projected growth for nursing assistants. The Geography Score is LaborCove’s composite measure that supports the ranking order shown here. This article treats the score as a summary indicator and does not infer how much any individual metric contributes to the score. All numeric comparisons in the analysis are direct comparisons of the supplied salaries, employment counts, Geography Scores, or the national growth rate. As with any aggregated ranking, LaborCove’s results should be weighed against individual priorities. Some nursing assistants may care more about median salary than about employment totals, while others may focus on being in a higher-ranked state by Geography Score. The data presented here is intended to frame those choices, not to predict personal outcomes or guarantee employment in any specific state.