Medical Assistant Salary in Mississippi 2026,
$35,360 Median | BLS Data by City

A median $35,360 a year, or $17.00 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with the middle half between $31,200 and $38,190 and a full range of $29,210 to $45,070. That is 22.6% below the $45,690 national median, and even the state's 90th percentile falls short of the national median.

Jackson at $36,020, but the three published metros — with Hattiesburg at $35,950 and Gulfport-Biloxi at $35,590 — sit within about four hundred dollars of each other. Moving within Mississippi is not a strategy for this occupation.

No. Mississippi does not license or register medical assistants and sets no statutory scope of practice — what you may do is delegated by the supervising physician under the employer's policy. That contrasts with pharmacy technicians, whom the Board of Pharmacy registers. National certification is the de facto credential here: the CMA, RMA, NCMA or CCMA, plus a current BLS card.

A location quotient of 0.55 — barely half the national rate per worker — is the thinnest in this batch, and it reflects a state whose ambulatory practices have not built the role out in the way most have. Mississippi leans more heavily on licensed practical nurses and other staff for the clinical support work that medical assistants do elsewhere. Low employment paired with low pay indicates a role that is simply used less here, rather than one in short supply.

The levers within the occupation are narrow: certification lifts you off the $29,210 tenth percentile, specialty practice and the larger health systems pay above small-practice rates, and lead or clinical coordinator roles reach the $38,190 seventy-fifth percentile and toward the $45,070 ninetieth. But the ceiling sits below the national median, so the honest answer is that the highest-return step is a further credential — practical nursing in particular, given how much more Mississippi relies on that role.

That Mississippi has organised ambulatory care differently. A location quotient of 0.55 means barely half the national rate of medical assistants per worker — far below even the other low-wage Southern states in this batch, which mostly sit above 1.0. When low employment coincides with low pay rather than high pay, the explanation is demand rather than supply: Mississippi's practices use the role less, distributing the work to licensed practical nurses and other staff instead. For someone choosing an entry route into healthcare in this state, that is the crucial piece of information — medical assisting is a smaller and less well-paid field here than almost anywhere, and the alternatives are better established.

It covers a wide range of jobs under one code, and because Mississippi sets no scope of practice, two posts with the same title can involve genuinely different work at similar pay, distinguished only by the employer's delegation policy. The figure blends part-time with full-time work and excludes shift differentials and sign-on incentives. With about 3,340 medical assistants statewide and only three published metros, most of the workforce sits outside the metro table. The $17.00 hourly median is the cleaner benchmark.

The numbers argue that it is a starting point at best. The 90th percentile of $45,070 falls below the national median for the occupation, the metro table offers no escape, and the state employs the role at half the national rate. What the data does support is using it as clinical experience toward a further credential. Practical nursing is the obvious target given how heavily Mississippi relies on LPNs, and radiologic technology and the laboratory routes are also well established. In this state, planning the next step is not a fallback — it is the sensible plan from the start.