Medical Assistant Salary in Wisconsin 2026,
$48,680 Median | BLS Data by City

Wisconsin medical assistants earn a median $48,680 a year, $23.41 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with the middle half between $46,370 and $55,000 and a full range of $39,480 to $57,990. That is 6.5% above the $45,690 national median, and the twenty-fifth percentile alone clears the national median.

Kenosha at $49,620, Milwaukee-Waukesha at $49,590, Sheboygan at $49,560, Racine-Mount Pleasant at $49,480 and Appleton at $49,330 — under three hundred dollars from top to bottom. Wisconsin's health systems run standardised pay grids across their footprints, producing near-perfect uniformity.

No. Wisconsin issues no licence, registration or certification for medical assistants and the title is not protected, so a practice may train someone into the role. What governs the work is delegation under the supervising practitioner's authority, within the Medical Examining Board's framework. Employers screen on AAMA or NHA certification, which the state's large systems increasingly require.

It is one of the better versions of the job. Three-quarters of Wisconsin medical assistants out-earn the typical American medical assistant, the state's graduated tax is gentle at this income, and living costs are below the national average — so the real position is stronger than the nominal 6.5% premium suggests. The ceiling of $57,990 is still a ceiling, and Wisconsin's health systems fund licensed clinical training for exactly that reason.

Wisconsin's graduated income tax reaches 7.65% only at much higher incomes, so a $48,680 salary is taxed at rates well below the flat rates applied to every dollar in several neighbouring states. No Wisconsin municipality levies an income tax, which makes this one of the more favourable tax positions for this occupation in the batch.

Because a small number of large health systems employ most of the state's medical assistants and apply the same pay structures across their whole service areas. Kenosha, Milwaukee, Sheboygan, Racine and Appleton land within three hundred dollars of each other because they are, in many cases, the same employers using the same grid. That is unusual, and it has a practical implication: since the salary does not fall in a lower-cost market, working outside the Milwaukee corridor is a straightforward real-terms gain.

It assumes full-time hours in an occupation where part-time schedules are common in physician practices. And while the twenty-fifth percentile above the national median is a genuinely strong result, the ceiling of $57,990 means the ladder is short — Wisconsin's health systems treat this as an entry role and fund tuition toward licensed credentials precisely because they expect people to move on from it.

Into licensed clinical practice, with employer support that is unusually well developed here. Wisconsin's health systems — including those with broad rural footprints — offer tuition assistance toward practical nursing, registered nursing, imaging and surgical technology, and the state's technical college network is a strong and affordable pipeline into those credentials. Within the occupation, specialty practice and lead responsibility reach the $55,000 seventy-fifth percentile and the $57,990 ninetieth.