Physical Therapist Assistant Salary in Mississippi 2026:
$61,770 Median

A median $61,770 a year, or $29.70 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with the middle half between $58,940 and $71,560 and a full range of $51,720 to $78,830. That is 9.7% below the $68,380 national median, though the state's 75th percentile clears the national median by more than three thousand dollars.

Jackson at $62,100, narrowly ahead of Gulfport-Biloxi at $61,820, with Hattiesburg at $58,610 behind. The spread of about thirty-five hundred dollars across the three published metros is small — setting, not location, is what moves pay in this occupation here.

Through the Mississippi State Board of Physical Therapy. You need graduation from a CAPTE-accredited PTA programme and a passing score on the National Physical Therapy Examination for assistants, plus continuing education for renewal. You practise under the direction and supervision of a licensed physical therapist, and the board's rules set how much of that supervision must be on-site — which determines which settings can employ you.

A location quotient of 1.37 — well above the national rate per worker — reflects a rehabilitation delivery model leaning on assistants working under therapist direction, particularly in skilled nursing and home health. Mississippi has an ageing, dispersed rural population with among the highest chronic disease burdens in the country, which generates sustained rehabilitation demand that assistants deliver a large share of.

Home health and skilled nursing. The $71,560 seventy-fifth percentile and the $78,830 ninetieth both sit above the national median, and they belong to home health work paid per visit and to senior skilled nursing and lead roles. General outpatient practice clusters around the median. That distinction is worth more than anything else available — it is roughly seventeen thousand dollars between the 25th percentile and the 90th, in a state where the metro spread is thirty-five hundred.

Compare with the Oklahoma and Arkansas records in this batch, where the published 10th percentiles sit at twenty-five and thirty-one thousand dollars respectively — figures that are part-time and per-visit artefacts rather than wages. Mississippi's 10th percentile of $51,720 is far more solid, which suggests a workforce that is more consistently employed full-time and less reliant on per-visit contracting at the entry end. For someone entering the occupation that matters: the published band here is closer to describing real full-time pay throughout, and a first post at around fifty-two thousand is a more reliable expectation than the equivalent figures in the neighbouring states suggest.

Setting, and a small state sample. Outpatient orthopaedic, skilled nursing, home health and school-based practice all sit inside this number and pay quite differently — home health per-visit arrangements account for much of the upper band and are not directly comparable with an hourly outpatient post. With about 1,150 assistants statewide and only three published metros, the estimates should be read as directional. The $29.70 hourly median is the cleaner benchmark for comparing employed offers.

Setting, decisively. Home health and skilled nursing occupy the $71,560 seventy-fifth percentile and the $78,830 ninetieth, both above the national median, while general outpatient work clusters around the state median. Understanding the per-visit model matters, because it is where the upper band comes from. Lead and rehabilitation coordinator roles add responsibility pay. Geography contributes about thirty-five hundred dollars. And for a larger step, a CAPTE-accredited doctor of physical therapy programme leads to a Mississippi band whose median is well above this one.