Ohio Nurse Aide Wage Report

What this report is

This page republishes federal wage statistics for one occupation: Nursing Assistants, U.S. Social Economic Administration occupational code 31-1131, which is the occupation Ohio certifies as a Certified Nurse Aide (CNA). The numbers come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) program, its annual employer survey covering wage and salary workers in nonfarm establishments. It exists so that anyone comparing nurse aide training options in Ohio can look at real government wage data first, before reading any school's marketing, including ours.

This page makes no claim about what any particular employer (including Alia Healthcare's clinical partners, or any facility that might hire you after training) pays. It reports averages and percentiles across entire labor markets. That is all it does.

Methodology

• Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), occupation profile 31-1131, Nursing Assistants. State and metro figures are the OEWS geographic estimates for the same occupation and release.
• Vintage: the May 2025 estimates (BLS reference year 2025), the current OEWS release as of the retrieval date.
• Retrieval date and channel: every figure on this page was fetched live on August 22, 2026 through the BLS Public Data API v1, querying exact BLS time-series IDs (cited beneath each table). BLS' legacy static state/metro HTML pages now redirect into their tables hub (bls.gov/oes/tables.htm); the API serves the same published series.
• Occupation definition (from BLS/SOC): Nursing Assistants (31-1131) “provide or assist with basic care or support under the direction of onsite licensed nursing staff,” including monitoring health status, feeding, bathing, dressing, grooming, toileting, and ambulation of patients. The count is by job duties across all industries and does not depend on what a state calls the credential.
• Machine-readable copy: the processed dataset behind this page is served as JSON at /data/wages-oews.json. Each value there maps deterministically back to one BLS series ID via the file's documented datatype codes, so any single number can be reproduced or audited against bls.gov directly.
• Update cadence: annually, shortly after each new BLS OEWS release (normally spring of the following year). The retrieval date under each table changes only when the figures behind it are actually re-fetched; corrections are logged and dated rather than silently edited.

Ohio statewide wages, with U.S. reference

Employment and wages for Nursing Assistants (31-1131) in Ohio, compared with the national estimates for the same occupation and release.

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025 estimates: BLS OEWS occupation profile 31-1131. Figures retrieved 2026-08-22 via the BLS Public Data API v1; BLS series OEUS3900000000000311131xx (Ohio) and OEUN0000000000000311131xx (U.S.), where xx encodes the measure (01 employment, 03 hourly mean, 04 annual mean, 06–10 hourly percentiles, 11–15 annual percentiles). Machine-readable copy: /data/wages-oews.json.

Metro comparison: Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati

The three large Ohio metropolitan statistical areas our campuses sit in, against the statewide row for reference. Metro boundaries follow OMB definitions: the Cleveland and Cincinnati areas include non-Ohio counties, so those rows are labor-market geographies, not strictly “Ohio jobs.”

Hourly wages

Source: BLS OEWS May 2025 metro estimates, occupation 31-1131, retrieved 2026-08-22 via the BLS Public Data API v1. Series prefixes: Columbus OEUM0018140000000311131xx, Cleveland OEUM0017410000000311131xx, Cincinnati OEUM0017140000000311131xx (area codes from BLS' OEWS area mapping). Machine-readable copy: /data/wages-oews.json.

Annual wages

Source: same release, channel, and retrieval date as the hourly table above: BLS OEWS May 2025, occupation 31-1131, retrieved 2026-08-22 via the BLS Public Data API v1 (series datatype codes 11–15 for annual percentiles, 04 for annual mean). Machine-readable copy: /data/wages-oews.json.

How to read these numbers

• Percentiles, not grades. The 25th percentile means one quarter of nursing assistants in that area earned less than that hourly amount and three quarters earned more. Half the workforce sits below the median, half above. Entry-level offers cluster toward the lower percentiles; the upper percentiles reflect experienced aides, higher-paying settings, and longer shifts.
• Mean vs. median. The mean is the arithmetic average. A small number of better-paid positions pulls it slightly above the median, so for a realistic middle-of-the-road expectation, compare against the median column.
• The annual figures assume year-round full-time work. BLS derives the annual wage as the hourly wage multiplied by 2,080 hours (40 hours × 52 weeks). An aide working part-time, seasonal, or per-diem hours earns a proportionally smaller annual amount than the table implies.
• Metro totals don't add up to the state, on purpose. Metropolitan statistical areas cross county (and sometimes state) lines, and workers in Ohio's smaller towns and rural counties appear only in the statewide row. That's why the three metros together list roughly 34,500 of Ohio's 63,280 nursing assistants.
• These are occupation-wide figures. They pool nursing homes, hospitals, home health agencies, continuing-care communities, schools, and government employers together. Setting mix is one reason two aides with identical certifications can sit in different percentile bands.

Honest limitations: what these wages do not capture

• Straight-time base pay only. OEWS collects base wage rates from employers. Shift differentials (evenings, nights, weekends), overtime premiums, on-call pay, attendance bonuses, and sign-on incentives are generally not reflected. In long-term care especially, take-home pay commonly runs above the base rate once differentials and extra hours are added. But by amounts BLS does not publish, so this page will not guess at them either.
• No benefits. Health insurance, retirement contributions, paid time off, tuition assistance, and childcare support have real dollar value and do not appear anywhere in these figures. Two offers with identical hourly rates can differ meaningfully once benefits are priced.
• Averages are not offers. A market median tells you where an area's wage distribution sits; it is not a promise, floor, or guarantee for any individual hire, shift, facility, or year. Nothing here should be read as a wage claim by any employer, Alia included.
• Experience is not broken out. OEWS does not separate new graduates from fifteen-year veterans, certified from uncertified titling practices within the occupation, or day staff from agency staff.
• Survey frame limits. Self-employed aides and independent independent-contractor arrangements are outside OEWS entirely; private-duty arrangements may be undercounted depending on how the employing establishment reports them.
• Data lag. The May 2025 estimates were published in spring 2026. In fast-moving labor markets, current posted rates can differ from the most recent federal release, which is exactly why every figure here is dated and annually refreshed instead of presented as timeless.

If you are choosing between training programs, treat this page as the baseline layer of the decision: verify each school's approval status on the Ohio Department of Health NATCEP listing, then weigh schedule, cost, and location. Wage statistics inform the outlook; they cannot pick a school for you.

Embed this report

This page is built to be quoted and embedded elsewhere. The processed dataset loads as JSON from /data/wages-oews.json, and the full report drops into any page that allows iframes with the snippet below.

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