Dental Assistant

Across all employers in the United States, the median wage for Dental Assistants — about 387,790 people — is $48,070. Department of Veterans Affairs pays a median base salary of $57,191 for this role, 19% above that figure — about the 73rd percentile of local pay for the occupation.

Computed over the 1,918 of 1,922 people in this role paid at least $25,000in base salary. The rest are part-year or part-time records, whose actual pay isn’t comparable to a full-time annual wage.

Median total compensation for this role at Department of Veterans Affairs is $57,191, which includes overtime and employer-paid benefits. The benchmark above excludes both, so total compensation is deliberately not compared against it.

Benchmark: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (May 2025). BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) covers all employers in the area — private, non-profit, and government alike — so this is a comparison against the whole local labor market for the occupation, not against private-sector pay. OEWS wages are straight-time pay and exclude overtime, shift differentials, and employer-paid benefits, so the government figure shown here is base pay on the same basis. Total compensation is not comparable to it. Job titles are matched to the closest standard occupation, so the comparison is between similar work rather than an identical job classification.

Dental Assistant is held in 4 U.S. Federal Government (non-Defense) departments. In Department of Veterans Affairs, the median of $57,191 ranks #2 of 4.

This role is reported in 12 jurisdictions. In U.S. Federal Government (non-Defense), the median of $55,883 ranks #5 of 12. See Dental Assistant across all of U.S. Federal Government (non-Defense) →