Compared with the local labor market
Dental Assistant pay vs. California
Across all employers in California, the median wage for Dental Assistants — about 56,220 people — is $50,110. Veterans Affairs pays a median base salary of $66,454 for this role, 33% above that figure — about the 82nd percentile of local pay for the occupation.
Where Veterans Affairs sits in the local pay range
$38,790
$46,270
$50,110
$60,670
$73,700
Veterans Affairs median · $66,454
The bar is the range of annual wages for Dental Assistants across every employer in California, from the 10th to the 90th percentile, with the middle 50% highlighted. The marker shows Veterans Affairs’s median base salary for this role. Both figures are base pay only.
And across the country
Nationwide, the median wage for Dental Assistants — about 387,790 people — is $48,070. Veterans Affairs’s median base salary is 38% above that national figure, above the 90th percentile of pay for the occupation nationally.
$37,130
$44,340
$48,070
$58,090
$62,250
Veterans Affairs median · $66,454
Local and national wages differ for reasons beyond how well a job pays — cost of living, the mix of employers, and local demand for the occupation all move the California range relative to the national one.
Computed over the 5 of 6 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 Veterans Affairs is $62,919, 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.
Compare jurisdictions
Dental Assistant beyond California
This role is reported in 12 jurisdictions. In California, the median of $64,736 ranks #2 of 12. See Dental Assistant across all of California →
Highest-paying jurisdictions for this role
Median total compensation for comparable Dental Assistantroles in other jurisdictions. Titles are matched by normalized name across sources, not identical job classification, and pay is not cost-of-living adjusted. Each bar links to that jurisdiction’s page for the role.