Median hourly wage · home health and personal care aides · St. Louis metro
$14.28
That is a wage, measured across 42,390 aides. It is not a rate, and it is not a quote.
| Bottom tenth, hourly | $13.08 |
|---|---|
| Median, hourly | $14.28 |
| Top tenth, hourly | $20.00 |
| Median, annual | $29,700 |
| Aides counted in the metro | 42,390 |
| Average weekly wage, home care payroll, St. Louis County | $763 |
$14.28 an hour: what St. Louis pays a home care aide
The measured wage floor under a home care rate, and the tables it comes from.
The floor, not the rate
You are going to be quoted an hourly rate. Before you hear it, learn the one number underneath it that somebody actually measured.
That number is $14.28. It is the median hourly wage the Bureau of Labor Statistics recorded for home health and personal care aides across the St. Louis metro in its May 2024 survey. Half of the 42,390 aides counted here earned more per hour. Half earned less. The bottom tenth sat at $13.08. The top tenth reached $20.00. Across a full year the median came to $29,700.
Payroll data says something close from a different direction. In the fourth quarter of 2024, private home health care services employers in St. Louis County reported an average weekly wage of $763 across 5,023 jobs at 242 establishments. Spread that over a forty hour week and you are back in the same neighborhood.
A quote is a different animal. The wage is the biggest single line item inside it, and it is the only line item a public dataset measures. Everything else the household is paying for is real. None of it is published anywhere you can check.
What this desk will not print
We do not publish agency prices. No public dataset contains them. The one commercial survey that collects them sells the report and forbids republication, so we will not launder its figures into a table and call it data.
We also will not turn a wage into a price with a multiplier. Choose your own multiplier and a rate sheet will say anything you want. Every number on this site is one a federal agency published, with the file name and the pull date sitting next to it.
The tables
Five pages, four of them nothing but numbers
Where the metro sits
Take the twenty five largest metro areas in the country by total employment, then sort them by what each one pays a home care aide. St. Louis comes in 20th of 25.
| Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, highest of the 25 | $22.45 |
|---|---|
| St. Louis, 20th of 25 | $14.28 |
| Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, lowest of the 25 | $10.97 |
Median hourly wage, occupation 31-1120, BLS OEWS May 2024. Full table on the metro page.
Payroll splits at the county line
The metro is fifteen counties. Ten of them have a private home care employer on the books, 409 establishments in all, and only 7 counties clear the disclosure rules with a dollar figure attached. The rest are withheld or empty. That is the honest shape of the data, and the county table prints it that way rather than filling the gaps with zeros.
Talk to a person about hours
This desk does not sell care and takes no fee for sending you anywhere. This form goes to New Plan Care, the client featured above. Tell them the town and roughly how many hours a week the household needs, and they will call you back.
We ask nothing about anyone's health, and you should not type any into this form. Nothing on this page is medical advice.