7th of 8: every metro the survey files under Missouri, ranked by home care aide wage
Columbia pays the most. St. Louis, with more than half the state's metro aides, sits one place off the bottom.
Eight metro areas in the May 2024 wage survey carry Missouri as their primary state. Rank them by the median hourly wage for occupation 31-1120, home health and personal care aides, and St. Louis is 7th of 8 at $14.28. Only St. Joseph, at $14.25, sits under it.
Columbia is the outlier at $17.45. Take Columbia out and the other seven fit inside 51 cents, from Jefferson City at $14.76 down to St. Joseph. Kansas City, the other large labor market in the state, is at $14.39. Across the state's metros this is a flat wage, and St. Louis is at the flat end of it.
Size runs the other way. The eight metros together count 78,780 aides. St. Louis alone has 42,390 of them, 54 percent of the total and about twice Kansas City's 20,210. The biggest buyer of these hours in the state pays close to the least for them.
| # | Metro area | Median | Mean | Annual | Aides |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Columbia, MO area 17860 | $17.45 | $17.18 | $36,300 | 2,820 |
| 2 | Jefferson City, MO area 27620 | $14.76 | $15.53 | $30,700 | 1,160 |
| 3 | Cape Girardeau, MO-IL area 16020 | $14.71 | $14.90 | $30,610 | 1,420 |
| 4 | Joplin, MO-KS area 27900 | $14.58 | $16.14 | $30,330 | 2,720 |
| 5 | Kansas City, MO-KS area 28140 | $14.39 | $15.65 | $29,930 | 20,210 |
| 6 | Springfield, MO area 44180 | $14.38 | $15.60 | $29,900 | 6,230 |
| 7 | St. Louis, MO-IL area 41180 | $14.28 | $15.72 | $29,700 | 42,390 |
| 8 | St. Joseph, MO-KS area 41140 | $14.25 | $15.42 | $29,640 | 1,830 |
Median and mean are hourly. Annual is the median annual wage the survey publishes for the same occupation. Ranked on the median only; the other three columns are printed for reading, not ranking. St. Louis is set in the second colour.
Where the mean and the median disagree
In Joplin the mean is $16.14 and the median $14.58, a gap of $1.56. In St. Louis the gap is $1.44. When the mean sits well above the median, a small number of high wages is pulling the average up while the typical aide stays near the floor. The median is the honest one to budget from, which is why it is the one ranked.
What this table does not say
It does not say what an hour of home care costs in any of these metros. A median is the wage in the middle of a payroll list, not a rate on an invoice. This desk prints no agency price because no public file holds one, the one commercial survey that collects them forbids republication, and multiplying a wage by a guess is not measurement.
It does not count everyone who does this work. The survey covers workers on an employer's payroll. A caregiver a household hires directly, or one who is self-employed, is not in it.
It does not adjust for the cost of living. $17.45 in Columbia and $14.28 in St. Louis buy different things, and the file makes no attempt to say what.
It does not settle the order at the bottom. Springfield, St. Louis and St. Joseph are separated by 13 cents. These are survey estimates with sampling error, and a gap that small is a tie for any practical purpose.