Veterinary Assistant Salary in Rhode Island

Rhode Island sits above the national figures at every published percentile, but not by the same margin.

The lead is widest at the middle: the median, $49,770, is $11,620 or 30% above the national $38,150.

The 10th percentile, $35,510, is 18% above the national $30,120, and the 25th percentile is 5% above.

At the top the gap narrows fast: the 75th percentile, $49,930, is 9% above the national $45,710, while the 90th percentile, $50,130, is just 2% above the national $49,150.

Someone benchmarking a Rhode Island offer against national figures would understate the middle of this distribution by $11,620 at the median.

Half of the Rhode Island workers counted earned between $37,440 and $49,930, a band $12,490 wide — wider than the national band of $10,050.

Almost all of that width sits below the median: the median is $12,330 above the 25th percentile and barely below the 75th.

From the 10th to the 90th percentile Rhode Island spans $14,620, against $19,030 nationally.

Above the middle the distribution runs nearly flat — the 90th percentile is $50,130, little more than the median itself.

OEWS does not publish why a distribution has this shape, so this page does not assign it a cause.

The hourly median in Rhode Island is $23.93, against $18.34 nationally — $5.59 more, the same 30% gap as the annual median.

The data set carries hourly pay at the median only, so it is the one figure to hold an hourly posting against.

For the rest of the range, ask how many hours a week the role is scheduled before comparing a posted rate with the annual percentiles.

BLS estimates 380 people were employed in this combined occupation in Rhode Island, 44th among the jurisdictions that publish an employment figure.

That count includes laboratory animal caretakers as well as veterinary assistants, in a split BLS does not publish.

An estimate this small can also shift noticeably from one release to the next.

It is a headcount of people in jobs during the survey period — not a count of openings, and not a measure of how quickly positions are filled.

In the same release, Rhode Island's veterinary technologists and technicians have a median of $45,310, which is $4,460, or 9%, below the median for this occupation.

Read that as the distance between two BLS occupations in one state, not as a raise any one person should expect: the two rows count different groups of workers, and BLS publishes nothing about movement between them.