Administrative Professionals Day Recognizes 2% of U.S. Workforce, Mostly Women Who Earn Less Than Average Worker

One of the five most common occupations for women is working as secretaries and administrative assistants and on April 27, Administrative Professionals Day recognizes this workforce of 2.78 million workers.

Who are the people who keep many U.S. business and office operations running smoothly? Most are women (94%), from secretaries and medical or legal administrative assistants to executive secretaries and administrative assistants who as a group in 2019 earned below-average wages: $41,150 compared to the national average of $50,078.

Median earnings of secretaries and administrative assistants remained around $40,000 from 2000 to 2019 (in 2019 inflation-adjusted dollars), between $7,000 and $9,500 less than what the average worker in the United State earned.

Between 2014 and 2019, secretaries and administrative assistants fell from the largest to the third largest occupation for women, behind registered nurses and elementary and middle school teachers (Table 1).

The share of women working full-time, year-round as secretaries has fallen since 2000, from 3.0% (over 2.4 million) in 2000 to 1.8% (2.0 million) in 2019 (Figure 1).

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