What Nursing Assistants earn in Douglas County, NE
According to the latest federal wage data for the Omaha, NE-IA metropolitan area, the median pay for Nursing Assistants in Douglas County, NE is $40,020 a year, or $19.24 an hour. After federal income tax, Social Security, Medicare and state income tax, the paycheck shrinks to $33,286 a year, and rent, food and energy take another bite. The sections below walk through each step with the actual math for Douglas County, NE.
The mean wage is $43,020, which is 7.5% above the median, a sign that a group of high earners lifts the average. The survey counts about 7,740 people working in this occupation across the Omaha, NE-IA metropolitan area, so the estimate rests on a substantial pool of workers. Douglas County, NE has roughly 590,736 residents, according to the population figures used by the rent data.
The salary range, from entry level to top earners
Pay for Nursing Assistants in the Omaha, NE-IA metropolitan area is not one number. The lowest-paid tenth of workers earn up to $37,750 a year ($18.15 an hour), while the highest-paid tenth earn $49,760 or more ($23.92 an hour). That is a gap of $12,010 between the bottom and the top of the scale. The middle half of workers falls between $38,150 at the 25th percentile and $46,790 at the 75th percentile. A top-tier earner makes 1.3 times what someone at the bottom makes, so experience, certification and employer all matter.
What the hourly rate looks like
Converted to an hourly wage, the median for Nursing Assistants in Douglas County, NE is $19.24. A full-time schedule of 40 hours for 52 weeks adds up to $40,020, and the same salary is $3,335 a month before taxes or about $1,539 per biweekly pay period. After taxes the same job pays $16.00 per hour of take-home income, which is the number that actually has to cover rent and groceries.
About this occupation: Nursing Assistants
The U.S. Department of Labor's O*NET database describes the work of Nursing Assistants this way: "Provide or assist with basic care or support under the direction of onsite licensed nursing staff. Perform duties such as monitoring of health status, feeding, bathing, dressing, grooming, toileting, or ambulation of patients in a health or nursing facility. May include medication administration and other health-related tasks. Includes nursing care attendants, nursing aides, and nursing attendants."
Core tasks recorded by O*NET include: "Answer patient call signals, signal lights, bells, or intercom systems to determine patients' needs"; "Assist nurses or physicians in the operation of medical equipment or provision of patient care"; "Change bed linens or make beds"; "Clean and sanitize patient rooms, bathrooms, examination rooms, or other patient areas".
Job outlook for Nursing Assistants
The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects national employment in this occupation to grow from 1,505,900 jobs in 2025 to 1,544,900 in 2035, a change of +2.6%, slower than the 3.5% projected for all occupations. The projection counts 196,200 openings a year on average, including positions created by growth and positions left by workers who retire or move to another occupation; that equals 13.0% of current employment each year.
Typical entry-level education: postsecondary nondegree award. BLS lists a national median annual wage of $42,260 for this occupation; the Douglas County, NE median of $40,020 is 5.3% below it.
How pay in Douglas County, NE compares
Compared with the Nebraska average
Pay for Nursing Assistants in Douglas County, NE is in line with the statewide figure: $40,020 locally against an employment-weighted Nebraska average of $39,839, a difference of only $181 (0.5%). Within Nebraska, Douglas County, NE already has the highest median we track for this job.
Compared with the national average
The national employment-weighted average for Nursing Assistants is $41,828 across the contiguous United States. At $40,020, Douglas County, NE pays $1,808 less, which is 4.3% below that benchmark. Keep in mind that a higher salary only helps if living costs do not rise faster, which is why the cost sections below matter as much as the headline number.
Where this job ranks in Douglas County, NE
Among the 506 occupations with published wages in Douglas County, NE, Nursing Assistants ranks number 427 by median pay, ahead of about 16% of them. The best-paying occupation we track here is General and Operations Managers at $90,620 a year, which is $50,600 more than the median for Nursing Assistants.
From gross pay to take-home pay
A salary of $40,020 does not arrive in full. We model a single filer with wage income only, the standard deduction and tax-year 2025 rules, and we keep the three tax layers apart: federal income tax, FICA (Social Security and Medicare) and state income tax. Together they take $6,734 a year, which leaves $33,286, or $2,774 a month.
Put another way, of every $100 earned, about $17 goes to taxes and $83 reaches the paycheck. The overall effective tax rate is 16.8%.
Federal income tax
After the $15,750 standard deduction, taxable income is $24,270. Federal brackets are marginal, so only the slice of income above each threshold is taxed at the higher rate; the last dollars of this salary fall in the 12% bracket. The resulting federal income tax is $2,674, an effective 6.7% of gross pay, well below the 12% marginal rate because the lower brackets are cheaper.
Social Security and Medicare (FICA)
Payroll taxes are a flat percentage of wages. Social Security takes 6.2% up to a wage base of $176,100, which costs $2,481 on this salary. Medicare takes 1.45%, or $580. FICA totals $3,062, which is 7.6% of gross pay.
State income tax in Nebraska
Nebraska income tax on this salary is $999 a year, or 2.5% of gross pay, after the state's own deductions and exemptions are applied. That is 37% of the federal income tax bill, and it comes out to $83 a month. Local taxes such as county or city income taxes are not included, so a few jurisdictions may withhold slightly more.
A cross-check with IRS data for Douglas County, NE
IRS Statistics of Income data for Douglas County, NE show an average adjusted gross income of $101,051 per return and an average effective federal income tax rate of 14.5% across all filers. Filers in the $25,000 to under $50,000 bracket, where this salary falls, paid an average of 5.3%, compared with the 6.7% estimated here for a single filer taking the standard deduction. Gaps between the two reflect filing status, dependents, credits and other income, none of which a single-person wage estimate includes.
Cost of living in Douglas County, NE
Take-home pay only means something next to what life costs. We price four basics for one adult in Douglas County, NE: a one-bedroom apartment, food, home energy and gasoline. All of them are converted to annual figures first, then compared with the $33,286 of take-home pay.
Rent
The HUD Fair Market Rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Douglas County, NE is $1,219 a month, or $14,628 a year. A two-bedroom costs $1,450 a month. For Nursing Assistants, a one-bedroom absorbs 44.0% of take-home pay and 36.5% of gross pay.
Food
The USDA Thrifty Food Plan (August 2026) puts the cost of a nutritious home-cooked diet for an adult at about $3,436 a year, which is $286 a month or $66.07 a week. That equals 8.6% of gross pay for Nursing Assistants in Douglas County, NE. It is a thrifty budget with no restaurant meals, so treat it as a floor.
Energy and gasoline
Using Nebraska residential prices from the Energy Information Administration and national household averages for consumption, electricity costs about $1,218 a year and other home energy such as natural gas about $410, for $1,628 in total. Gasoline in Nebraska averages $3.21 per gallon; at about 463 gallons a year (11,106 miles at 24 miles per gallon) fuel adds $1,485.
What is left over
Add the four basics together and living costs come to $21,177 a year, 64% of take-home pay. That leaves $12,108 a year, or $1,009 a month, for savings, transportation beyond fuel, health care, debt and everything else. That margin equals 30.3% of gross pay, a comfortable cushion by common budgeting rules.
Local housing and commute data for Douglas County, NE
The budget above covers rent, food, energy and gasoline. Three more local facts shape what a paycheck buys in Douglas County, NE: property taxes, housing prices and the daily commute. The figures below are exact U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey 2020-2024 5-year estimates for Douglas County, NE, set beside the Nebraska and national medians.
Property taxes in Douglas County, NE
Homeowners in Douglas County, NE pay a median of $4,507 a year in real estate taxes, 27% above the Nebraska median of $3,549 and 45% above the U.S. median of $3,119. Against a median home value of $266,100, the median tax bill is 1.69% of that value (the ratio of the two county medians). For a worker paid the local Nursing Assistants median of $40,020, a tax bill of that size would equal 11.3% of gross pay, which matters for anyone planning to buy rather than rent.
Rents, home prices and household income in Douglas County, NE
Renters in Douglas County, NE pay a median gross rent of $1,201 a month in the Census survey, 12% above the Nebraska median of $1,072. HUD's Fair Market Rent for a one-bedroom apartment, which this site uses in the budget, is $1,219 a month; the two measures differ because the Census figure covers units of every size that renters already occupy, while the HUD figure is a one-bedroom benchmark. The median value of an owner-occupied home is $266,100, 12% above the Nebraska median of $238,600. Median household income is $80,391, 5% above the Nebraska median of $76,475, so a year of one-bedroom Fair Market Rent equals 18.2% of that income.
Commuting in Douglas County, NE
Workers in Douglas County, NE who travel to a workplace spend an average of 20.0 minutes each way, 4% above the Nebraska average of 19.2. For someone who commutes five days a week, that is 3.3 hours of round-trip travel every week, a cost the budget does not price. 16.1% of workers in Douglas County, NE work from home, compared with 15.1% nationally, which removes the commute for them.
Can Nursing Assistants afford to live in Douglas County, NE?
The 30% rent guideline
A common rule of thumb says rent should stay under 30% of gross income. For a gross salary of $40,020 that ceiling is $1,001 a month. The one-bedroom Fair Market Rent of $1,219 is $219 over it, so rent breaks the guideline. Put as a wage, covering a one-bedroom at the 30% guideline takes $23.44 an hour; the median for Nursing Assistants is $19.24, which is 18% below that mark. Another way to see it: at $16.00 of take-home pay an hour, a one-bedroom takes about 17.6 working hours every week.
Splitting a two-bedroom
Sharing a two-bedroom at $1,450 a month means $725 each. Compared with renting a one-bedroom alone, that saves $5,928 a year. With a roommate, the yearly margin after the basics becomes $18,036.
How fast you can save
At $1,009 a month of margin, building a $10,000 emergency fund would take about 10 months. Setting aside half of the margin stretches the same goal to about 20 months. These figures ignore interest, raises and any spending beyond the four basics.
Frequently asked questions about Nursing Assistants pay in Douglas County, NE
What is the hourly wage for Nursing Assistants in Douglas County, NE?
The median is $19.24 per hour, based on $40,020 a year over 2,080 hours. Hourly pay runs from about $18.15 at the 10th percentile to $23.92 at the 90th percentile.
What is the take-home pay for Nursing Assistants in Douglas County, NE?
After federal income tax, FICA and state income tax, the median salary of $40,020 becomes $33,286 a year. That is $2,774 a month, $1,280 every two weeks or $640 a week.
What percentage of pay goes to taxes for Nursing Assistants in Douglas County, NE?
Total taxes are $6,734 a year, an effective rate of 16.8%: $2,674 federal income tax, $3,062 FICA and $999 Nebraska income tax.
Is pay for Nursing Assistants in Douglas County, NE above the Nebraska average?
It is about the same. The local median of $40,020 is within 0.5% of the Nebraska average of $39,839.
Is a one-bedroom rent affordable on the median Nursing Assistants salary in Douglas County, NE?
A one-bedroom costs $1,219 a month against take-home pay of $2,774, which is 43.9% of take-home pay. That does not meet the 30%-of-gross guideline, which allows up to $1,001 a month.
How much is left after rent, food and energy for Nursing Assistants in Douglas County, NE?
About $1,009 a month ($12,108 a year) remains after a one-bedroom apartment, food, home energy and gasoline, which together cost $21,177 a year.
What hourly wage covers a one-bedroom in Douglas County, NE at the 30% guideline?
$23.44 an hour for a full-time schedule, calculated as the $14,628 annual rent divided by 0.30 and by 2,080 hours. The median for Nursing Assistants is $19.24.
How we calculated these numbers
Wages are May 2025 medians from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey for the Omaha, NE-IA metropolitan area; hourly-only values are annualized at 2,080 hours. Rents are HUD Fair Market Rents, food costs come from the USDA Thrifty Food Plan, and energy prices come from the Energy Information Administration. County-level tax statistics come from the IRS Statistics of Income.
Taxes use tax-year 2025 federal brackets, FICA rates and the Nebraska rules for a single filer with wage income only. Figures are estimates for planning and comparison, not tax or financial advice, and they exclude local income taxes, benefits, retirement contributions and individual circumstances.