What Home Health and Personal Care Aides earn in Lincoln County, NM
The median pay for Home Health and Personal Care Aides in Lincoln County, NM is $27,420 per year, which works out to $13.18 per hour. The figure comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics wage survey for the Eastern New Mexico nonmetropolitan area, the labor market that Lincoln County, NM belongs to. Half of the workers in this occupation earn more than the median and half earn less, which makes it a sturdier yardstick than an average that a few very high earners can pull upward.
The mean wage is $28,950, which is 5.6% above the median, a sign that a group of high earners lifts the average. The survey counts about 6,770 people working in this occupation across the Eastern New Mexico nonmetropolitan area, so the estimate rests on a substantial pool of workers. Lincoln County, NM has roughly 20,224 residents, according to the population figures used by the rent data.
The salary range, from entry level to top earners
Pay for Home Health and Personal Care Aides in the Eastern New Mexico nonmetropolitan area is not one number. The lowest-paid tenth of workers earn up to $26,090 a year ($12.54 an hour), while the highest-paid tenth earn $33,540 or more ($16.13 an hour). That is a gap of $7,450 between the bottom and the top of the scale. The middle half of workers falls between $26,690 at the 25th percentile and $28,750 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 Home Health and Personal Care Aides in Lincoln County, NM is $13.18. A full-time schedule of 40 hours for 52 weeks adds up to $27,420, and the same salary is $2,285 a month before taxes or about $1,055 per biweekly pay period. After taxes the same job pays $11.47 per hour of take-home income, which is the number that actually has to cover rent and groceries.
About this occupation: Home Health and Personal Care Aides
The U.S. Department of Labor's O*NET database describes the work of Home Health Aides this way: "Monitor the health status of an individual with disabilities or illness, and address their health-related needs, such as changing bandages, dressing wounds, or administering medication. Work is performed under the direction of offsite or intermittent onsite licensed nursing staff. Provide assistance with routine healthcare tasks or activities of daily living, such as feeding, bathing, toileting, or ambulation. May also help with tasks such as preparing meals, doing light housekeeping, and doing laundry depending on the patient's abilities."
Core tasks recorded by O*NET include: "Maintain records of patient care, condition, progress, or problems to report and discuss observations with supervisor or case manager"; "Provide patients with help moving in and out of beds, baths, wheelchairs, or automobiles and with dressing and grooming"; "Provide patients and families with emotional support and instruction in areas such as caring for infants, preparing healthy meals, living independently, or adapting to disability or illness"; "Entertain, converse with, or read aloud to patients to keep them mentally healthy and alert".
This BLS pay category covers several related O*NET occupations, among them Home Health Aides, Personal Care Aides, so the wage figures describe the group as a whole.
Job outlook for Home Health and Personal Care Aides
The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects national employment in this occupation to grow from 4,677,100 jobs in 2025 to 5,524,400 in 2035, a change of +18.1%, faster than the 3.5% projected for all occupations. The projection counts 760,500 openings a year on average, including positions created by growth and positions left by workers who retire or move to another occupation; that equals 16.3% of current employment each year.
Typical entry-level education: high school diploma or equivalent. Typical on-the-job training to reach competency: short-term on-the-job training. BLS lists a national median annual wage of $35,800 for this occupation; the Lincoln County, NM median of $27,420 is 23.4% below it.
How pay in Lincoln County, NM compares
Compared with the New Mexico average
The local median of $27,420 sits below the New Mexico employment-weighted average of $28,862. The shortfall is $1,442 a year, or 5.0%, so Lincoln County, NM is a lower-paying market for this job than the state as a whole. Within New Mexico, the highest median we track for this job is $30,170 in Bernalillo County, NM.
Compared with the national average
The national employment-weighted average for Home Health and Personal Care Aides is $34,899 across the contiguous United States. At $27,420, Lincoln County, NM pays $7,479 less, which is 21.4% 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 Lincoln County, NM
Among the 332 occupations with published wages in Lincoln County, NM, Home Health and Personal Care Aides ranks number 327 by median pay, ahead of about 2% of them.
From gross pay to take-home pay
A salary of $27,420 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 $3,569 a year, which leaves $23,851, or $1,988 a month.
Put another way, of every $100 earned, about $13 goes to taxes and $87 reaches the paycheck. The overall effective tax rate is 13.0%.
Federal income tax
After the $15,750 standard deduction, taxable income is $11,670. 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 10% bracket. The resulting federal income tax is $1,167, an effective 4.3% of gross pay, well below the 10% 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 $1,700 on this salary. Medicare takes 1.45%, or $398. FICA totals $2,098, which is 7.6% of gross pay.
State income tax in New Mexico
New Mexico income tax on this salary is $304 a year, or 1.1% of gross pay, after the state's own deductions and exemptions are applied. That is 26% of the federal income tax bill, and it comes out to $25 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 Lincoln County, NM
IRS Statistics of Income data for Lincoln County, NM show an average adjusted gross income of $65,152 per return and an average effective federal income tax rate of 11.9% across all filers. Filers in the $25,000 to under $50,000 bracket, where this salary falls, paid an average of 5.0%, compared with the 4.3% 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 Lincoln County, NM
Take-home pay only means something next to what life costs. We price four basics for one adult in Lincoln County, NM: a one-bedroom apartment, food, home energy and gasoline. All of them are converted to annual figures first, then compared with the $23,851 of take-home pay.
Rent
The HUD Fair Market Rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Lincoln County, NM is $839 a month, or $10,068 a year. A two-bedroom costs $1,063 a month. For Home Health and Personal Care Aides, a one-bedroom absorbs 42.2% of take-home pay and 36.7% 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 12.5% of gross pay for Home Health and Personal Care Aides in Lincoln County, NM. It is a thrifty budget with no restaurant meals, so treat it as a floor.
Energy and gasoline
Using New Mexico residential prices from the Energy Information Administration and national household averages for consumption, electricity costs about $1,500 a year and other home energy such as natural gas about $360, for $1,860 in total. Gasoline in New Mexico averages $3.02 per gallon; at about 463 gallons a year (11,106 miles at 24 miles per gallon) fuel adds $1,397.
What is left over
Add the four basics together and living costs come to $16,760 a year, 70% of take-home pay. That leaves $7,091 a year, or $591 a month, for savings, transportation beyond fuel, health care, debt and everything else. That margin equals 25.9% of gross pay, a comfortable cushion by common budgeting rules.
Local housing and commute data for Lincoln County, NM
The budget above covers rent, food, energy and gasoline. Three more local facts shape what a paycheck buys in Lincoln County, NM: 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 Lincoln County, NM, set beside the New Mexico and national medians.
Property taxes in Lincoln County, NM
Homeowners in Lincoln County, NM pay a median of $1,246 a year in real estate taxes, 28% below the New Mexico median of $1,731 and 60% below the U.S. median of $3,119. Against a median home value of $233,200, the median tax bill is 0.53% of that value (the ratio of the two county medians). For a worker paid the local Home Health and Personal Care Aides median of $27,420, a tax bill of that size would equal 4.5% of gross pay, which matters for anyone planning to buy rather than rent.
Rents, home prices and household income in Lincoln County, NM
Renters in Lincoln County, NM pay a median gross rent of $956 a month in the Census survey, 10% below the New Mexico median of $1,067. HUD's Fair Market Rent for a one-bedroom apartment, which this site uses in the budget, is $839 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 $233,200, 6% below the New Mexico median of $248,100. Median household income is $53,303, 17% below the New Mexico median of $64,059, so a year of one-bedroom Fair Market Rent equals 18.9% of that income.
Commuting in Lincoln County, NM
Workers in Lincoln County, NM who travel to a workplace spend an average of 20.0 minutes each way, 15% below the New Mexico average of 23.5. 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. 11.1% of workers in Lincoln County, NM work from home, compared with 15.1% nationally, which removes the commute for them.
Can Home Health and Personal Care Aides afford to live in Lincoln County, NM?
The 30% rent guideline
A common rule of thumb says rent should stay under 30% of gross income. For a gross salary of $27,420 that ceiling is $686 a month. The one-bedroom Fair Market Rent of $839 is $154 over it, so rent breaks the guideline. Put as a wage, covering a one-bedroom at the 30% guideline takes $16.13 an hour; the median for Home Health and Personal Care Aides is $13.18, which is 18% below that mark. Another way to see it: at $11.47 of take-home pay an hour, a one-bedroom takes about 16.9 working hours every week.
Splitting a two-bedroom
Sharing a two-bedroom at $1,063 a month means $532 each. Compared with renting a one-bedroom alone, that saves $3,690 a year. With a roommate, the yearly margin after the basics becomes $10,781.
How fast you can save
At $591 a month of margin, building a $10,000 emergency fund would take about 17 months. Setting aside half of the margin stretches the same goal to about 34 months. These figures ignore interest, raises and any spending beyond the four basics.
Frequently asked questions about Home Health and Personal Care Aides pay in Lincoln County, NM
What is the hourly wage for Home Health and Personal Care Aides in Lincoln County, NM?
The median is $13.18 per hour, based on $27,420 a year over 2,080 hours. Hourly pay runs from about $12.54 at the 10th percentile to $16.13 at the 90th percentile.
What is the take-home pay for Home Health and Personal Care Aides in Lincoln County, NM?
After federal income tax, FICA and state income tax, the median salary of $27,420 becomes $23,851 a year. That is $1,988 a month, $917 every two weeks or $459 a week.
What percentage of pay goes to taxes for Home Health and Personal Care Aides in Lincoln County, NM?
Total taxes are $3,569 a year, an effective rate of 13.0%: $1,167 federal income tax, $2,098 FICA and $304 New Mexico income tax.
Is pay for Home Health and Personal Care Aides in Lincoln County, NM above the New Mexico average?
No. The local median of $27,420 is -5.0% versus the New Mexico average of $28,862, a difference of $1,442 a year.
Is a one-bedroom rent affordable on the median Home Health and Personal Care Aides salary in Lincoln County, NM?
A one-bedroom costs $839 a month against take-home pay of $1,988, which is 42.2% of take-home pay. That does not meet the 30%-of-gross guideline, which allows up to $686 a month.
How much is left after rent, food and energy for Home Health and Personal Care Aides in Lincoln County, NM?
About $591 a month ($7,091 a year) remains after a one-bedroom apartment, food, home energy and gasoline, which together cost $16,760 a year.
What hourly wage covers a one-bedroom in Lincoln County, NM at the 30% guideline?
$16.13 an hour for a full-time schedule, calculated as the $10,068 annual rent divided by 0.30 and by 2,080 hours. The median for Home Health and Personal Care Aides is $13.18.
How we calculated these numbers
Wages are May 2025 medians from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey for the Eastern New Mexico nonmetropolitan 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 New Mexico 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.