Nursing Assistant (CNA) Salary in Georgia: Pay by Experience, City & Take-Home

A nursing assistant (CNA) in Georgia earns a median salary of $37,680 a year, or about $18.12 an hour, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2025). Most CNAs in the state land between $30,300 at the low end (10th percentile) and $47,310 at the high end (90th percentile). That median runs $4,580 below the national CNA figure, and your actual paycheck depends heavily on the metro you work in and the setting that hires you.

How Georgia CNA pay compares to the national median

Georgia sits below the national line for this role. The BLS pegs the national median for nursing assistants at $42,260 a year, while Georgia’s median is $37,680. That’s a gap of $4,580, or roughly 10.8 percent under the U.S. figure. In hourly terms, the Georgia median of $18.12 trails a national median near $20.32.

The mean (average) annual wage in Georgia is $38,760, a bit above the median of $37,680. When the average sits above the midpoint like that, it tells you a smaller group of higher earners, often CNAs in hospital or specialty settings, pulls the average up while most workers cluster a little lower.

The takeaway is plain. Georgia pays CNAs less than the country as a whole, but the state’s lower cost of living offsets part of that gap. The section on take-home and housing below puts a real number on what’s left after taxes and rent.

It’s worth putting the gap in context. The $4,580 difference between Georgia’s $37,680 median and the national $42,260 figure is about $382 a month in gross pay. Much of that is explained by which states sit at the top of the CNA pay scale. High-wage, high-cost states like California and New York pull the national median up, and a CNA in those states faces rent and everyday costs that a Georgia CNA does not. Comparing the raw salary alone overstates the difference. Once you account for what each dollar buys in Atlanta versus, say, Los Angeles or New York City, the Georgia number holds up better than the headline suggests. The state’s 43,440 CNA jobs also mean this isn’t a thin market. There’s volume here, which keeps wages competitive between employers and gives an experienced CNA room to move toward the upper percentiles.

Georgia CNA salary by experience level

Experience, shift differentials, and the setting you work in move CNA pay more than anything else. The BLS percentile data gives a clean map of where you’ll likely sit as you build years on the floor. A new CNA fresh off certification typically starts near the 10th percentile, while someone with years of acute-care experience, charge-CNA duties, or a specialty unit pushes toward the 90th.

The spread from entry to senior is $17,010 a year, which is a wide gap for a single certification. Most of that climb comes from three things in Georgia: moving from a nursing home or assisted-living job into a hospital, picking up night and weekend differentials, and stacking certifications that let you do more at the bedside. A CNA who jumps from the 25th percentile to the 75th adds $7,490 a year, and that move is usually possible within two to three years if you target the right employer.

Look closely at where the percentiles bunch. The jump from entry ($30,300) to the 25th percentile ($35,490) is $5,190, the steepest single step on the ladder. That reflects how quickly a new CNA stops being the lowest-paid hire once they have a year on the floor and a clean record. After that, the climb from the 25th to the median is smaller, only $2,190, because the middle of the distribution is crowded. The reward picks up again at the top. Moving from the median of $37,680 to the senior 90th-percentile figure of $47,310 is worth $9,630 a year, and that’s where the hospital placements, charge-CNA roles, and certification stacks pay off. In hourly terms the band runs from $14.57 at entry to $22.75 at the 90th percentile, a difference of $8.18 an hour for the same core role. If you work a typical 2,080-hour year, every extra dollar of hourly differential is worth about $2,080 in annual gross, which is why chasing night and weekend premiums adds up faster than waiting on a standard merit raise.

Georgia CNA salary by metro area

Where you work inside Georgia matters as much as your years of experience. The Atlanta metro pays the most and employs more than half the state’s CNAs, while smaller metros like Columbus sit several thousand dollars lower. Here are the five largest Georgia metro areas by CNA employment, with median pay from the BLS (2025).

Atlanta leads at $39,350, which is $1,670 above the statewide median and $4,380 above Columbus, the lowest of the five. Savannah comes in second at $38,450, helped by its hospital systems and a steady stream of coastal demand. The pattern is the usual one. Big metros with major hospital networks pay more, and they also concentrate the higher-paying acute-care jobs. Atlanta alone accounts for 23,260 of the state’s 43,440 CNA jobs, so most of the opportunity, and most of the better-paying work, sits in and around the city.

If you can commute or relocate within the state, the metro choice is the single fastest move on your base pay. A shift from Columbus to metro Atlanta is worth roughly $4,380 a year at the median before you change anything else about your resume.

The employment counts tell their own story. Atlanta’s 23,260 CNA jobs are more than nine times the next-largest metro, Augusta, at 2,560. Savannah follows with 1,710, Macon with 1,450, and Columbus with 1,130. Add those five metros together and you get roughly 30,110 jobs, which leaves a sizable share of the state’s 43,440 CNAs working outside the major metro statistical areas, in rural counties, small towns, and the long-term-care facilities that serve them. Pay in those areas usually tracks below the metro medians, which is part of why the statewide median of $37,680 sits under Atlanta’s $39,350. The practical read is simple. If you live in or near a smaller metro and your pay feels low, the data backs you up, and the clearest fix is geography. Even a move from Macon’s $36,540 median to Atlanta’s $39,350 is a $2,810 annual difference for the same job title.

Georgia CNA take-home pay after taxes

Gross salary isn’t what hits your bank account. Georgia levies a state income tax, plus you owe federal income tax and FICA (Social Security and Medicare). The table below breaks down take-home for a single filer at each career stage, using 2026 tax rules. FICA is a flat 7.65 percent of wages; federal and state are estimates for a single filer with the standard deduction.

At the median salary of $37,680, a single Georgia CNA keeps about $30,930 a year, or $2,578 a month, after federal tax, FICA, and Georgia state income tax. The effective tax rate at the median works out to about 17.9 percent. It climbs gently with income, reaching roughly 19.4 percent at the senior 90th-percentile figure.

Here’s the cross-state comparison that matters most. Take that same median CNA earning $37,680 and run the paycheck in Texas, a state with no income tax. The Texas net comes to $32,314 a year, versus $30,930 in Georgia. That’s a gap of $1,384 a year, money the Texas CNA keeps and the Georgia CNA pays to the state. Over a decade that difference adds up to roughly $13,840 in state income tax, all else equal. It’s not a huge number on a CNA salary, but it’s real, and it’s the kind of thing a no-tax state advertises and Georgia doesn’t.

Notice how the effective rate creeps up the ladder. An entry CNA at $30,300 pays about 16.2 percent in combined federal, FICA, and state tax. By the senior 90th-percentile figure of $47,310, that’s risen to 19.4 percent. The difference comes almost entirely from federal income tax, which is progressive, while FICA stays flat at 7.65 percent and Georgia’s state share rises only gently. In dollar terms, the entry CNA hands over about $4,902 in total tax and keeps $25,398, while the senior CNA pays roughly $9,161 and keeps $38,149. So a senior earns $17,010 more in gross than the entry worker, and keeps $12,751 of it after tax. That’s the real spread between the bottom and top of the Georgia CNA band once the government takes its share.

The number that actually decides your standard of living is net pay minus local housing. A Georgia CNA keeping $2,578 a month at the median still has to cover rent, and metro Atlanta rent runs higher than rent in Macon or Columbus. That’s the trade. Texas may keep $1,384 more on paper, but if you’d be paying more for housing there, the Georgia paycheck can come out ahead in practice. Run your own numbers through the Georgia paycheck calculator with your actual filing status and pre-tax deductions before you make a call.

If you want the tax side handled cleanly at filing time, software like TurboTax walks a single W-2 CNA return start to finish and catches credits hourly workers often miss.

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How to earn more as a CNA in Georgia

The fastest raises in this field come from changing where and how you work, not from waiting on annual bumps. Here are the moves that actually move the number in Georgia:

• Get into a hospital. Acute-care and hospital CNA jobs pay above nursing-home and assisted-living roles, and they cluster in metro Atlanta and Savannah. Moving from the 25th percentile ($35,490) to the 75th ($42,980) is a $7,490 raise, and a hospital move is the most common path to it.
• Work nights, weekends, and holidays. Shift differentials are added on top of base pay and can lift effective hourly pay by a meaningful margin without any new certification.
• Relocate or commute toward Atlanta. The metro median of $39,350 beats Columbus by $4,380 a year. If you’re near a metro line, that’s a raise you can capture with a longer commute.
• Stack certifications. Add credentials like CNA II, phlebotomy, EKG/monitor tech, or a medication aide certification where Georgia allows it. Each one widens the set of higher-paying units that will hire you. Short online courses through Coursera can cover the classroom hours for several of these patient-care and phlebotomy add-ons.
• Use the CNA job as a bridge to LPN or RN. The biggest jump isn’t within the CNA pay band at all. A CNA who works while finishing an LPN or RN program in Georgia steps onto a much higher pay scale, and many employers offer tuition assistance to CNAs already on staff.
• Negotiate at hire and at review. Bring the BLS percentile numbers. If you have experience and certifications, anchor to the 75th percentile ($42,980), not the median.

Put a dollar figure on each move so you can prioritize. Closing the gap from the median ($37,680) to the experienced 75th percentile ($42,980) is worth $5,300 a year in gross, which after Georgia taxes lands as roughly $3,973 more in your pocket based on the take-home math above. Pushing all the way to the senior 90th percentile of $47,310 adds $9,630 over the median in gross. None of that requires leaving the CNA role. It requires changing setting, shift, and credentials. The single biggest jump, again, is the one off the bottom rung: a new CNA who moves from entry-level ($30,300) to the 25th percentile ($35,490) within the first year gains $5,190 a year, the steepest step on the whole ladder, just by clearing probation and building a clean record.

Job outlook for CNAs in Georgia

Demand is the strong card in this field. Georgia employs 43,440 nursing assistants today, and the underlying drivers, an aging population and a steady need for long-term and post-acute care, point to continued hiring across hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, and home-based care. CNAs are one of the most consistently in-demand healthcare roles in the state, which gives workers real bargaining room to shop between employers for better pay and shift differentials.

That demand is concentrated where the jobs already are. Metro Atlanta holds more than half the state’s CNA positions, so the deepest pool of openings, and the most room to negotiate, sits there. When you’re ready to compare live postings and pay across Georgia employers, a board like ZipRecruiter lets you filter by metro, setting, and shift in one place.

Related and higher-paying healthcare roles in Georgia

If you’re weighing your next step, it helps to see where a CNA salary sits next to neighboring roles in the same state. Using BLS Georgia medians, a Clinical Laboratory Technologist earns a median of $62,180, which is $24,500 MORE than a nursing assistant in Georgia. A Home Health and Personal Care Aide earns a median of $29,270, which is $8,410 LESS than a nursing assistant in Georgia. The lab technologist path needs more schooling, but the gap shows why so many CNAs use the role as a stepping stone rather than a destination.

The two comparisons frame the decision well. Below the CNA role sits the home health and personal care aide job at $29,270, which pays $8,410 less than a Georgia CNA’s median. That tells you the CNA certification already buys a meaningful pay bump over uncertified aide work, so finishing your CNA training is the first concrete raise on this list. Above the role sits the clinical laboratory technologist at $62,180, a $24,500 jump that comes with an associate or bachelor’s degree and a different credential. The math is stark: more than 18 months of full-time CNA pay separates the two medians. For a CNA who wants the bigger number, the realistic ladder usually runs through LPN and RN programs first, with many Georgia employers covering part of the tuition for staff who are already on payroll. The home health figure and the lab figure together bracket where a CNA sits in Georgia’s healthcare pay structure, with clear room to climb.

Frequently asked questions

Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) 2025; tax estimates based on 2026 federal and Georgia rules. Last updated 2026. See our methodology.